Germinal, by Émile Zola  Chapter 6  JEANLIN was now well and
able to walk; but his legs had united so badly that he limped on
both the right and left sides, and moved with the gait of a
duck, though running as fast as formerly with the skill of a
mischievous and thieving animal.  On this evening, in the dusk
on the Réquillart road, Jeanlin, accompanied by his inseparable
friends, Bébert and Lydie, was on the watch. He had taken ambush
in a vacant space, behind a paling opposite an obscure grocery
shop, situated at the corner of a lane. An old woman who was
nearly blind displayed there three or four sacks of lentil sand
beans, black with dust; and it was an ancient dried codfish,
hanging by the door and stained with fly-blows, to which his
eyes were directed. Twice already he had sent Bébert to unhook
it. But each time someone had appeared at the bend in the road.
Always intruders in the way, one could not attend to one’s
affairs.  A gentleman went by on horseback, and the children
flattened themselves at the