Page:Colas breugnon.djvu/242

228 cruelty and cowardice: this made bad feeling between us, for they knew, of course, how I felt. I longed to wipe it all out, and behave as if nothing had happened, but as that could not be, we all went about in the altered town, under the heat and languor of late summer.

Racquin had been sent to Nevers for trial; but it was a question whether he fell under the jurisdiction of the Duke or the King, so he stood a fair chance of getting off scot free. Our county authorities were kind enough to overlook my illegal conduct;—for it seems that in saving Clamecy that night, I had committed half a dozen crimes, any one of which would have been enough to bring me to the galleys;—but as none of this could have happened if they themselves had remained at the post of duty, they decided to pass it over in silence; a decision in which I naturally acquiesced. The less I have to do with courts of justice the better, I always think; for you never know how a trial will turn out, and innocence itself is no real protection. If you once get your little finger into the cursed machinery of the law, you are like to lose the whole arm, and you may have to cut that off to save your body: so between their lordships and myself there was a tacit agreement that they had seen nothing out of the way while I was Captain of Clamecy: