“But I tell you,” said Marie, continuing her topic, “they won’t be cajoled; I don’t know what’s the matter with them; that bully at the pavilion, he’s married, but Vatel, Gaillard, and Steingel are not; they’ve not a woman belonging to them; indeed, there’s not a woman in the place who would marry them.”
“Well, we shall see how things go at the harvest and the vintage,” said Tonsard.
“They can’t stop the gleaning,” said the old woman.
“I don’t know that,” remarked Madame Tonsard. “Groison said that the mayor was going to publish a notice that no one should glean without a certificate of pauperism; and who’s to give that certificate? Himself, of course. He won’t give many, I tell you! And they say he is going to issue an order that no one shall enter the fields till the carts are all loaded.”
“Why, the fellow’s a pestilence!” cried Tonsard, beside himself with rage.
“I heard that only yesterday,” said Madame Tonsard. “I offered Groison a glass of brandy to get something out of him.”
“Groison! there’s another lucky fellow!” said Vaudoyer, “they’ve built him a house and given him a good wife, and he’s got an income and clothes fit for a king. There was I, field-keeper for twenty years, and all I got was the rheumatism.”
“Yes, he’s very lucky,” said Godain, “he owns property—”
“And we go without, like the fools that we are,” said Vaudoyer. “Come, let’s be off and find out what’s going on at Conches; they are not so patient over there as we are.”
“Come on,” said Laroche, who was none too steady on his legs. “If I don’t exterminate one of two of those fellows may I lose my name.”