ds. These last he always
instinctively avoided, taking refuge in the bushes or behind heaps of
stones when he saw them coming.

When he perceived them in the distance, 'With uniforms gleaming in the
sun, he was suddenly possessed with unwonted agility--the agility of
a wild animal seeking its lair. He threw aside his crutches, fell to the
ground like a limp rag, made himself as small as possible and crouched
like a bare under cover, his tattered vestments blending in hue with the
earth on which he cowered.

He had never had any trouble with the police, but the instinct to avoid
them was in his blood. He seemed to have inherited it from the parents he
had never known.

He had no refuge, no roof for his head, no shelter of any kind. In summer
he slept out of doors and in winter he showed remarkable skill in
slipping unperceived into barns and stables. He always decamped before
his presence could be discovered. He knew all the holes through which one
could creep into farm buildings, and the handling of his crutches having
made his arms surprisingly muscular he often hauled himself up through
sheer strength of wrist into hay-lofts, where he sometimes remained for
four or five days at a time, provided he had collected a sufficient store
of food beforehand.

He lived like the beasts of the field. He was in the midst of men, yet
knew no one, loved no one, exciting in the breasts of the peasants only a
sort of careless contempt and smoldering hostility. They nicknamed him
"Bell," because he hung between his two crutches like a church bell
between its supports.

For two days he had eaten nothing. No one gave him anything now. Every
one's patience was exhausted. Women shouted to him from their doorsteps
when they saw him coming:

"Be off with you, you good-for-nothing vagabond! Why, I gave you a piece
of bread only three days ago!"

And he turned on his crutches to the next house, where he was received in
the same fashion.

The women declared to one another as they stood at their doors:

"We can't feed that lazy brute all the year round!"

And yet the "lazy brute" needed food every day.

He had exhausted Saint-Hilaire, Varville and Les Billettes without
getting a single copper or so much as a dry crust. His only hope was in
Tournolles, but to reach this place he would have to walk five miles
along the highroad, and he felt so weary that he could hardly drag
himself another yard. His stomach and his pocket were equal