When he had got me there, and shut the door, good Jerome Laborde folded me in his arms, and the tears actually rose in his eyes. "I have bad news for you, my son," he said; "and unfortunately it happens that your kindness to my nephew is likely to prove your ruin. My lord the Duke has just been telling me that it was you who saved my poor nephew, and that the criminal lieutenant and his myrmidons have found you out."
Of course the first announcement of such a fact was not particularly agreeable to me; but, as I came hastily to reflect upon my fate, and to think that I should again be obliged to scamper off, and do the best I could for myself in the world, there seemed something so absurd in the sort of perversity with which fate destined me to be a wanderer, that I could not help laughing, notwithstanding the difficulties of my situation.
"You laugh, my son," cried the old man, in great astonishment; "but I can tell you the business is a very serious one, and that you might chance to be shut up for life in the Bastille."
"If that is the case," replied I, "the matter is serious indeed. I thought they would only have hanged me; and I have been so accustomed to risk hanging every day of my life, that it was nothing new; but, as to spending my whole existence in a prison, that is a very different affair; and therefore, good Monsieur Jerome, I shall get out of the way directly, leaving you to make my excuses to my lord, for going without asking his permission.
"You are too quick, my son--you are too quick," cried the old man; "it was the Duke himself who told me but now to speak to you. Do not suppose that he intends to leave you without protection. No, no; he is a kind-hearted man, though quick and jealous in his disposition from a boy; and he bade me tell you that he would have defended you to the last for the act you have committed, even had it not been in favour of my nephew; but that, as it was so, he will defend you more eagerly still. He thinks, however, that for your present safety, you had better quit Paris as soon as possible; and, as he intended to send some one to his estates in Brittany to-morrow, he will give you the commission, and order a groom to accompany you and show you the road."
"I am quite ready," replied I; "there is nothing to be done but to saddle the horses."
"Never did I see so hasty a boy," cried the old man; "how will you get out of the gates, I should like to know, when they are closed as firmly as locks and chains can make them?"
"I would get over the walls," replied I, smiling.
"And the horses?" said the old man, with a smile: "no, no, my son, you must follow the plans laid down for you by my lord, who knows this country, at least, better than you do. When you have everything ready, he says, go to bed, and sleep for two or three hours; rise twenty minutes before the dawn, and you will find horses, and the packet he intends you to take, all ready prepared for you. By the time you get to the gates, they will be opened, and you will have nothing else to do but to ride on as fast as possible, till you reach my lord's castle of the Prés Vallée. Remain there quietly till you hear from him, and, in a few weeks, he will have negotiated your pardon with the court."
This plan was, of course, one that both suited my wishes and provided for my safety, better than any I could have laid out for myself. It offered me the prospect, too, of new scenes and adventures of a nature somewhat less appalling than those which might lead me into a dungeon for life; and I consequently proceeded to put it into execution with every feeling of joy and gratitude. Good Jerome Laborde undertook to have me called at the appointed hour, and, accustomed from infancy to take repose at any scattered moments that offered the possibility of doing so, I laid down, and was soon asleep.