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Updated: May 15, 2025
Old mother Tonsard, who was getting more and more infirm, succeeded Mouche in his duties, after Fourchon, under pretence of caring for his natural grandson's education, kept him to himself; while Marie and Catherine made hay in the woods.
"Wherever one goes," said old Mother Tonsard, who was seventy-eight years old, and presented a parchment face honey-combed with the small-pox, lighted by a pair of green eyes, and framed with dirty-white hair, which escaped in strands from a red handkerchief, "wherever one goes, there they are! they stop us, they open our bundles, and if there's a single branch, a single twig of a miserable hazel, they seize the whole bundle, and they say they'll arrest us.
"You've tried your hand at cajoling them, have you?" said Courtecuisse. "You may bet on that." "Well," said Tonsard with a determined air, "they are men like other men, and they can be got rid of."
Three days later, in the forest of Ville-aux-Fayes at daybreak, the gendarmes arrested old Mother Tonsard caught "in flagrante delicto" by the bailiff, his assistants, and the field-keeper, with a rusty file which served to tear the tree, and a chisel, used by the delinquent to scoop round the bark just as the insect bores its way.
In the months when the three Tonsards were unable to hunt with a gun, they set traps. If the traps caught more game than they could eat, La Tonsard made pies of it and sent them to Ville-aux-Fayes.
Here it is the eighth of August." "I took them yesterday to Monsieur Bournier at Ville-aux-Fayes, to be printed," replied Vermichel; "they do talk of fireworks on the lake." "What crowds of people we shall have!" cried Fourchon. "Profits for Socquard!" said Tonsard, spitefully. "If it doesn't rain," said his wife, by way of comfort.
She inherited from her father so violent a nature that the whole family, except Tonsard, and all who frequented the tavern feared her. "Well, how are you now?" she said to La Pechina as the latter recovered consciousness. Catherine had placed her victim on a little mound beside the brook and was bringing her to her senses with dashes of cold water.
The son of that infamous innkeeper of the Grand-I-Vert, Nicolas, the worst fellow in the whole district, wants her; he hunts her like game. Though I can't believe that Monsieur Rigou, who changes his servant-girls every year or two is persecuting such a little fright, it is quite certain that Nicolas Tonsard is. Justin told me so.
The cattle and grain market was held at Blangy, in the public square, and the prices there obtained served as a tariff for the whole arrondissement. By staying in the house and doing no out-door work, La Tonsard continued fresh and fair and dimpled, in comparison with the women who worked in the fields and faded as rapidly as the flowers, becoming old and haggard before they were thirty.
No science, not even that of statistics, can explain the rapidity with which news flies in the country, nor how it spreads over those ignorant and untaught regions which are, in France, a standing reproach to the government and to capitalists. So, not an hour after the encounter between old mother Tonsard and Vatel, a number of the customers of the Grand-I-Vert assembled there to hear the tale.
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