Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 144 — page 9: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

1) ae cee eR A Se ee ———— ee tary to the Chatelet; well he took fright at the Flem- | and their procession, and threw Master Philippot | Avrillot, the invalid of the Celestins.’’ ‘Indeed !”’ 2 “As true as you are there.”’ The windows would then close again ; but Gringoire had, nevertheless, lost the thread of his ideas. Luck- ily, however, he soon recovered and quickly reunited | it, thanks to the eipsy girl and her Djali, who still pursued their way before him—two elegant, delicate, charming creatures, whose small feet, handsome shape, | and graceful manners he admired, almost confounding them in his imayination: regarding them both as young THE HUNCHBACE OF NOTRE-DAME. | 9 ee pavement suddenly awoke him and recalled his mind what you are seeking before you. You are @ fool for to the surface. ‘‘ Whence comes this cold?” said he your pains.”’ sharply to himself. He then perceived that he was| He turned, and, with eyes.and ears on the alert, strove nearly in the middle of the kennel. _ to steer his way back to the lucky paillasse, but in vain. “ Hang the hunchbacked Cyclop!’’ muttered he, and His course was incessantly checked by interse>tic: attempted to rise, but he was sostunned and bruised, | of houses, blind alleys, spots where several streets | that he was forced to remain where he was. His hand, minated, and where he was torced to pause in doubt however, was at liberty. He held his nose and resign- | and hesitation, more perplexed and more entangled in ed himself to his fate. _ the intricacies of those dirk, Darrow lanes and courts The mud of Paris, thought he—for he had decidedly | than he would have been in the maze of the Hotel de made up his mind to it that the kennel would be his Tournelles itself. At length, losing all patience, he bed—the mud of Paris is particularly offensive; it | solemnly ejaculated, ‘Curse these branching streets |! must contain a great deal of volatile and nitrous salt. | the devil must have made them in the image of his was floating girls for intelligence and their fondness for each other, and thinking them both goats for agility, dexterity, and lightness of foot. The streets, meanwhile, became every moment dark- er and more deserted. ‘The curfew had lony since rung; and it was only at rare intervals that a passenger was met on the pavement, or a light seen at the windows. , | “stately and morose figure of the archdeacon passed Gringoire. in following the Egyptian, had involved himself in that inextricable labyrinth of lanes and alleys, and cross-ways, surrounding the ancient sepul- cher of the Holy Innocents, and which resembles a skein ofthread entangled by a pla cat. ‘* Here are streets which have very little logic!’’ said Gringoire, lost in their thousand meanders, through which, how- ever, the girl proceeded as along a way that was well known to her, and at a more and more rapid pace. For his part, he should not have had the remotest concep- tion of where he was, had he not perceived, on turning a corner; the octagon mass of the pillory of the Halles, the black open-work top of which wae distinctly de- fined against a window. still lighted in the Rue Verde- let. , , He had, by this time, begun to cttract-the notice of the young girl; she had more than once turned ier h and looked at him with some uneasiness; nay, she had stopped short and taken advantage of aray of light issuing from the half-open door of a bake-house, to scrutinize him attentively from head to foot. Grin- goire had seen her, atter this survey, pout her lip as she had done before, and then she passed on, This pretty grimace set Grinyoire about inquiring what it might denote. Jt certainly conveyed an ex- pression o n and dislike. He began, in conse- uence, to hang his head, as if to count the stones of the pavement, to drop further behind, when, on ing the corner of a street into which she had turned, he was startled by a piercing shriek. The street was extremely dark; a wick 8 d in oil, burn- B-sides, it is the opinion of Nicolas Flame) and of the | fork.’’ _ulehymists—— The word alchymists wh pa to his mind the idea! reddish light which he perceived at the extremity of a e of the archdeacon Claude Frollo. He bethought him of the violent scene which he had just witnessed; he recollected that the Bohemian was struggling between two men, thut Quasimodo had a companion; and the coufusedly before his imagination. extraordinary! thought he. And with this datum and long, narrow lane helped to cheer his spirits. This exclamation relieved him a little, and a kind of “God be praised !"’ said he, ‘**‘ yonderitis. Yonder is my pail- laisse burning !’’ And, comparing himself to the mari- ner who is wrecked in the night. ‘ Salve,’’ he piously | ejaculated, ‘* Salve maris stella!’ That would he) upon this foundation he began to erect the fantastic | edifice of hypotheses, that card-house of philosophers. Whetber this fragment ot the seaman’s hymu was addres-ed to the Blessed Virgin or to the puillasse ig more than we can take it upon us to decide. Before he had proceeded many steps down the long Then, suddenly recalled once more to reality, “‘Egad!’’ lane, which was slopping and unpaved, and which cried he, ‘I am freezing !"’ became more and more muddy the further he went, | The place in fact, was becoming less and and less lhe perceived something that had a most extra tenable. Each particle of the water in the kennel car- ried off a particle of radiating caloric from the loins of ' | ’ Gringoire ; and the equilibrum between the tempera- ture of his body and the temperature of the kenne! began to be established in a way that was: far from ofa totally different kind. A party of. boys, of those little bare-legged savages, who have in all ages padded the pavement of Paris by the name of gamins, and who, when we were boys too, threw stones at us in the evening as we left school, because our trousers were not in tatters like their own; a pee of these ragged urchins ran toward the spot where Gringoire lay, laughing, and whooping, and hallooing, and caring very little whether they disturbed the neighborhood or not, They were dragging atter them sometbing like an enormous bag: and the mere clattering of their wooden shoes would have been enough to wake the dead. Gringoire, who was not ab- solutely dead, propped himself up a little to see what was the matter. : 46 00! Henneqguin deche ! halloo, Jehan Pin- cebourde,” they bawled at the top of their voices, “ old ing in an iron cage at the foot of the Blessed Virgin, at Eustache Moubon, Hy. won ek at the corner is just the an to distinguish the Bohemian struggling in the grasp of two men,Who were striving to stifie her cries. The poor little goat, terrified at this attack, drooped her head, presented her horns, and bleated. | ~ **Watch! watch!’ shouted oire, boldly ad- vancing. One of the men who held the girl turned upon him. It was the formidable visage of Quasimodo, Gringo d not run away, neither did he advance an- other 8 op ee went up to him, and dealt him a back- xd blow, that sent him reeliny turee er four yards and stretched him sprawling upon the pavement; then, darting back, he caught up the young girl, and bore her off across one of his arms like a siiken scart. His companion followed, and tne poor goat ran after the three, bleating in a most plaintive manuer. “Murder! murder!” cried the untortunate gipsy rl. / “ Halt, scoundrels, and let the wench go!’’ suddenly roared, ina voice of thunder a horseman who came yer ae Fae! out of the next street. It was the cap- tain ie archers of the king’s ordinance, armed cap- Hay ewe ms sword im his hand. He snatched the Bohemian out of the grasp of the stupefied Quasi- modo, laid her across his saddle, and, at the moment when the formidable hunchback, recovering from his’ surprise, would have rusbed upon him to regain his prey, fifteen or sixteen archers, who followed close at the heels of their captain, came up armed with quarter- staves. It was part of.a company of the king’s ordi- nance, which did the duty of counter-watch, by the order of Messire Robert d’Estouteville, keeper of the provosty of Paris. - Quasimo’*o waeenraonaced. seized, an:‘l bound. He belloy ed, he foamed, Ne kicked, he bit; and had it been daylight, no doubt his face alone, rendered doubly hideous by rage would have sufficed to scare away the whole detachment; but night disarined him of his most formidable weapon, hia ugliness. His companion had disappeared during the struggle. ‘ The Bohemian yracefully herself upon the offi- cer’s saddle. Clapping her two hands upon his should- ers, she looked at him intently for a few moments, asif charmed with his handsome face, and grateful for the seasonable succor which he had afforded her. Then, ving a sweeter tone than usual to her sweet voice,she quired, ‘‘ what is your name, sir?” “ n Phebus de Chateaupers, at your service, my Ser,” ae the officer, drawing himself up to his full “Thank you,’’ said she; and while the captain was turning up his whiskers a da bourgaignonne, she slid down the horse's side to the ground, and vanished with the swiftness of lightning. CHAPTER V. _ BEQURL OF INCONVENIENCES. GRINGOIRE, stunned by his fall, was extended on the pavement before the good Virgin at the corner of the atreet. By degrees he came to himself. At first, he for soiie minutes in a kind of dreamy rev- erie, which was rather soothing, though the aerial fig- ures of the Bohemian and her goat were coupled wi the wéight of the ungeutle fist of 7 state was ofshort durition. A painful sensation of cold io that part of his budy which was in coutact with the | ner, like a e Of the street, nevertheless enabled Grinyoire | dead. We have. pot | : § paillasse and are going to make abonfireofit!’ | ‘ So saying, they threw down the paillasse precisely upon Gringoire, close to whom they had stopped with. out seeing him. At the same time, one of them took a handful of straw, and went to light it at the Virgin's lamp. ‘‘*Sdeath |" grumbled Gringoire, “I am likely to be hot enough poco ’ fetween fire and water he was certainly in a critical situation. He made a supernatural effort, the effort of a coiner who is going to bg boiled and strives to escape. He raised himself upon hie feet, threw back the pail- lasse upon the urchins and hobbled away as fast as he wae able, Sy “ Holy Virgin,” cried the boys, ** tis the ironmonger's host !"’ and off they scampered in their turn. The paill was lett in possesion of the field of battle. Belleforet, Father Le Juge, and Corrozet, re- late, that on the following day it was picked up with great pomp by the clergy of the quarter, and carried to the treaSure-house of the Church of St. Opportune, where the sacristan, down to year of 1789, made a very handsome income with the grand miracle per- formed by the statue of the Virgin at the corner of the Rue Mauconseil, which had, by its mere presence, in the memorable night between the 6th and the 7th of an , 1482, exorcised the spirit of Jehan Mouban, which, to play the devil a trick, had, when he died,, maliciously hid itself in his paillasse. prs ~ CHAPTER VI. THE' BROKEN JUG. AFTER running for some time as fast as his legs would carry him, without knowing whither, knocking his head against many a corner of astreet, plunging into many a kennel, dashing through many a lane, turni into many a blind alley, seeking a passage through the meanders of the old pavement of the Halles, ex- ploring, in his panic, what is terimed in the exquisite Latin of the charters tota via, cheminum, et viaria, our poetstopped short, in the first place for want of breath, and in the next collared, asit were, by a dilemma, which just occurred to his mind. “ it seemeth to me, Master Pierre Grin goire,’’ said he to himsel!, clapping his finger to the side of nose, *‘ that you are running about like a blockhead. The young rogues were not a whit less afraid of you than you of them. It seemeth to me, I tesl you, that you heard their wooden shoes clattering off to the south, while you are sendding away to the horth. Now, either they have run away, and then the puillasse, which they have no doubt left behind in their fright, is precisely the hospitable bed, for which you have been running abont ever since , and which the Virgin, blessed be her name ! miraculously sends to reward you for having composed in honor of her a morality accompanied by triumphs and mummeries ; or, the boys have not run away; in that case they have set fire to the paillasse ; and a good ; agreeable. All at once he wa8 assailed by an annoyance | came up with | ; } : ; | time, something o cece i te eal CNL CC AC LLL A LLL | BL TS A appearance. Here and there all the way along it, erawlel a number of indistinct and shapeless masses, proceeding toward the light at the bottom of the lane. Nothing makes aman so adventurous as an empty pocket. Gringoire. continued to advance, and soon 1¢ hindmost.of these strange figures, which was leisurely wriggling itself along the others. Ona near approach, be perceived it was only a wretched cripple in a bowl, who was hopping along ppon both eet At the ry pe when he was passing this species of spider with human face, it costed him in a lamentable tone: © signor! la buona magcia !"’ > “The devil fetch thee,"’ said Grin along with thee, if I know what thou meanest!”’ And he walked on. ; He overtook another of.those moving masses. This was a cripple, too—a man who had corres seek ens ation of legs and arms that the complicated system of rutches and wooden legs by which he was supported gave him the appearance of a w scaffold. Grin- goire, who was fond of lofty and classic comparisons, likened him in imagination to the living tripod of Vulcan. . tri took off hat to him as he This living | peenes, but held it up under Oire’s chin, like a ber's basin, at the same time bawling in his car ,’ ** Senor caballero, pe at og ae de pan!” — v ~Thig tellow,”-said Gringoire, “ seem be talkin: j too; but ‘tis an odd language, and é must be clevercy than Jam if he understands it. He would have ———— bis pace, but, for the third structed the way. This somethin or rather thie somebody, was a little blind n Jewish face and long beard, who, rowing on in the space around him with astick, and towed Sy & great doy, sang out with nasal twang aud Hungarian accent ; “ Facilote carita em.”’ eal — “Come,” said Pierre Gringoire, “here is one at last who speaks a Christian language. I must have aunost benevolent look tor people to ask charity of me, in this manuer, in the present meagre state of my My ‘blind man, , wit friend,’’ continued he, turning toward the “it is not a week since Isold my last shirt, or as you understand no language but Cicero's, Vendidihebdomade anger transita meam ultimam chemisam.”" ige his said, he turned his back on the blind man, and pursued his way. At the same time, howeyer, the nd man quickened his pace, and in a trice, up came the two cripples, in great haste, with a tremendous clatter of bowl and crutches upon the pavement. All three, jostling each other at the heels of Poor Gringoire, opened upon him at once, “ Cavit item!" sang the blind man.’ “ La buona mancia!”’ sang the man of the bowl. The other cripple jvined in the concert with “ Un pe- daso de pan!”’ 4 Gringoire stopped his ears. “* O tower of Babel !”’ ex- claimed he. | He beyan to run forit. Theblindmanran: The man of the bowl ran. The man with wooden legs ran. Presently he was surrounded by halt, and lame, and blind, by one-armed and one-eyed, aid | with their hideous sores, some issuing from h others from the atjoining courts, and others from cellars, howling, bellowing, yelping, hobling, rushing toward the light, and bedraggied with mire, like sn after a shower, Gringoire, still followed by his three persecutors and not kuowing what to think of the matter, walked on in some alarm amidst the others, turning aside, and passing the cripples on crutches, stepping over the eads of those in bowls, and e in this er. w.l of mping, shuffling wretches, like the lish captain who found himself suddenly surrounded by a prudig- ious host of landcrabs. The idea occurred to him to try to return. But it was too late. The whole legion had closed belhi» him, and his three mendicants stuck to him like bir lime. He proceeded, therefore, propelled at once } this irresis tide, by fear, and by a dizziness, whi made the whole scene appear to him like a horrib.. At he reached the extrémity of the lane. It fire is the very thing you want to warm, to dry, and to | opened into a spacious place, where a thousand scat- cheer the paillasse is a gift of en. It was h for this very reason that the V rahe of rgin at the corner of the Rue Mauconseil caused the death of Jehan Moubon ; and it is stupid of you to run your legs off in this man- card from 4 Frenchman, leaving behind ou. In either ou. ps good fire, or a good bed, | tered lights* flickered in the : | Gringoire pursued h inte it, he x sy th Tithe: u ay inte it, hoping e light- ness Of bis heels to from the turee ‘aee, ® peo- tres who stuck so Ne Aon: te | ieee “ Onde vas hombre ?’** ¢ oringle on crutches, throwing them down, and running r hin on two as GOMmiliGooo goire, ‘‘and me’ > com