CHAPTER XI.

THE ROAD TO PARIS.

On this same evening, a no less grave event set the college of Father Fortier in an uproar. Sebastian Gilbert had disappeared about six o’clock and had not been found up to midnight by the most active search.

Nobody had seen him save Aunt Angelique, who, coming from the church, where she let out the chairs, had thought to see him going up a lane. This report added to the schoolmaster’s disquiet. He knew that the youth had strange delusions, during which he believed he was following a beautiful lady; more than once when on a walk he had seen him stare at vacancy and if he plunged too deeply into the copse, he would start the best pedestrians of the class after him.

But he had never gone off in the night.

This time, he had taken the road to Haramont, and Angelique had really seen him. He was going to find Pitou. But the latter left the village by one end, to go and see Catherine, at the same time as the doctor’s son quitted it by the other.

Pitou’s door was open, for the captain was still simple in his habits. He lit the candle and waited: but he was too fretful. He found a sheet of paper, half of that on which Pitou had inscribed the name of his company of soldiers, and wrote as follows:

“MY DEAR PITOU: I have come to tell you of a conversation I overheard between Father Fortier and the Villers Cotterets Vicar. Fortier is in connivance with the aristocratic party of Paris and says that a counter-revolutionary movement is hatching at Versailles. The cue was given when the Queen wore the black cockade and trampled the tricolor under-foot. This threat already made me uneasy about my father, who is the aristocrats’ enemy, as you know: but this time it is worse.

“The vicar has returned the priest’s visit, and as I feared for my father, I listened to their talk to hear the sequel to what I overheard by accident last time. It appears, my dear Pitou, that the people stormed Versailles and killed a great many royalists, among them Lord Valence Charny.

“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.

“I am not asking you who you are--only my road--the way for a poor boy to reach his father in distress.”

In the almost childish voice was firmness which struck the cavalier.

“My friend, we are on the road to Paris,” he replied: “I have only been there twice and do not know it very well, but I am sure this is the right one.”

Sebastian drew back a step offering his thanks. The horses had need of getting their wind and started off again not very rapidly.

“My Lord Viscount,” said the lackey to his master, “do you not recognize that youth?”

“No: though I fancied----“

“It is young Sebastian Gilbert, who is at boarding school, at Abbé Fortier’s; and who comes over to Billet’s Farm with Ange Pitou.”

“You are right, by Jove!” Turning his horse and stopping, he called out: “Is this you, Sebastian?”

“Yes, my lord,” returned the boy, who had known the horseman all the time.

“Then, come, and tell me how I find you here?”

“I did tell you--I want to learn that my father in Paris is not killed or hurt.”

“Alas, my poor boy,” said Isidore with profound sadness, “I am going to town on the like errand: only I have no doubt; one of my brothers, Valence, was slain at Versailles yesterday.”

“Oh, I am so sorry,” said the youth, holding out his hand to the speaker, which the latter took and squeezed.

“Well, my dear boy, since our fate is akin,” said the cavalier, “we must not separate; you must like me be eager to get to Paris.”

“Oh, dear, yes!”

“You can never reach it on foot.”

“I could do it but it would take too long; so I reckon on taking a place in a stage going my way, and get what lift I can do the journey.”

“Better than that, my boy; get up behind my man.”

Sebastian plucked his hands out of the other’s grasp.

“I thank you, my lord,” said he in such a tone that the noble understood that he had hurt the youth’s feelings by offering to mount him behind his inferior.

“Or, better still, now I think of it,” he went on, “take his place. He can come on afterwards. He can learn where I am by asking at the Tuileries Palace.”

“I thank you again, my lord,” replied the adolescent, in a milder voice, for he had comprehended the delicacy of the offer: “I do not wish to deprive you of his services.”

It was hard to come to an arrangement now that the terms of peace were laid down.

“Better again, my dear Sebastian. Get up behind me. Dawn is peeping: at ten we shall be at Dammartin, half way; there we will leave the two horses, which would not carry us much farther, under charge of Baptistin, and we will take the post-chaise to Paris. I intended to do this so that you do not lead to any change in my arrangements.”

“If this be true, then, I accept,” said the young man, hesitating but dying to go.

“Down with you, Baptistin, and help Master Sebastian to mount.”

“Thanks, but it is useless,” said the youth leaping up behind the gentleman as light as a schoolboy.

The three on the two horses started off at the gallop, and disappeared over the ridge.