THE LITTLE CASK
Maître Chicot, the innkeeper, who lived at Épreville, pulled up his tilbury in front of Mother Magloire's farmhouse. He was a tall man of about forty, fat and with a red face, who was generally said to be very malicious.
He hitched his horse up to the gatepost and went in the yard. He owned some land adjoining that of the old woman. He had been coveting her plot for a long while, and had tried in vain to buy it a score of times, but she had always obstinately refused to part with it.
"I was born here, and here I mean to die," was all she said.
He found her peeling potatoes outside the farmhouse door. She was a woman of about seventy-two, very thin, shrivelled and wrinkled, almost dried-up, in fact, and much bent, but as active and untiring as a girl. Chicot patted her on the back in a very friendly fashion, and then sat down by her on a stool.
"Well, Mother, you are always pretty well and hearty, I am glad to see."
"Nothing to complain of, considering, thank you. And how are you, Maître Prosper?"
"Oh! pretty well, thank you, except a few rheumatic pains occasionally; otherwise, I should have nothing to complain of."
"Well, I am glad of that!"