“Good-day, good-day, Rampal,” replied Livette, repeating the salutation as the custom is in the province; “but let me pass! Make room for me, I say!”
“Sur le pont d’Avignon,” sang the gipsy, with a laugh, “tout le monde paye passage!”[2]
Renaud, still behind his window, had at last recognized Rampal. Fuming with rage, but naturally wary, he considered whether he should rush down at once and attack him or wait until Livette had gone.
Rampal did not always need a pretext to kiss a pretty girl,—but here was one ready-made for him!
“Do you hear, demoiselle?” said he. “You must pay the tollman of your own accord, or else he will pay himself!”
He threw both arms about the poor child’s waist. She bent back, holding her body and her head as far away from him as possible, but the rascal, hot of breath, holding her firmly and forcing her a little closer, kissed her twice full upon the lips.
A fierce oath was uttered behind them in the air. Everybody turned, and, looking up, discovered Renaud shaking the old-fashioned window, which was reluctant to be opened. Two more wrenches and the window yielded, flew suddenly open with a great noise of breaking glass, and Renaud, standing on the sill, leaped to the ground.
“Ah! the beggar! the beggar! where is the vile cur?”
But Rampal had already leaped upon his horse that was hitched near by to the bars of a low window, and was off at a gallop.
He rode as if he were riding a race, half-standing in his stirrups, his body bent forward, and plying incessantly and very rapidly a thong that was made fast to his wrist, and that drove his horse wild by the way it whistled about his ears.