She winced, for she had already quarrelled with the abbess without advantage. And there for the moment the matter ended. At a later period I took care to confess all to the King, and he did not fail to laugh heartily at the clever manner in which I had outwitted Pimentel. But this was not until the Portuguese had left the country and gone to Italy, the affair between him and Mademoiselle D'Oyley (which resolved itself into a contest between the Queen and the Ursulines) having come to a close under circumstances which it may be my duty to relate in another place. X. FARMING THE TAXES. 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?"