A village well-known to Foxy was not far distant, and towards this he now led the two boys, muttering awful threats in mingled French and English, and swearing horribly under his breath. When they hung back, or for a moment struggled to free themselves, his cruel clutches forced them on.
In this fashion the village was reached, a place which at this hour looked like a little city of the dead, for there was not a light in the one straggling street of which the hamlet consisted. But Renard went straight to a small house standing back a few paces from the crooked thoroughfare in a narrow strip of weed-grown garden. Here he knocked in a peculiar way—not at the door, but at the window, and in a minute or two the door was opened to him. A few words passed between him and the man who opened the door, then Renard and the boys were shown into a room on the ground floor, where were two straw mattresses and a couple a three-legged stools and a table.
Setting down the candle which the owner of the house had given him, Foxy locked the door, and pulled off his rusty overcoat, first drawing from one of the pockets a coil of stout cord. Then sitting down on one of the stools, he proceeded to twist and knot this cord, until he had fashioned out of it a kind of rough cat-o'-nine-tails or scourge. But he glanced up now and again, and the malignant look on his ugly face—a mingling of frown and leer, full of evil triumph and covert menace—sent a shudder of fearful expectation through the chilled forms of the two lads huddled together on one of the straw mattresses.
In a few minutes the instrument of punishment was completed, and Renard, getting up from his seat, came towards the bed, and brandishing his scourge, said to Tad:
"Now, Edouard, hark to me! You shall take this wiep and you weel beat Philipe teel I tell you assez—enough. And as for you, Philipe, put off your coat, dat do wiep may work well. So! Allons! Begeen, and forget not dat you master is—"
"What!" cried Tad, aghast. "What, master! You want me to set upon this poor little chap and flog him? You don't mean it—you can't!"
"Mais certainement I mean it!" replied Foxy, showing his teeth. "Take dis wiep of cords and beat well Philips, or—" and the man's face assumed a yet more evil and threatening aspect.
"Don't anger him no more, dear Tad," said Phil in a whisper. "Do as he tells you. I can bear it. I ain't afeared of a thrashin' that I haven't deserved. There, I'm quite ready, and you'll see I won't cry nor make a sound."
But Tad that night had learned a great lesson while he stood with the burglars outside the little window of the outhouse. He had seen this gentle little lad brave the utmost that three villains could do to him, rather than commit a crime in obedience to their commands—a crime of which, but for Phil's example, Tad felt that he himself should certainly have been guilty.
And now—could he inflict pain upon this brave child, for fear of anything Renard could do? No—the lesson had not been lost upon the lad. True he had been on the downward track ever since he ran away from home, but here was the chance for a step up. Once more a chance lay before him, and his resolve was taken.