“Father Fortier said: ‘Speak low, not to startle little Gilbert, whose father has gone to Versailles and may be killed in the lot!’
“You understand, Pitou, that I did not wait for more, but I have stolen away and I come to have you take me back to Paris. I will not wait any longer, as you may have gone to lay snares in the woods and would not be home till to-morrow. So I proceed on my road to Paris. Have no anxiety as I know the way and besides I have two gold pieces left out of the money my father gave me, so that I can take a seat in the first conveyance I catch up with.
“P. S.—I make this rather long in order to explain my departure, and to delay me that you may return before I finish. But no, I have finished, and you have not come, so that I am off. Farewell, until we meet again! if nothing has happened to my father and he runs no danger, I will return. If not, I shall ask his leave to stay beside him. Calm Father Fortier about my absence; but do not do so until it is too late for him to overtake me. Good-bye, again!”
Knowing his friend’s economy, he put out the candle, and set off.
He went by the starlight at first till he struck through byways the main road at Vauciennes. At the branch of the Paris and Crespy roads, he had to stop as he did not know which to take. They were both alike. He sat down discouraged, partly to rest, partly to reflect, when he heard the galloping of horses from Villers Cotterets way.
He waited to ask the riders the information he wanted. Soon he saw two shadows in the gloom, one riding at a space behind the other so that he judged the foremost to be the master and the other his groom.
He walked out three steps from the roadside to accost him when the horseman clapped his hand to his holster for a pistol.
“I am not a thief, sir,” cried Sebastian, interpreting the action correctly, “but a boy whom recent events at Versailles calls thither to seek his father. I do not know which of these roads I ought to take to get to Paris—point it out, please, and you will do me a great service.”
The speaker’s stylish language and his juvenile tone did not seem unknown to the rider, who reined in his steed, albeit he seemed in haste.
“Who are you, my boy, and how comes it you are out on the highway at such an hour?” he inquired.