in the name
of Heaven, what is it that brings you? A Treasure?--exploratory pickets
shake their heads. The hungry Peasants, however, know too well what
Treasure it is: Military seizure for rents, feudalities; which no
Bailiff could make us pay! This they know;--and set to jingling their
Parish-bell by way of tocsin; with rapid effect! Choiseul and Goguelat,
if the whole country is not to take fire, must needs, be there Berline,
be there no Berline, saddle and ride.

They mount; and this Parish tocsin happily ceases. They ride slowly
Eastward, towards Sainte-Menehould; still hoping the Sun-Chariot of
a Berline may overtake them. Ah me, no Berline! And near now is that
Sainte-Menehould, which expelled us in the morning, with its 'three
hundred National fusils;' which looks, belike, not too lovingly on
Captain Dandoins and his fresh Dragoons, though only French;--which,
in a word, one dare not enter the second time, under pain of explosion!
With rather heavy heart, our Hussar Party strikes off to the left;
through byways, through pathless hills and woods, they, avoiding
Sainte-Menehould and all places which have seen them heretofore, will
make direct for the distant Village of Varennes. It is probable they
will have a rough evening-ride.

This first military post, therefore, in the long thunder-chain, has gone
off with no effect; or with worse, and your chain threatens to entangle
itself!--The Great Road, however, is got hushed again into a kind of
quietude, though one of the wakefullest. Indolent Dragoons cannot, by
any Quartermaster, be kept altogether from the dramshop; where Patriots
drink, and will even treat, eager enough for news. Captains, in a state
near distraction, beat the dusky highway, with a face of indifference;
and no Sun-Chariot appears. Why lingers it? Incredible, that with eleven
horses and such yellow Couriers and furtherances, its rate should be
under the weightiest dray-rate, some three miles an hour! Alas, one
knows not whether it ever even got out of Paris;--and yet also one knows
not whether, this very moment, it is not at the Village-end! One's heart
flutters on the verge of unutterabilities.

Chapter 2.4.VI.

Old-Dragoon Drouet.

In this manner, however, has the Day bent downwards. Wearied mortals
are creeping home from their field-labour; the village-artisan eats with
relish his supper of herbs, or has strolled forth to the village-street
for a sweet mouthful of air and human news. S