He says little of the blows with which his offences were punished by his
master, but he says enough to enable us to discern that they were
terrible to him. This cowardice, if we choose to give the name to an
overmastering physical horror, at length brought his apprentice days to
an end. He was now in his sixteenth year. He was dragged by his comrades
into sports for which he had little inclination, though he admits that
once engaged in them he displayed an impetuosity that carried him beyond
the others. Such pastimes naturally led them beyond the city walls, and
on two occasions Rousseau found the gates closed on his return. His
master when he presented himself in the morning gave him such greeting
as we may imagine, and held out things beyond imagining as penalty for a
second sin in this kind. The occasion came, as, alas, it nearly always
does. "Half a league from the town," says Rousseau, "I hear the retreat
sounded, and redouble my pace; I hear the drum beat, and run at the top
of my speed: I arrive out of breath, bathed in sweat; my heart beats
violently, I see from a distance the soldiers at their post, and call
out with choking voice. It was too late. Twenty paces from the outpost
sentinel, I saw the first bridge rising. I shuddered, as I watched those
terrible horns, sinister and fatal augury of the inevitable lot which
that moment was opening for me."[21]

In manhood when we have the resource of our own will to fall back upon,
we underestimate the unsurpassed horror and anguish of such moments as
this in youth, when we know only the will of others, and that this will
is inexorable against us. Rousseau dared not expose himself to the
fulfilment of his master's menace, and he ran away (1728). But for this,
wrote the unhappy man long years after, "I should have passed, in the
bosom of my religion, of my native land, of my family, and my friends, a
mild and peaceful life, such as my character required, in the uniformity
of work which suited my taste, and of a society after my heart. I should