第55章

In the summer of the year 1608, determining to take up my abode, when not in Paris, at Villebon, where I had lately enlarged my property, I went thither from Rouen with my wife, to superintend the building and mark out certain plantations which I projected.

As the heat that month was great, and the dust of the train annoying, I made each stage in the evening and on horseback, leaving my wife to proceed at her leisure. In this way I was able, by taking rough paths, to do in two or three hours a distance which her coaches had scarcely covered in the day; but on the third evening, intending to make a short cut by a ford on the Vaucouleurs, I found, to my chagrin, the advantage on the other side, the ford, when I reached it at sunset, proving impracticable. As there was every prospect, however, that the water would fall within a few hours, I determined not to retrace my steps; but to wait where I was until morning, and complete my journey to Houdan in the early hours.

There was a poor inn near the ford, a mere hovel of wood on a brick foundation, yet with two storeys. I made my way to this with Maignan and La Trape, who formed, with two grooms, my only attendance; but on coming near the house, and looking about with a curious eye, I remarked something which fixed my attention, and, for the moment, brought me to a halt. This was the spectacle of three horses, of fair quality, feeding in a field of growing corn, which was the only enclosure near the inn. They were trampling and spoiling more than they ate; and, supposing that they had strayed into the place, and the house showing no signs of life, I bade my grooms fetch them out. The sun was about setting, and I stood a moment watching the long shadows of the men as they plodded through the corn, and the attitudes of the horses as, with heads raised, they looked doubtfully at the newcomers.

Suddenly a man came round the corner of the house, and seeing us, and what my men were doing, began to gesticulate violently, but without sound. The grooms saw him too, and stood; and he ran up to my stirrup, his face flushed and sullen.

"Do you want to see us all ruined?" he muttered. And he begged me to call my men out of the corn.

"You are more likely to be ruined that way," I answered, looking down at him. "Why, man, is it the custom in your country to turn horses into the half-ripe corn?"He shook his fist stealthily. "God forbid!" he said. "But the devil is within doors, and we must do his bidding.""Ah!" I replied, my curiosity aroused "I should like to see him."The boor shaded his eyes, and looked at me sulkily from under his matted and tangled hair. "You are not of his company?" he said with suspicion.

"I hope not," I answered, smiling at his simplicity. "But your corn is your own. I will call the men out." On which I made a sign to them to return. "Now," I said, as I walked my horse slowly towards the house, while he tramped along beside me, "who is within?""M. Gringuet," he said, with another stealthy gesture.

"Ah!" I said, "I am afraid that I am no wiser.""The tax-gatherer."

"Oh! And those are his horses?" He nodded.

"Still, I do not see why they are in the corn?""I have no hay."

"But there is grass."

"Ay," the inn-keeper answered bitterly.

"And he said that I might eat it. It was not good enough for his horses. They must have hay or corn; and if I had none, so much the worse for me."Full of indignation, I made in my mind a note of M. Gringuet's name; but at the moment I said no more, and we proceeded to the house, the exterior of which, though meagre, and even miserable, gave me an impression of neatness. From the inside, however, a hoarse, continuous noise was issuing, which resolved itself as we crossed the threshold into a man's voice. The speaker was out of sight, in an upper room to which a ladder gave access, but his oaths, complaints, and imprecations almost shook the house. Amiddle-aged woman, scantily dressed, was busy on the hearth; but perhaps that which, next to the perpetual scolding that was going on above, most took my attention was a great lump of salt that stood on the table at the woman's elbow, and seemed to be evidence of greater luxury--for the GABELLE had not at that time been reduced--than I could easily associate with the place.

The roaring and blustering continuing upstairs, I stood a moment in sheer astonishment. "Is that M. Gringuet?" I said at last.

The inn-keeper nodded sullenly, while his wife stared at me.

"But what; is the matter with him?" I said.

"The gout. But for that he would have been gone these two days to collect at Le Mesnil.""Ah!" I answered, beginning to understand. "And the salt is for a bath for his feet, is it?"The woman nodded.

"Well," I said, as Maignan came in with my saddlebags and laid them on the floor, "he will swear still louder when he gets the bill, I should think.""Bill?" the housewife answered bitterly, looking up again from her pots. "A tax-gatherer's bill? Go to the dead man and ask for the price of his coffin; or to the babe for a nurse-fee! You will get paid as soon. A tax-gatherer's bill? Be thankful if he does not take the dish with the sop!"She spoke plainly; yet I found a clearer proof of the slavery in which the man held them in the perfect indifference with which they regarded my arrival--though a guest with two servants must have been a rarity in such a place--and the listless way in which they set about attending to my wants. Keenly remembering that not long before this my enemies had striven to prejudice me in the King's eyes by alleging that, though I filled his coffers, Iwas grinding the poor into the dust--and even, by my exactions, provoking a rebellion I was in no mood to look with an indulgent eye on those who furnished such calumnies with a show of reason.