CHAPTER VI.
ON THE ROAD.
Pitou was spurred by the two most powerful emotions in the world, loveand fear. Panic bade him take care of himself as he would be arrestedand perhaps flogged; love in Catherine's voice had said: "Be off toParis."
These two stimulants led him to fly rather than run.
Heaven is infallible as well as mighty: how useful were the long legsof Pitou, so ungraceful at a ball, in streaking it over the country,as well as the knotty knees, although his heart, expanded by terror,beat three to a second. My Lord Charny, with his pretty feet and littleknees, and symmetrically placed calves, could not have dashed along atthis gait.
He had gone four leagues and a half in an hour, as much as is requiredof a good horse at the trot. He looked behind: nothing on the road; helooked forward; only a couple of women.
Encouraged, he threw himself on the turf by the roadside and reposed.The sweet smell of the lucerne and marjoram did not make him forgetMistress Billet's mild-cured bacon and the pound-and-a-half of breadwhich Catherine sliced off for him at every meal. All France lackedbread half as good as that, so dear that it originated the oft repeatedsaying of Duchess Polignac that "the poor hungry people ought to eatcake."
Pitou said that Catherine was the most generous creature in creationand the Billet Farm the most luxurious palace.
He turned a dying eye like the Israelites crossing the Jordan towardsthe east, where the Billet fleshpots smoked.
Sighing, but starting off anew, he went at a job-pace for a couple ofhours which brought him towards Dammartin.
Suddenly his expert ear, reliable as a Sioux Indian's, caught the ringof a horseshoe on the road.
He had hardly concluded that the animal was coming at the gallop thanhe saw it appear on a hilltop four hundred paces off.
Fear which had for a space abandoned Pitou, seized him afresh, andrestored him the use of those long if unshapely legs with which he hadmade such marvellous good time a couple of hours previously.
Without reflecting, looking behind or trying to hide his fright,Ange cleared the ditch on one side and darted through the woods toErmenonville. He did not know the place but he spied some tall treesand reasoned that, if they were on the skirts of a forest, he was saved.
This time he had to beat a horse; Pitou's feet had become wings.
He went all the faster as on glancing over his shoulder, he saw thehorseman jump the hedge and ditch from the highway.
He had no more doubts that the rider was after him so that he not onlydoubled his pace but he dreaded to lose anything by looking behind.
But the animal, superior to the biped in running, gained on him, andPitou heard the rider plainly calling him by name.
Nearly overtaken, still he struggled till the cut of a whip crossed hislegs, and a well-known voice thundered:
"Blame you, you idiot--have you made a vow to founder Younker?"
The horse's name put an end to the fugitive's irresolution.
"Oh, I hear Master Billet," he groaned, as he rolled over on his back,exhaustion and the lash having thrown him on the grass.
Assured of the identity he sat up, while the farmer reined in Younker,streaming with white froth.
"Oh, dear master," said Pitou, "how kind of you to ride after me. Iswear to you that I should come back to the farm late. I got to theend of the double-louis Miss Catherine gave me. But since you haveovertaken me, here is the gold, for it is your'n, and let us get back."
"A thousand devils," swore the yeoman, "we have a lot to do at thefarm, I don't think. Where are the sleuth-hounds?"
"Sleuth hounds?" repeated Pitou, not understanding the nickname forwhat we call detective police officer's, though it had already enteredinto the language.
"Those sneaks in black," continued Billet, "if you can understand thatbetter."
"Oh, you bet that I did not amuse myself by waiting till they came up."
"Bravo, dropped them, eh?"
"Flatter myself I did."
"Then, if certain what did you keep on running for?"
"I thought you were their captain who had taken to horse to have me."
"Come, come you are not such a dunderhead as I thought. As the road isclear, make an effort, get up behind me on the crupper and let us hurryinto Dammartin. I will change horses at Neighbor Lefranc's, for Younkeris done up, so we can push ahead for Paris."
"But I do not see what use I shall be there," remonstrated Pitou.
"But I think the other way. You can serve me there, for you have bigfists, and I hold it for a fact that they are going to fall to hittingout at one another in the city."
Far from charmed by this prospect, the lad was wavering when Billetcaught hold of him as of a sack of flour and slung him across the horse.
Regaining the road, by dint of spur, cudgel and heel, Younker was sentalong at so fair a gait that they were in Dammartin in less than halfan hour.
Billet rode in by a lane, not the main road, to Father Lefranc's farm,where he left his man and horse in the yard, to run direct into thekitchen where the master, going out, was buttoning up his leggings.
"Quick, quick, old mate, your best horse," he hailed him before herecovered from his astonishment.
"That's Maggie--the good beast is just harnessed. I was going out onher."
"She'll do; only I give fair warning that I shall break her down mostlikely."
"What for, I should like to know?"
"Because I must be in Paris this evening," said the farmer, making themasonic sign of "Pressing danger."
"Ride her to death, then," answered Lefranc; "but give me Younker."
"A bargain."
"Have a glass of wine?"
"Two. I have an honest lad with me who is tired with traveling thisfar. Give him some refreshment."
In ten minutes the gossips had put away a bottle and Pitou hadswallowed a two-pound loaf and a hunk of bacon, nearly all fat. Whilehe was eating, the stableman, a good sort of a soul, rubbed him downwith a wisp of hay as if he were a favorite horse. Thus feasted andmassaged, Pitou swallowed a glass of wine from a third bottle, emptiedwith so much velocity that the lad was lucky to get his share.
Billet got upon Maggie, and Pitou "forked" himself on, though stiff asa pair of compasses.
The good beast, tickled by the spur, trotted bravely under the doubleload towards town, without ceasing to flick off the flies with herrobust tail, the strong hairs lashing the dust off Pitou's back andstinging his thin calves, from which his stockings had run down.
Taking the Bastile; Or, Pitou the Peasant Page 7