The
original color of coach and running-gear was an insoluble enigma. Two
leather curtains, very difficult to adjust in spite of their long
service, were supposed to protect the occupants from cold and rain.
The driver, perched on a plank seat like those of the worst Parisian
"coucous," shared in the conversation by reason of his position
between his victims, biped and quadruped. The equipage presented
various fantastic resemblances to decrepit old men who have gone
through a goodly number of catarrhs and apoplexies and whom death
respects; it moaned as it rolled, and squeaked spasmodically. Like a
traveller overtaken by sleep, it rocked alternately forward and back,
as though it tried to resist the violent action of two little Breton
horses which dragged it along a road which was more than rough. This
monument of a past era contained three travellers, who, on leaving
Ernee, where they had changed horses, continued a conversation begun
with the driver before reaching the little town.
"What makes you think the Chouans are hereabouts?" said the coachman.
"The Ernee people tell me that Commandant Hulot has not yet started
from Fougeres."
"Ho, ho, friend driver!" said the youngest of the travellers, "you
risk nothing but your own carcass! If you had a thousand francs about
you, as I have, and were known to be a good patriot, you wouldn't take
it so easy.
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