670 Les Miserables
The coachman drew up in front of the carters’ inn installed
in the ancient buildings of the Royal Abbey, to give his hors-
es a breathing spell.
‘I get down here,’ said the man.
He took his bundle and his cudgel and jumped down
from the vehicle.
An instant later he had disappeared.
He did not enter the inn.
When the coach set out for Lagny a few minutes later, it
did not encounter him in the principal street of Chelles.
The coachman turned to the inside travellers.
‘There,’ said he, ‘is a man who does not belong here, for
I do not know him. He had not the air of owning a sou, but
he does not consider money; he pays to Lagny, and he goes
only as far as Chelles. It is night; all the houses are shut; he
does not enter the inn, and he is not to be found. So he has
dived through the earth.’
The man had not plunged into the earth, but he had
gone with great strides through the dark, down the princi-
pal street of Chelles, then he had turned to the right before
reaching the church, into the cross-road leading to Mont-
fermeil, like a person who was acquainted with the country
and had been there before.
He followed this road rapidly. At the spot where it is
intersected by the ancient tree-bordered road which runs
from Gagny to Lagny, he heard people coming. He con-
cealed himself precipitately in a ditch, and there waited
until the passers-by were at a distance. The precaution was
nearly superfluous, however; for, as we have already said,