Lord Tonys Wife | Page 9

The coach
gave a terrific lurch. The horses reared and plunged, there was a
deafening clamour all around: men were shouting and cursing: there
was the clash of wood and iron and the cracking of whips: the tramp of
horses' hoofs in the soft ground, and the dull thud of human bodies
falling in the mud followed by loud cries of pain. There was the sudden
crash of broken glass, the coach lanthorns had been seized and broken:
it seemed to Yvonne de Kernogan that out of the darkness faces
distorted with fury were peering at her through the window-panes. But
through all the confusion the coach kept moving on. Jean-Marie stuck

to his post as did also the postilion and the four outriders, and with
whip and tongue they urged their horses to break through the crowd
regardless of human lives, knocking and trampling down men and lads
heedless of curses and blasphemies which were hurled on them and on
the occupants of the coach, whoever they might be.
The next moment, however, the coach came to a sudden halt and a wild
cry of triumph drowned the groans of the injured and the dying.
'Kernogan! Kernogan!' was shouted from every side.
'Adet! Adet!'
'You limbs of Satan,' cried Jean-Marie, 'you'll rue this night's work and
weep tears of blood for the rest of your lives. Let me tell you that!
Mademoiselle is in the coach. When M. le duc hears of this, there will
be work for the hangman...'
'Mademoiselle in the coach,' broke in a hoarse voice with a rough tone
of command. 'Let's look at her...'
'Aye! Aye! let's have a look at Mademoiselle,' came with a volley of
objurgations and curses from the crowd.
'You devils -- you would dare?' protested Jean-Marie.
Within the coach Yvonne de Kernogan hardly dared to breathe. She sat
bolt upright, her cape held tightly round her shoulders: her eyes --
dilated now with excitement, if not with fear, were fixed upon the
darkness beyond the window panes. She could see nothing, but she felt
the presence of that hostile crowd who had succeeded in overpowering
Jean-Marie and were intent on doing her harm.
But she belonged to a caste which never reckoned cowardice amongst
its many faults. During these few moments when she knew that her life
hung on the merest thread of chance, she neither screamed nor fainted
but sat rigidly still, her heart beating in unison with the agonizing
seconds which went so fatefully by. And even now when the carriage

door was torn violently open and even through the darkness she
discerned vaguely the forms of these avowed enemies close beside her,
and anon felt a rough hand seize her wrist, she did not move, but said
quite calmly, with hardly a tremor in her voice:
'Who are you? and what do you want?'
An outburst of harsh and ironical laughter came in response.
'Who are we, my fine lady?' said the foremost man in the crowd, he
who had seized her wrist and was half in and half out of the coach at
this moment, 'we are the men who throughout our lives have toiled and
starved whilst you and such as you travel in fine coaches and eat your
fill. What we want? Why just the spectacle of such a fine lady as you
are being knocked down into the mud just as our wives and daughters
are if they happen to be in the way when your coach is passing. Isn't
that it, mes amis?'
'Aye! aye!' they replied, shouting lustily. 'Into the mud with the fine
lady. Out with her, Adet. Let's have a look at Mademoiselle how she
will look with her face in the mud. Out with her, quick!'
But the man who was still half in and half out of the coach and who had
hold of Mademoiselle's wrist did not obey his mates immediately. He
drew her nearer to him and suddenly threw his rough, begrimed arms
round her, and with one hand pulled back her hood, then placing two
fingers under chin, he jerked it up till her face was level with his own.
Yvonne de Kernogan was certainly no coward, but at the loathsome
contact of this infuriated and vengeful creature, she was overcome with
such a hideous sense of fear that for the moment consciousness almost
left her: not completely alas! for though she could not distinguish his
face she could feel his hot breath upon her cheeks, she could smell the
nauseating odour of his damp clothes and she could hear his hoarse
mutterings as for the space of a few seconds he held her thus close to
him in an embrace which to her was far more awesome than that of
death.

'And just to punish