o rouse in him the
moral courage which would have promptly rescued him from the toils of
the cunning headsman. The broken slumber into which he fell before
morning was haunted by boding forms and tragic incidents. The sword, the
axe, the scaffold, and the rack, flitted around him in quick procession,
and seemed to close every avenue to escape. He awoke from these visions
of horror at daybreak, and left his bed as wearied in body, and as
irresolute in mind, as when he entered it. Dreading alike a renewal of
the executioner's proposal, and the risk of being arrested and tried for
murder, he saw no alternative but flight--immediate flight beyond the
bounds of France. While pondering over the best means of accomplishing
this now settled purpose, the tin weathercock upon the roof of his
bedroom creaked in the morning breeze. Florian, to whose excited fancy
the headsman's sword was ever present, thought he heard it jar against
the axe, and started in sudden terror. "Whither shall I fly?" he
exclaimed, as tears of agony rolled down his cheeks--"where find
a refuge from the sword of justice? Alas! my doom is fixed and
unalterable. Anvil or hammer I must be, and I have not courage to
become either."

Again the weathercock creaked above him, and more intelligibly than
before. Florian, discovering the simple cause of his terrors, rallied
his drooping spirits, and hastened down-stairs to order his horse, that
he might leave the hotel and the town before the promised visit of the
fearful headsman. Notwithstanding his urgency, he found his departure
unaccountably delayed. The servants were not visible, and the landlord,
insisting that he should take a warm breakfast before his departure, was
so dilatory in preparing it, that a full hour elapsed before Florian
rode out of the stable-yard. His officious host then persisted in
sending a boy to show him the nearest way to the town gate; and the
impatient traveller, who would gladly have declined the offer, found
himself obliged to submit. His guide accompanied him to the extremity
of the small suburb beyond the eastern gate, and quitted him; while
Florian, whose ever-ready apprehensions had been roused by the tenacious
civility of the landlord, rode slowly forward, looking around
occasionally at his returning guide, and determining to take the first
cross-road he could find. A little farther he discovered the entrance
of a narrow lane, shaded by a double row of lofty chestnuts; and as he