The keeper allowed the sheriff to bathe his eyes and all the while the latter kept telling him that he was legally wrong.
“The old thief! she has tired us out,” said Vatel at last. “She has been at work in the woods all night.”
As the whole family had taken an active hand in hiding the live wood and putting things straight in the cottage, Tonsard presently appeared at the door with an insolent air. “Vatel, my man, if you ever again dare to force your way into my domain, my gun shall answer you,” he said. “To-day you have had the ashes; the next time you shall have the fire. You don’t know your own business. That’s enough. Now if you feel hot after this affair take some wine, I offer it to you; and you may come in and see that my old mother’s bundle of fagots hadn’t a scrap of live wood in it; it is every bit brushwood.”
“Scoundrel!” said the keeper to the sheriff, in a low voice, more enraged by this speech than by the smart of his eyes.
Just then Charles, the groom, appeared at the gate of the Grand-I-Vert.
“What is the matter, Vatel?” he said.
“Ah!” said the keeper, wiping his eyes, which he had plunged wide open into the rivulet to give them a final cleansing. “I have some debtors in there that I’ll cause to rue the day they saw the light.”
“If you take it that way, Monsieur Vatel,” said Tonsard, coldly, “you will find we don’t want for courage in Burgundy.”
Vatel departed. Not feeling much curiosity to know what the trouble was, Charles went up the steps and looked into the house.
“Come to the chateau, you and your otter,—if you really have one,” he said to Pere Fourchon.