aced it on his own, while he crowned
me with a villainous straw thing that nothing save my bondage prevented
me from hurling at his feet.

He now hurried forward after the others, and in a few minutes I was in
perfect solitude.

'Well,' thought I (it was my first thought), 'it might all have been
worse; the wretches might have murdered me, for such reckless devils as
practise their trade care little for human life. Murder, too, would only
meet the same punishment as smuggling, or nearly so--a year more or a
year less at the galleys; and, after all, the night is fine, and if I
mistake not he said something about the moon.' I wondered where was the
pretty countess--travelling away, probably, as hard as extra post could
bring her. Ah, she little thought of my miserable plight now! Then came
a little interval of softness; and then a little turn of indignation at
my treatment--that I, an Englishman, should be so barbarously molested;
a native of the land where freedom was the great birthright of every
one! I called to mind all the fine things Burke used to say about
liberty, and if I had not begun to feel so cold I'd have tried to sing
'Rule, Britannia,' just to keep up my spirits; and then I fell asleep,
if sleep it could be called--that frightful nightmare of famished wolves
howling about me, tearing and mangling revenue-officers; and grisly
bears running backward and forward with smuggled tobacco on their backs.
The forest seemed peopled by every species of horrible shapes--half men,
half beast--but all with straw hats on their heads and leather gaiters
on their legs.

However, the night passed over, and the day began to break; the purple
tint, pale and streaky, that announces the rising sun, was replacing the
cold grey of the darker hours. What a different thing it is, to be sure,
to get out of your bed deliberately, and rubbing your eyes for two
or three minutes with your fingers, as you stand at the half-closed
curtain, and then through the mist of your sleep look out upon the east,
and think you see the sun rising, and totter back to the comfortable
nest again, the whole incident not breaking your sleep, but merely being
interwoven with your dreams, a thing to dwell on among other pleasant
fancies, and to be boasted of the whole day afterwards--what a different
thing it is, I say, from the sensations of him who has been up all night
in the mail; shaken, bruised, and cramped; sat on by the fat man, and
kicked by the