“Spanish wine, and that trebles it!” cried Fourchon, laughing like a satyr.  “My sons, don’t butt your head straight at the thing,—­you’re too weak; go at it sideways.  Lay low, play dead; the little woman is scared.  I tell you, the thing’ll come to an end before long; she’ll leave the place, and if she does the Shopman will follow her, for she’s his passion.  That’s your plan.  Only, to make ’em go faster, my advice is to get rid of their counsellor, their support, our spy, our ape—­”

“Who’s that?”

“The damned abbe, of course,” said Tonsard; “that hunter after sins, who thinks the host is food enough for us.”

“That’s true,” cried Vaudoyer; “we were happy enough till he came.  We ought to get rid of that eater of the good God,—­he’s the real enemy.”

“Finikin,” added Fourchon, using a nickname which the abbe owed to his prim and rather puny appearance, “might be led into temptation and fall into the power of some sly girl, for he fasts so much.  Then if we could catch him in the act and drum him up with a good charivari, the bishop would be obliged to send him elsewhere.  It would please old Rigou devilish well.  Now if your daughter, Courtecuisse, would leave Auxerre—­she’s a pretty girl, and if she’d take to piety, she might save us all.  Hey! ran tan plan!—­”

“Why don’t you do it?” said Godain to Catherine, in a low voice; “there’d be scuttles full of money to hush up the talk; and for the time being you’d be mistress here—­”

“Shall we glean, or shall we not glean? that’s the point,” said Bonnebault.  “I don’t care two straws for your abbe, not I; I belong to Conches, where we haven’t a black-coat to poke up our consciences.”

“Look here,” said Vaudoyer, “we had better go and ask Rigou, who knows the law, whether the Shopman can forbid gleaning, and he’ll tell us if we’ve got the right of it.  If the Shopman has the law on his side, well, then we must do as the old one says,—­see about taking things sideways.”

“Blood will be spilt,” said Nicolas, darkly, as he rose after drinking a whole bottle of wine, which Catherine drew for him in order to keep him silent.  “If you’d only listen to me you’d down Michaud; but you are miserable weaklings,—­nothing but poor trash!”

“I’m not,” said Bonnebault.  “If you are all safe friends who’ll keep your tongues between your teeth, I’ll aim at the Shopman—­ Hey! how I’d like to put a plum through his bottle; wouldn’t it avenge me on those cursed officers?”

“Tut! tut!” cried Jean-Louis Tonsard, who was supposed to be, more or less, Gaubertin’s son, and who had just entered the tavern.  This fellow, who was courting Rigou’s pretty servant-girl, had succeeded his nominal father as clipper of hedges and shrubberies and other Tonsardial occupations.  Going about among the well-to-do houses, he talked with masters and servants and picked up ideas which made him the man of the world of the family, the shrewd head.  We shall presently see that in making love to Rigou’s servant-girl, Jean-Louis deserved his reputation for shrewdness.