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Less
than half an hour later a covered wagonette to which a couple
of sturdy Normandy horses were harnessed drew up outside the front
door of the Bout de Monde. The word had soon enough gone
round the village and among the men that the Representative of
the People was leaving Le Roger in company of a friend, taking
the prisoner with him.
He came out of the hostelry wrapped in his big coat. He looked
neither to right nor left, nor did he acknowledge the respectful
salutes of the landlord and his family assembled at the door to
bid him good-bye. The prisoner, hatless, coatless and shivering
with cold, was close behind him. But it was the Representative's
friend who created most attention. He was very tall and wore the
finest of clothes. It was generally whispered among the quidnuncs
that he was a commercial traveller who had made much money by
smuggling French brandy into England.
While François Chabot and the prisoner stowed themselves
away as best they could under the hood of the wagonette, the stranger
climbed up on the box and took the reins. He clicked his tongue,
tickled the horses with his whip, and the light vehicle bumped
along the snow-covered road and was soon lost to sight.
Grey dawn was breaking just then; the sky was clear and gave
promise of a fine sunny day. The men who had formed the escort
for the diligence and those who had travelled inside in order
to guard the prisoner sat around the fire in the public room in
the intervals between scanty meals, and discussed the amazing
adventures of the past twenty-four hours. They had begun, so it
was universally admitted, with the mysterious report of a pistol
outside the hostelry at Vernon and the strange appearance of the
whilom stud-groom who looked such a miserable tramp. What happened
on the road after that no one could aver with any certainty, for
the driver, who knew himself to be heavily at fault, never said
a word about having taken the tramp aboard on the banguette, and
allowing the reins to slip out of his hands into the more capable
ones of the stud-groom.
Indeed, while the others talked the driver seemed entrenched
in complete dumbness. He drank copiously, and as he was known
to become violent in his cups he was left severely alone. The
damage done in the night to the coach and saddlery had further
aggravated his ill-homour. He put it all down to spite directed
against him by some power of evil made manifest in the person
of that cursed vagabond. It was supposed that the villagers had
set themselves the task to bring the miscreants to book, but the
hours sped by and nothing was discovered that would lead to such
a happy result. The snow all round the barn where coach and saddlery
had been stowed had been trampled down so heavily that it was
impossible to determine in which direction the rapscallions had
made good their escape.
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