I am not a scholar.'

`Again; on the other hand, they whisper at the fountain,' resumed the countryman, `that he is brought down into our country to be executed on the spot, and that he will very certainly be executed. They even whisper that because he has slain Monseigneur, and because Monseigneur was the father of his tenants--serfs--what you will--he will be executed as a parricide. One old man says at the fountain, that his right hand, armed with the knife, will be burnt off before his face; that, into wounds which will be made in his arms, his breast, and his legs, there will be poured boiling oil, melted lead, hot resin, wax, and sulphur; finally, that he will be torn limb from limb by four strong horses. That old man says, all this was actually done to a prisoner who made an attempt on the life of the late King, Louis Fifteen. But how do I know if he lies?

I am not a scholar.'

`Listen once again then, Jacques!' said the man with the restless hand and the craving air. `The name of that prisoner was Damiens, and it was all done in open day, in the open streets of this city of Paris; and nothing was more noticed in the vast concourse that saw it done, than the crowd of ladies of quality and fashion, who were full of eager attention to the last--to the last, Jacques, prolonged until nightfall, when he had lost two legs and an arm, and still breathed! And it was done--why, how old are you?'

`Thirty-five,' said the mender of roads, who looked sixty.

`It was done when you were more than ten years old; you might have seen it.'

`Enough!' said Defarge, with grim impatience. `Long live the Devil! Go on.'

`Well! Some whisper this, some whisper that; they sped of nothing else; even the fountain appears to fall to that tune. At length, on Sunday night when all the village is asleep, come soldiers, winding down from the prison, and their guns ring on the stones of the little street. Workmen dig, workmen hammer, soldiers laugh and sing; in the morning, by the fountain, there is raised a gallows forty feet high, poisoning the water.'

The mender of roads looked through rather than at the low ceiling, and pointed as if he saw the gallows somewhere in the sky.

`All work is stopped, all assemble there, nobody leads the cows out, the cows are there with the rest. At midday, the roll of drums. Soldiers have marched into the prison in the night, and he is in the midst of many soldiers. He is bound as before, and in his mouth there is a gag--tied so, with a tight string, making him look almost as if he laughed.' He suggested it, by creasing his face with his two thumbs, from the corners of his mouth to his ears. `On the top of the gallows is fixed the knife, blade upwards, with its point in the air. He is hanged there forty feet high--and is left hanging, poisoning the water.