In one word, he will not go with you;
if as you say, you intend to drag him across the market-place, you will
find that you have enough to do. Peter Berrier has many friends in St.
Florent."
The corporal again looked round, and he saw that the men under arms now
stretched from the front of the barracks, nearly into the square; but
he also saw that the inhabitants of the town were standing clustering
at all the doors, and that men were crowding towards the square from the
different inlets. Four or five of the more respectable inhabitants had
also joined the group in the gateway, from the hands of one of whom the
postillion quietly took a stout ash stick. The corporal, however, was
not a coward, and he saw that, if he intended to return with Peter
Berrier, he should not delay his work with any further parley, so he
took his pistol from his belt and cocked it, and, stepping quite close
to Berrier, said,
"Come men--forward, and bring him off; one man to each shoulder," and
he himself seized hold of the breast of Peter's coat with his left hand
and pulled him forward a step or two.
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