United States or Zambia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Bah!" said Tonsard, "we are too flat. That which can't be crushed isn't the trees, it's ground." "Don't you trust to that," said Fourchon to his son-in-law; "you own property." "Those rich folks must love you," continued Vermichel, "for they think of nothing else from morning till night!
"I'll bet your otter is made of tow," said Tonsard, looking slyly at his father-in-law. I can squeeze that rich young fellow at Les Aigues; may be he'll take to otters." "Go and get another bottle," said Tonsard to his daughter. "If your father really had an otter, he would show it to us," he added, speaking to his wife and trying to touch up Fourchon.
He's worse than the rest, heartless to poor folks, like Michaud himself." "Michaud has got a pretty wife, though," said Nicolas Tonsard. "She's with young," said the old woman; "and if this thing goes on there'll be a queer kind of baptism for the little one when she calves." "Oh! those Arminacs!" cried Marie Tonsard; "there's no laughing with them; and if you did, they'd threaten to arrest you."
To be struck before a rival by the man she loves is one of those humiliations that no woman can endure, no matter what her place on the social ladder may be; and the lower that place is, the more violent is the expression of her wrath. The Tonsard girl took no notice of Rigou or of Socquard; she flung herself on a bench, in gloomy and sullen silence, which the ex-monk carefully watched.
This sore, for certain reasons which will be given in due time, did far greater injury to Les Aigues than to the estates of Ronquerolles or Soulanges. You must not, however, fancy that Tonsard, his wife and children, and his old mother ever deliberately said to themselves, "We will live by theft, and commit it as cleverly as we can." Such habits grow slowly.
"Why, they can prevent any but paupers from gleaning here," said the miller, winking in true Norman fashion; "but that doesn't prevent you from gleaning elsewhere, unless all the mayors do as the Blangy mayor is doing." "Then it is true," said Tonsard, in a threatening voice.
"Ah! business is bad in Blangy, and there'll be notes to protest, and writs to issue," remarked Pere Fourchon, filling a glass for his friend. "That APE of ours is right behind me," replied Vermichel, with a backward gesture. In workmen's slang "ape" meant master. The word belonged to the dictionary of the worthy pair. "What's Monsieur Brunet coming bothering about here?" asked Tonsard.
Tonsard, a sovereign judge in such matters, gave his advice and opinion while drinking with his guests. Soulanges, according to a saying in these parts, was a town for society and amusement only, while Blangy was a business borough; crushed, however, by the great commercial centre of Ville-aux-Fayes, which had become in the last twenty-five years the capital of this flourishing valley.
Socquard stepped noiselessly, for he was wearing a pair of those yellow leather-slippers which cost so little by the gross that they have an enormous sale in the provinces. "If you have any fresh lemons, I'd like a glass of lemonade," said Rigou; "it is a warm evening." "Who is making that racket?" said Socquard, looking through the window and seeing his daughter and Marie Tonsard.
"I say, Marie! he's going a queer way to get to Conches, that friend of yours," cried old Mother Tonsard to her granddaughter. "He's after Aglae!" said Marie, who made one bound to the door. "I'll have to thrash her once for all, that baggage!" she cried, viciously.
Word Of The Day