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Updated: June 4, 2025
"Observe the nobles and ladies," he said, still following Sir Walter, and waving at the towns-people and visitors in the rude grandstand. "Observe the yeomanry and spectators of a better degree than the mere vulgar" waving at the crowd on either side of the stand "and the promiscuous multitude down the river banks and over the woods and clinging to the tree-tops and to yon telegraph-pole.
He himself hastened on through the town, collected a few of the towns-people, and with their aid upset a cart or two on the bridge to block up the way; and, having thus made the road impassable, he roused the municipal authorities, for it was nearly midnight, and then, returning to the royal carriage, he compelled the royal family to dismount and follow him to the house of the mayor, a petty grocer, whose name was Strausse.
Indeed, it was rumored among the towns-people that that had blasted her Christmas-trees, that Dame Louisa's scolding, fretting voice had floated out to them, and smote their delicate twigs like a bitter frost and made them turn yellow; for the real Christmas-tree is not very hardy. No one else in the village, probably no one else in the county, owned any such tree, alive or dead.
He loaded up again with another cartload which he hoped to sell, but he looked in vain for a customer; no one would buy it. It was his bad luck all that day to come across experienced towns-people, who knew all the tricks of the peasants in selling firewood, and would not believe that he had actually brought the wood from the country as he assured them.
The murder of Joseph Wilmot had formed the subject of many a long discussion amongst the towns-people at Shorncliffe, and the familiar name struck the surgeon's ear. "But what of that?" thought Mr. Vincent. "The name is not such a very uncommon one." Clement went to his mother's room and knocked softly at the door. The widow came out to him presently. "How is she now?" Clement asked.
And so matters stood for some hours; a crowd of towns-people, peasants, National Guards, and dragoons thronging the room; the king at times speaking quietly to his captors; the queen weeping, for the fatigue of the journey, and the fearful disappointment at being thus baffled at the last moment, after she had thought that all danger was passed, had broken down even her nerves.
It would be difficult to describe the scene that presented itself to the landlord's vision, upon his entering the coffee-room; where, from the boisterous laughing of some of the party, the interjective swearing of others, the Babel of voices advising and expostulating, and the crowding in of the towns-people, who had been attracted to the house by a rumour of what was going on, he could hardly discern the nature of the accident, the extent of the injury sustained, or, what concerned him most, the damage done to his furniture and premises.
The rutted street twisted along between small gray plaster houses, with ugly, unnecessary gable-ends, which faced the road at wrong angles. Small groups of towns-people stood against the walls to watch. There was also a handful of idling soldiers who watched from the gateway of the house where they were billeted.
He was conscious of estrangement from his towns-people, but did not always know how nor wherefore, nor why he should be thus groping through the twilight mist in solitude.
Vengeance would indeed have been wreaked on Baderoon at that moment if the hermit had caught him, but, as might have been expected, the murderer was nowhere to be found. He was hid in the impenetrable jungle, which it was useless to enter in the darkness of night. When daybreak enabled the towns-people to undertake an organised search, no trace of him could be discovered.
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