night to help them out of it, and they passed on once more into

solitude and loneliness: jingling through the untimely cold and

wet, among impoverished fields that had yielded no fruits of the

earth that year, diversified by the blackened remains of burnt

houses, and by the sudden emergence from ambuscade, and sharp

reining up across their way, of patriot patrols on the watch on all

the roads.

Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris. The barrier

was closed and strongly guarded when they rode up to it.

“Where are the papers of this prisoner?” demanded a resolutelooking

man in authority, who was summoned out by the guard.

Naturally struck by the disagreeable word, Charles Darnay

requested the speaker to take notice that he was a free traveller

and French citizen, in charge of an escort which the disturbed

state of the country had imposed upon him, and which he had paid

for.

“Where,” repeated the same personage, without taking any

heed of him whatever, “are the papers of this prisoner?”

The drunken patriot had them in his cap, and produced them.

Casting his eyes over Gabelle’s letter, the same personage in

authority showed some disorder and surprise and looked at

Darnay with a close attention.

He left escort and escorted without saying a word, however,

and went into the guard-room; meanwhile they sat upon their

horses outside the gate. Looking about him while in this state of

suspense, Charles Darnay observed that the gate was held by a

mixed guard of soldiers and patriots, the latter far outnumbering

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the former; and that while ingress into the city for peasants’ carts

bringing in supplies, and for similar traffic and traffickers, was

easy enough, egress, even for the homeliest people, was very

difficult. A numerous medley of men and women, not to mention

beasts and vehicles of various sorts, was waiting to issue forth; but

the previous identification was so strict, that they filtered through

the barrier very slowly. Some of these people knew their turn for

examination to be so far off, that they lay down on the ground to

sleep or smoke, while others talked together, or loitered about.

The red cap and tricolour cockade were universal, both among

men and women.

When he had sat in his saddle some half-hour, taking note of

these things, Darnay found himself confronted by the same man in

authority, who directed the guard to open the barrier. Then he

delivered to the escort, drunk and sober, a receipt for the escorted

and requested him to dismount. He did so, and the two patriots,

leading his tired horse, turned and rode away without entering the

city.

He accompanied his conductor into a guard-room, smelling of

common wine and tobacco, where certain soldiers and patriots,

asleep and awake, drunk and sober, and in various neutral states

between sleeping and waking, drunkenness and sobriety, were