In Kings Byways | Page 3

my shame.
The steward and two or three of his underlings were standing in the gateway, and saw me approach; and began to jeer. The high grey front of Monseigneur's hotel, three sides of a square, towered up behind them; the steward in the opening sprawled his feet apart and set his hands to his stout sides, and jeered at me. "Ha! ha! Here is the lame leper from the Cour des Miracles!" he cried. "Have a care or he will give you the itch!"
"Good sir, the swill-tub is open," cried another, mocking me. "Help yourself!"
A third spat at me and bade me begone for a pig. The passers--there were always a knot of gazers opposite my lord of Beauvais' palace in those days, when we had the Queen's ear and bade fair to succeed Richelieu--stayed to stare.
"I want my goods," I said, trembling.
"Your goods!" the steward answered, swelling out his brawny chest, and smiling at me over it. "Your goods, indeed! Begone, and be thankful you have escaped so well."
"Give me my things--from my room," I said stubbornly; and I tried to enter. "They are my own!"
He moved sideways so as to block the passage. "Your goods? They are Monseigneur's," he said.
"My wife, then!"
He winked, the great beast. "Your wife?" he said. "Well, true; she is not Monseigneur's. But she will do for me." And with a coarse laugh he winked again at the crowd.
At that the pent-up rage which I had so long stemmed broke out. He stood a head taller than I, and a foot wider; but with a scream I sprang at his throat, and by the very surprise of the attack and his unwieldiness, I got him down and beat his face with my fists. His fellows, as soon as they recovered from their astonishment, tore me off, showing me no mercy. But by that time I had so marked him that the blood poured down his fat cheeks. He scrambled to his feet, panting and furious, his oaths tripping over one another.
"To the Chatelet with him!" he cried, spitting out a tooth and staring at me through the mud on his face. "He shall swing for this! He tried to break in. I call you to witness he tried to break in!"
"Ay, to the Chatelet! To the Chatelet!" cried the crowd, siding with the stronger party. He was my lord of Beauvais' steward; I was a gutter-snipe and dangerous. A dozen hands held me tightly; yet not so tightly, but that, a coach passing at that moment and driving us all to the wall, I managed by a jerk--I was desperate by this time, and savage as a wild-cat--to snatch myself loose. In a second I was speeding down the Rue Bons Enfants with the hue and cry behind me.
I have said, I was desperate. In an hour the world was changed for me. In an hour I had broken with every tradition of safe and modest and clerkly life; and from a sleek scribe was become a ragged outlaw flying through the streets. I saw the gallows, I felt the lash sink like molten lead into the quivering back, still bleeding from the stirrup-leathers: I forgot all but the danger. I lived only in my feet, and with them made superhuman efforts. Fortunately the light was failing, and in the dusk I distanced the pack by a dozen yards. I passed the corner of the Palais Royal so swiftly that the Queen's Guards, though they ran out at the alarm, were too late to intercept me. Thence I turned instinctively to the left, and with the cry of pursuit in my ears strained towards the old bridge, intending to cross to the Cit��, where I knew all the lanes and byways. But the bridge was alarmed, the Chatelet seemed to yawn for me--they were just lighting the brazier in front of the gloomy pile--and doubling back, while the air roared with shouts of warning and cries of "Stop thief! Stop thief!"--I evaded my pursuers, and sped up the narrow Rue Troussevache, with the hue and cry hard on my heels.
I had no plan now, no aim; only terror added wings to my feet. The end of that street gained I darted blindly down another, and yet another; with straining chest, and legs that began to fail, and always in my ears the yells that rose round me as fresh pursuers joined in the chase. Still I kept ahead, I was even gaining; with night thickening, I might hope to escape, if I could baffle those who from time to time--but in a half-hearted way, not knowing if I were armed--made an attempt to stop me or trip me up.
Suddenly turning a corner--I had gained a quiet part where blind walls lined an alley--I discovered