Sentence:  [T]he tatterdemalion <WSD>knight of the road</WSD>, who sleeps in haystacks and mends broken china in exchange for food, runs afoul of the gendarmerie and probably would have been sent off to the Bastille had not the banking Rothschilds, hearing of their ragged namesake, been so amused that they gave him a check drawn on the family house for 2,000 francs. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A hobo.