"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, I
was 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.
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