being anxious to push on and reach my
journey's end before nightfall. I am as hungry as a bear, and will be
glad of anything, no matter what."

"I have not much to put before you, my lord, and I fear that you
will find it but sorry fare after the delicacies you must have been
accustomed to in Paris; but though it will not be tempting, nor over
savoury, it will at least satisfy your hunger."

"That is all that can be required of any food," answered de Sigognac,
"and I am not as ungrateful as you seem to think, my good Pierre, to the
frugal fare of my youth, which has certainly made me healthy, vigorous,
and strong. Bring out what you have, and serve it as proudly as if it
were of the choicest and daintiest; I will promise to do honour to it,
for I am desperately hungry."

The old servant bustled about joyously, and quickly had the table ready
for his master; then stood behind his chair, while he ate and drank
with a traveller's appetite, as proudly erect as if he had been a grand
major-domo waiting on a prince. According to the old custom, Miraut
and Beelzebub, stationed on the right and on the left, watched their
master's every motion, and received a share of everything that was on
the table. The great kitchen was lighted, not very brilliantly, by a
torch, stuck in an iron bracket just inside the broad, open chimney, so
that the smoke should escape through it and not fill the room, and the
scene was so exactly a counterpart of the one described at the beginning
of this narrative, that the baron, struck with the perfect resemblance,
fancied that he must have been dreaming, and had never quitted his
ancient chateau at all. Everything was precisely as he had left it,
excepting that the nettles and weeds had grown a little taller, and
the cobweb draperies a little more voluminous; all else was unchanged.
Unconsciously lapsing into the old ways, de Sigognac fell into a deep
reverie after he had finished his simple repast, which Pierre, as of
old, respected, and even Miraut and Beelzebub did not venture to intrude
upon. All that had occurred since he last sat at his own table passed in
review before him, but seemed like adventures that he had read of, not
actually participated in himself. It had all passed into the background.
Captain Fracasse, already nearly obliterated, appeared like a pale
spectre in the far distance; his combats with the Duke of Vallombreuse
seemed equally unreal. In fine, everything that he had seen,