ON THE ROAD.
Pitou was spurred by the two most powerful emotions in the world, love
and fear. Panic bade him take care of himself as he would be arrested
and perhaps flogged; love in Catherine's voice had said: "Be off to
Paris."
These two stimulants led him to fly rather than run.
Heaven is infallible as well as mighty: how useful were the long legs
of 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 little
knees, and symmetrically placed calves, could not have dashed along at
this gait.
He had gone four leagues and a half in an hour, as much as is required
of a good horse at the trot. He looked behind: nothing on the road; he
looked 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 forget
Mistress Billet's mild-cured bacon and the pound-and-a-half of bread
which Catherine sliced off for him at every meal. All France lacked
bread half as good as that, so dear that it originated the oft repeated
saying of Duchess Polignac that "the poor hungry people ought to eat
cake."
Pitou said that Catherine was the most generous creature in creation
and the Billet Farm the most luxurious palace.
He turned a dying eye like the Israelites crossing the Jordan towards
the east, where the Billet fleshpots smoked.
Sighing, but starting off anew, he went at a job-pace for a couple of
hours which brought him towards Dammartin.
Suddenly his expert ear, reliable as a Sioux Indian's, caught the ring
of a horseshoe on the road.
He had hardly concluded that the animal was coming at the gallop than
he saw it appear on a hilltop four hundred paces off.
Fear which had for a space abandoned Pitou, seized him afresh, and
restored him the use of those long if unshapely legs with which he had
made 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 to
Ermenonville. He did not know the place but he spied some tall trees
and 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 the
horseman jump the hedge and ditch from the highway.
He had no more doubts that the rider was after him so that he not only
doubled his pace but he dreaded to lose anything by looking behind.
But the animal, superior to the biped in running, gained on him, and
Pitou heard the rider plainly calling him by name.
Nearly overtaken, still he struggled till the cut of a whip crossed his
legs, 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. I
swear to you that I should come back to the farm late. I got to the
end of the double-louis Miss Catherine gave me. But since you have
overtaken 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 the
farm, I don't think. Where are the sleuth-hounds?"
"Sleuth hounds?" repeated Pitou, not understanding the nickname for
what we call detective police officer's, though it had already entered
into the language.
"Those sneaks in black," continued Billet, "if you can understand that
better."
"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 is
clear, make an effort, get up behind me on the crupper and let us hurry
into Dammartin. I will change horses at Neighbor Lefranc's, for Younker
is 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 big
fists, and I hold it for a fact that they are going to fall to hitting
out at one another in the city."
Far from charmed by this prospect, the lad was wavering when Billet
caught 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 sent
along at so fair a gait that they were in Dammartin in less than half
an 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 the
kitchen where the master, going out, was buttoning up his leggings.
"Quick, quick, old mate, your best horse," he hailed him before he
recovered from his astonishment.
"That's Maggie--the good beast is just harnessed. I was going out on
her."
"She'll do; only I give fair warning that I shall break her down most
likely."
"What for, I should like to know?"
"Because I must be in Paris this evening," said the farmer, making the
masonic 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 this
far. Give him some refreshment."
In ten minutes the gossips had put away a bottle and Pitou had
swallowed a two-pound loaf and a hunk of bacon, nearly all fat. While
he was eating, the stableman, a good sort of a soul, rubbed him down
with a wisp of hay as if he were a favorite horse. Thus feasted and
massaged, Pitou swallowed a glass of wine from a third bottle, emptied
with so much velocity that the lad was lucky to get his share.
Billet got upon Maggie, and Pitou "forked" himself on, though stiff as
a pair of compasses.
The good beast, tickled by the spur, trotted bravely under the double
load towards town, without ceasing to flick off the flies with her
robust tail, the strong hairs lashing the dust off Pitou's back and
stinging his thin calves, from which his stockings had run down.