hrough the leafless trees, a quarter of a league off. Service was
about to begin when they went through the village. The square was full
of people, who immediately formed two lines to see the criminal pass.
He was being followed by a crowd of excited children. Male and female
peasants looked at the prisoner between the two gendarmes, with hatred
in their eyes and a longing to throw stones at him, to tear his skin
with their nails, to trample him under their feet. They asked each other
whether he had committed murder or robbery. The butcher, who was an
ex-'spahi', declared that he was a deserter. The tobacconist thought
that he recognized him as the man who had that very morning passed a bad
half-franc piece off on him, and the ironmonger declared that he was the
murderer of Widow Malet, whom the police had been looking for for six
months.

In the municipal court, into which his custodians took him, Randel saw
the mayor again, sitting on the magisterial bench, with the schoolmaster
by his side. "Aha! aha!" the magistrate exclaimed, "so here you are
again, my fine fellow. I told you I should have you locked up. Well,
brigadier, what is he charged with?"

"He is a vagabond without house or home, Monsieur le Maire, without any
resources or money, so he says, who was arrested in the act of begging,
but he is provided with good testimonials, and his papers are all in
order."

"Show me his papers," the mayor said. He took them, read them, reread,
returned them and then said: "Search him." So they searched him, but
found nothing, and the mayor seemed perplexed, and asked the workman:

"What were you doing on the road this morning?" "I was looking for
work." "Work? On the highroad?" "How do you expect me to find any if I
hide in the woods?"

They looked at each other with the hatred of two wild beasts which
belong to different hostile species, and the magistrate continued: "I
am going to have you set at liberty, but do not be brought up before me
again." To which the carpenter replied: "I would rather you locked me
up; I have had enough running about the country." But the magistrate
replied severely: "be silent." And then he said to the two gendarmes:
"You will conduct this man two hundred yards from the village and let
him continue his journey."

"At any rate, give me something to eat," the workman said, but the other
grew indignant: "Have we nothing to do but to feed you? Ah! ah! ah! that
is rather too much!" But Randel