cord, and turn readily enough, to avoid the
entanglement of the pursuing horseman in his own
lasso. I have seen Buenos Ayres made, through
overtrading, a city of bankrupts, and the price of
oxen for the Saladeros rise to five times what
it was when I first came, while the price of
mares has increased tenfold.

THE CALDRON OF OIL.

ABOUT one French league distant from the city
of Toulouse, there is a village called Croix-
Daurade. In the military history of England,
this place is associated with a famous charge of
the eighteenth hussars, which united two
separate columns of the British army, on the day
before the Duke of Wellington fought the battle
of Toulouse. In the criminal history of France,
the village is memorable as the scene of a daring
crime, which was discovered and punished under
circumstances sufficiently remarkable to merit
preservation in the form of a plain narrative.

                                 I.

      THE PERSONS OF THE DRAMA.

IN the year seventeen hundred, the resident
priest of the village of Croix-Daurade was
Monsieur Pierre-Célestin Chaubard. He was a man
of no extraordinary energy or capacity, simple
in his habits, and sociable in his disposition.
His character was irreproachable; he was strictly
conscientious in the performance of his duties;
and he was universally respected and beloved
by all his parishioners.

Among the members of his flock, there was a
family named Siadoux. The head of the household,
Saturnin Siadoux, had been long established
in business at Croix-Daurade as an oil-
manufacturer, at the period of the events now to
be narrated. He had attained the age of sixty,
and was a widower. His family consisted of
five children—three young men, who helped
him in the business, and two daughters—and his
nearest living relative was his sister, the widow
Mirailhe.

The widow resided principally at Toulouse.
Her time in that city was mainly occupied in
winding up the business affairs of her deceased
husband, which had remained unsettled for a
considerable period after his death, through
delays in realising certain sums of money oving
to his representative. The widow had been left
very well provided for—she was still a comely
attractive woman—and more than one substantial
citizen of Toulouse had shown himself
anxious to persuade her into marrying for the
second time. But the widow Mirailhe lived
on terms of great intimacy and affection with
her brother Siadoux and his family; she was
sincerely attached to them, and sincerely
unwilling, at her age, to deprive her nephews and
nieces, by a second marriage, of the inheritance,
or even of a portion of the inheritance, which
would otherwise fall to them on her death.
Animated by these motives, she closed her
doors resolutely on all suitors who attempted to
pay their court to her, with the one exception
of a master-butcher of Toulouse, whose name
was Cantegrel.

This man was a neighbour of the widow's,
and had made himself useful by assisting her in
the business complications which still hung about
the realisation of her late husband's estate. The
preference which she showed for the master-
butcher was, thus far, of the purely negative
kind. She gave him no absolute encouragement;
she would not for a moment admit that
there was the slightest prospect of her ever
marrying him—but, at the same time, she
continued to receive his visits, and she showed no
disposition to restrict the neighbourly
intercourse between them, for the future, within
purely formal bounds. Under these circumstances,
Saturnin Siadoux began to be alarmed,
and to think it time to bestir himself. He had
no personal acquaintance with Cantegrel, who
never visited the village; and Monsieur Chaubard
(to whom he might otherwise have applied
for advice) was not in a position to give an
opinion: the priest and the master-butcher did
not even know each other by sight. In this
difficulty, Siadoux bethought himself of inquiring
privately at Toulouse, in the hope of discovering
some scandalous passages in Cantegrel's early
life, which might fatally degrade him in the
estimation of the widow Mirailhe. The investigations,
as usual in such cases, produced rumours
and reports in plenty, the greater part of which
dated back to a period of the butcher's life when
he had resided in the ancient town of Narbonne.
One of these rumours, especially, was of so
serious a nature, that Siadoux determined to
test the truth or falsehood of it, personally, by
travelling to Narbonne. He kept his intention
a secret not only from his sister and his
daughters, but also from his sons; they were
young men, not over-patient in their tempers—
and he doubted their discretion. Thus, nobody
knew his real purpose but himself, when he left
home.

His safe arrival at Narbonne was notified in a
letter to his family. The letter entered into
no particulars relating to his secret errand:
it merely informed his children of the day when
they might expect him back, and of certain
social arrangements which he wished to be made
to welcome him on his return. He proposed,
on his way home, to stay two days at Castelnaudry,
for the purpose of paying a visit to an
old friend who was settled there. According
to this plan, his return to Croix-Daurade would
be deferred until Tuesday, the twenty-sixth of
April, when his family might expect to see him
about sunset, in good time for supper. He
further desired that a little party of friends
might be invited to the meal, to celebrate the
twenty-sixth of April (which was a feast-day in
the village), as well as to celebrate his return.
The guests whom he wished to be invited
were, first, his sister; secondly, Monsieur
Chaubard, whose pleasant disposition made him
a welcome guest at all the village festivals;
thirdly and fourthly, two neighbours, business-