François saw all this intrigue, and meditated some possible means of buying back the land at a low price, without ruining anybody, and of playing a tine trick upon Sévère and her clan, by causing the failure of their speculation.
It was no easy matter. He had enough money to buy back almost everything at the price of the original sale, and neither Sévère nor anybody else could refuse to be reimbursed. The buyers would find it to their profit to sell again in all haste, in order to escape approaching ruin; for I tell you all, young and old, if you buy land on credit, you take out a patent for beggary in your old age. It is useless for me to tell you this, for you will have the buying mania no whit the less. Nobody can see a plowed furrow smoking in the sun, without being in a fever to possess it, and it was the peasant's mad fever to hold on to his own piece of soil that caused Francois's uneasiness.
Do you know what the soil is, my children? Once upon a time, everybody in our parishes was talking about it. They said that the old nobles had attached us to the soil to make us drudge and die, but the Revolution had burst our bonds, and that we no longer drew our master's cart like oxen. The truth is that we have bound ourselves to our own acres, and we drudge and die no less than before.
The city people tell us that our only remedy would be to have no wants or desires. Only last Sunday, I answered a man who was preaching this doctrine very eloquently, that if we poor peasants could only be sensible enough never to eat or sleep, to work all the time, and to drink nothing but fresh clear water, provided the frogs had no objection, we might succeed in saving a goodly hoard, and in receiving a shower of compliments for our wisdom and discretion.
Following this same train of thought, François cudgeled his brains to find some means of inducing the purchasers of the land to sell it back again. He finally hit upon the plan of whispering in their ears the little falsehood, that though Sévère had the reputation of being fabulously rich, she had really as many debts as a sieve has holes, and that some fine morning her creditors would lay hands upon all her claims, as well as upon all her property. He meant to tell them this confidentially, and when they were thoroughly alarmed, he expected to buy back Madeleine Blanchet's lands at the original price, with his own money.
He scrupled, however, to tell this untruth, until it occurred to him that he could give a small bonus to all the poor purchasers, to make them amends for the interest they had already paid. In this manner Madeleine could be restored to her rights and possessions without loss or injury to the purchasers.
The discredit in which Sévère would be involved by his plan caused him no scruple whatever. It is right for the hen to pull out a feather from the cruel bird that has plucked her chickens.
When François had reached this conclusion, Jeannie awoke, and arose softly, to avoid disturbing his mother's slumbers; then, after a good-morning to François, he lost no time in going off to announce to the rest of their customers that the mill was in good order, and that a strong young miller stood in readiness to grind the corn.
