United States or Ghana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She told us over and over again that she was quite sure that she saw that statue come up the avenue, and take a place behind the tree which is nearest to the parlor-window." Trumence looked triumphant. "That was I!" he cried. The girl looked at him, and said, only moderately surprised, "That may very well be." "What do you know about it?" asked M. Daubigeon.
"You are at home here, madam; and the jail and the jailer are at your disposal. What do you desire? Just speak. I have nine prisoners, not counting M. de Boiscoran and Trumence. Do you want me to set them all free?" "Blangin!" said his wife reprovingly. "What? Am I not free to let the prisoners go?"
If it were spring, I should say at once, 'I am your man. But we have autumn now; we are going to have bad weather; work will be scarce." Although an incurable idler, Trumence had always a good deal to say about work. "You won't help them in the vintage?" asked Jacques. The vagabond looked almost repenting. "To be sure, the vintage must have commenced," he said. "Well?"
A quarter of an hour after that, Blangin reappeared, holding a lantern and an enormous bunch of keys in his hands. "I have seen Trumence to bed," he said. "You can come now, madam." Dionysia was all ready. "Let us go," she said simply. Then she followed the jailer along interminable passages, through a vast vaulted hall, in which their steps resounded as in a church, then through a long gallery.
Delighted with the operation, Trumence was about to return home, when his evil star led him to sup at his inn with a countryman, a former schoolmate, who was now a sailor on board a coal-barge. Of course, countrymen when they meet must drink.
She was asked to sign her deposition; and then M. Daubigeon told her she might go. Then, turning to Trumence, he said, "You will be taken to jail now. But you are an honest man, and you need not give yourself any trouble. Go now." The magistrate and the commonwealth attorney remained alone now, since, of course, a clerk counts for nothing. "Well," said M. Daubigeon, "what do you think of that?"
"Let us go up," he said to his colleague. They went up. But, as they entered the passage, they noticed Trumence, who was making signs to them to step lightly. "What is the matter?" they asked in an undertone. "I believe he is asleep," replied the prisoner. "Poor man! Who knows but he dreams he is free, and in his beautiful chateau?" M. Folgat went on tiptoe to the wicket. But Jacques had waked up.
Oh! he is only a vagabond, not bad at all; and he has been ordered to stand guard at the door of M. de Boiscoran's cell, and not for a moment to lose sight of it. It was M. Galpin who had that idea, because the prisoners sometimes in their first despair, a misfortune happens so easily, they become weary of life Trumence would be there to prevent it." The old lady trembled with horror.
A few minutes later a rapid step approached in the passage; and Trumence appeared, the prisoner of whom Blangin had made an assistant, and whom Mechinet had employed to carry Jacques's letters to Dionysia. He was a tall well-made man of twenty-five or six years, whose large mouth and small eyes were perpetually laughing. A vagabond without hearth or home, Trumence had once been a land-owner.
If he saw a letter coming to him in that way, from me, he is quite capable of handing it at once to M. Galpin." He paused, and after a moment's meditation he went on, "The safest way would probably be to win the confidence of M. Blangin, the keeper of the jail, or of some prisoner, whose duty it is to wait on M. de Boiscoran, and to watch him." "Trumence!" exclaimed Dionysia.
Word Of The Day