The worst was that Lepailleur so stubbornly lived on, experiencing
continual defeats, but never willing to acknowledge that he was beaten.
One sole delight remained to him, the promise given and kept by Gregoire
that he would not sell the moorland enclosure to the farm. The old man
had even prevailed on him to leave it uncultivated, and the sight of that
sterile tract intersecting the wavy greenery of the beautiful estate of
Chantebled, like a spot of desolation, well pleased his spiteful nature.
He was often to be seen strolling there, like an old king of the stones
and the brambles, drawing up his tall, scraggy figure as if he were quite
proud of the poverty of that soil. In going thither one of his objects
doubtless was to find a pretext for a quarrel; for it was he who in the
course of one of these promenades, when he displayed such provoking
insolence, discovered an encroachment on the part of the farm--an
encroachment which his comments magnified to such a degree that
disastrous consequences seemed probable. As it was, all the happiness of
the Froments was for a time destroyed.
In business matters Gregoire invariably showed the rough impulsiveness of
a man of sanguine temperament, obstinately determined to part with no
fraction of his rights.
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