"That depends. My boy went up there on foot last summer; he is a young fool, blotting and messing with ink and paper, while he talks of being a great man, and sups with the rats in the sewers! He, I think, was a week walking it. It is pleasant enough in fair weather. But you—you are a gypsy. Where are your people?"
"I have no people."
She did not know even what this epithet of gypsy, which they so often cast at her, really meant. She remembered the old life of the Liebana, but she did not know what manner of life it had been; and since Phratos had left her there, no one of his tribe or of his kind had been seen in the little Norman town among the orchards.
The old woman grinned, trimming her lantern.
"If you are too bad for them, you must be bad indeed! You will do very well for Paris, no doubt."
And she began to count her chestnuts, lest this stranger should steal any of them.
Folle-Farine took no notice of the words.
"Will you show me which is the road to take?" she asked. Meanwhile the street-boy had brought three or four of his comrades to stare at her; and they were dancing round her with grotesque grimace, and singing, "Houpe là, Houpe là! Burn her for a witch!"
The woman directed her which road to go as well as she could for the falling darkness, and she thanked the woman and went. The street-children ran at her heels like little curs, yelling and hissing foul language; but she ran too, and was swifter than they, and outstripped them, the hardy training of her limbs standing her in good service.
How far she ran, or what streets she traversed, she could not tell; the chestnut-seller had said "Leave the pole-star behind you," and the star was shining behind her always, and she ran south steadily.