weeping, there is the heavy breathing of the insensible traveller.

“Are we not going too slowly? Can they not be induced to go

faster?” asks Lucie, clinging to the old m an.

“It would seem like flight, my darling. I must not urge them too

much; it would rouse suspicion.”

“Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued!”

“The road is clear my dearest. So far, we are not pursued.”

Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruinous

buildings, dye-works, tanneries, and the like. open country,

avenues of leafless trees. The hard uneven pavement is under us,

the soft deep mud is on either side. Sometimes, we strike into the

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

skirting mud. to avoid the stones that clatter us and shake us;

sometimes we stick in ruts and sloughs there. The agony of our

impatience is then so great, that in our wild alarm and hurry we

are for getting out and runninghidingdoing anything but

stopping.

Out of the open country, in again among ruinous buildings,

solitary farms, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, cottages in twos

and threes, avenues of leafless trees. Have these men deceived us,

and taken us back by another road? Is not this the same place

twice over? Thank Heaven, no. A village. Look back, look back,

and see if we are pursued! Hush! the posting-house.

Leisurely, our four horses are taken out; leisurely, the coach

stands in the little street, bereft of horses, and with no likelihood

upon it of ever moving again; leisurely, the new horses come into

visible existence, one by one; leisurely, the new postilions follow,

sucking and plaiting the lashes of their whips; leisurely, the old

postilions count their money, make wrong additions, and arrive at

dissatisfied results. All the time, our overfraught hearts are

beating at a rate that would far outstrip the fastest gallop of the

fastest horses ever foaled.

At length the new postilions are in their saddles, and the old are

left behind. We are through the village, up the hill, and down the

hill, and on the low watery grounds. Suddenly the postilions

exchange speech with animated gesticulations, and the horses are

pulled up, almost on their haunches. We are pursued?

“Ho! Within the carriage there. Speak then!”

“What is it?” asks Mr. Lorry, looking out at window.

“How many did they say?”

“I do not understand you.”

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“At the last post. How many to the Guillotine today?”

“Fifty-two.”

“I said so! A brave number! My fellow-citizen here would have

it forty-two; ten more heads are worth having. The Guillotine goes

handsomely. I love it. Hi forward. Whoop!”

The night comes on dark. He moves more; he is beginning to

revive, and to speak intelligibly; he thinks they are still together;

he asks him, by his name, what he has in his hand. O pity us, kind