Maitre Hauchecorne picks up the string as he believes it might come in useful one day. He is clearly a thrifty old peasant who is of a generation that doesn't like to throw anything away. At the same time, he's rather embarrassed to be seen bending down to pick up such a seemingly worthless object. In particular, he doesn't want to be seen by his personal enemy, Monsieur Malandain, the harness-maker. The two men clearly have a history of mutual antagonism. And Maitre Hauchecorne has a reputation of being an untrustworthy old scoundrel. If we put these two factors together we can see why the old peasant is so keen to hide his actions in bending down to pick up the piece of string. As the story unfolds, we learn that Maitre Hauchecorne was right to be so furtive; his enemy, M. Malandain, will falsely accuse him of having picked up not a worthless piece of string but a missing wallet filled with legal papers and cash.
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