along a pretty wall which extends as far as a terrace from which
the land of Les Aigues falls rapidly to the valley till it meets that
of Soulanges, are the rotten posts, the old wheel, and the forked stakes
which constituted the manufactory of the village rope-maker.

Soon after midday, while Blondet was seating himself at table opposite
the Abbe Brossette and receiving the tender expostulations of the
countess, Pere Fourchon and Mouche arrived at this establishment. From
that vantage-ground Pere Fourchon, under pretence of rope-making, could
watch Les Aigues and see every one who went in and out. Nothing escaped
him, the opening of the blinds, tete-a-tete loiterings, or the least
little incidents of country life, were spied upon by the old fellow,
who had set up this business within the last three years,--a trifling
circumstance which neither the masters, nor the servants, nor the
keepers of Les Aigues had as yet remarked upon.

"Go round to the house by the gate of the Avonne while I put away the
tackle," said Pere Fourchon to his attendant, "and when you have blabbed
about the thing, they'll no doubt send after me to the Grand-I-Vert,
where I am going for a drop of drink,--for it makes one thirsty enough
to wade in the water that way. If you do just as I tell you, you'll hook
a good breakfast out of them; try to meet the countess, and give a slap
at me, and that will put it into her head to come and preach morality or
something! There's lots of good wine to get out of it."

After these last instructions, which the sly look in Mouche's face
rendered quite superfluous, the old peasant, hugging the otter under his
arm, disappeared along the country road.

Half-way between the gate and the village there stood, at the time when
Emile Blondet stayed at Les Aigues, one of those houses which are never
seen but in parts of France where stone is scarce. Bits of bricks picked
up anywhere, cobblestones set like diamonds in the clay mud, formed
very solid walls, though worn in places; the roof was supported by stout
branches and covered with rushes and straw, while the clumsy shutters
and the broken door--in short, everything about the cottage was the
product of lucky finds, or of gifts obtained by begging.

The peasant has an instinct for his habitation like that of an animal
for its nest or its burrow, and this instinct was very marked in all
the arrangements of this cottage. In the first place, the door and the
window lo