Sample
from
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Raintree English Readers
Grade 5
retold by
Colin Swatridge
The beggar king
Suddenly Gringoire realized that, on one side of him, there was a beggar with one arm. He was speaking to him in a strange language. Then there was another; he had one leg. Then a blind man appeared, and a man with no legs at all who was pushing himself along on a small wheeled cart. In minutes, Gringoire felt he had half the beggars of Paris following him. He tried to run but he was surrounded. He tried to tell them that he had no money, but they wouldn't listen. They drove him forward until he found himself in a square that he had never seen before --a square full of people speaking a strange language, sitting and standing around many small fires.
In truth it was a square that respectable people never entered --and certainly not at night. To poor Gringoire it looked as if he had fallen into hell. The houses round the square were old and seemed to lean on each other. There were tables round the fires, with jugs of wine and beer on them. There was singing and quarrelling, dancing and fighting going on on all sides.
'If I had a purse,' Gringoire thought to himself, 'I would give it to them, and they would let me go. As it is, I shall be lucky to escape with my life.'
'Take him to the king!' one beggar shouted.
'Yes, take him to the king!' the other beggars joined in.
More of this story in
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
retold by
Colin Swatridge
Raintree English Readers
Grade 5
ISBN 967 65 4165 6
This text is copyright Penerbit Fajar Bakti Sdn. Bhd. (008974-T) 1997.
If you can read this sample easily, you can enjoy any Raintree English Reader from Grade 1 through to Grade 5.
Return to the Raintree English Readers bibliography
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