Rupert paused for two minutes before commencing his flight, and
kneeling down, thanked God for his escape. Then he climbed the low
ramparts, dropped beyond them, and struck across country. The
exercise soon sent the blood dancing through his hands again, and
by the morning he was thirty-five miles from Loches.
He had stopped once, a mile or two after starting, when he came to
a stream. Into this he had waded, and had washed the muck stains
from his clothes, hair, and face.
With the morning dawn his clothes were dry, and he presented to the
eye an aspect similar to that which he wore when captured at Blois
nearly a year before, of a dilapidated and broken-down soldier, for
he had retained in prison the clothes he wore when captured; but
they had become infinitely more dingy from the wear and tear of
prison, and the soaking had destroyed all vestige of colour.
Presently he came to a mill by a stream.
"Hallo!" the miller said cheerily, from his door. "You seem to have
been in the wars, friend."
"I have in my way," Rupert said. "I was wounded in Flanders. I have
been home to Bordeaux, and got cured again. I started for the army
again, and some tramps who slept in the same room with me robbed me
of my last shilling. To complete my disaster, last night, not
having money to pay for a bed, I tramped on, fell into a stream,
and was nearly drowned."
"Come in," said the miller. "Wife, here is a poor fellow out of
luck.
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