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BOOK THE THIRD
THE TRACK OF A STORM
CHAPTER I
In Secret
THE traveller fared slowly on his way, who fared towards Paris from England in the autumn of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two. More than enough of bad roads, bad equipages, and bad horses, he would have encountered to delay him, though the fallen and unfortunate King of France had been upon his throne in all his glory; but, the changed times were fraught with other obstacles than these. Every town-gate and village taxing-house had its band of citizen-patriots, with their national muskets in a most explosive state of readiness, who stopped all comers and goers, cross-questioned them, inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of their own, turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them in hold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for the dawning Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death.
A very few French leagues of his journey were accomplished, when Charles Darnay began to perceive that for him along these country roads there was no hope of return until he should have been declared a good citizen at Paris. Whatever might befall now, he must on to his journey's end. Not a mean village closed upon him, not a common barrier dropped across the road behind him, but he knew it to be another iron door in the series that was barred between him and England. The universal watchfulness so encompassed him, that if he had been taken in a net, or were being forwarded to his destination in a cage, he could not have felt his freedom more completely gone.
This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the highway twenty times in a stage, hut retarded his progress twenty times in a day, by riding after him and taking him back, riding before him and stopping him by anticipation, riding with him and keeping him in charge. He had been days upon his journey in France alone, when he went to bed tired out, in a little town on the high road, still a long way from Paris.
Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle's letter from his prison of the Abbaye would have got him on so far. His difficulty at the guard-house in this small place had been such, that he felt his journey to have come to a crisis. And he was, therefore, as little surprised as a man could be, to find himself awakened at the small inn to which he had been remitted until morning, in the middle of the night.
Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed patriots in rough red caps and with pipes in their mouths, who sat down on the bed.
`Emigrant,' said the functionary, `I am going to send you on to Paris, under an escort.'
`Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though I could dispense with the escort.'
`Silence!' growled a red-cap, striking at the coverlet with the butt-end of his musket. `Peace, aristocrat!'
`It is as the good patriot says,' observed the timid functionary. `You are an aristocrat, and must have an escort-and must pay for it.'
`I have no choice,' said Charles Darnay.
`Choice, Listen to him!' cried the same scowling red-cap. `As if it was not a favour to be protected from the lamp-iron!'
`It is always as the good patriot says,' observed the functionary. `Rise and dress yourself, emigrant.'
Darnay complied, and was taken back to the guard-house, where other patriots in rough red caps were smoking, drinking, and sleeping, by a watch-fire. Here he paid a heavy price for his escort, and hence he started with it on the wet, wet roads at three o'clock in the morning.
The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tricoloured cockades, armed with national muskets and sabres, who rode one on either side of him. The escorted governed his own horse, but a loose line was attached to his bridle, the end of which one of the patriots kept girded round his wrist. In this state they set forth with the sharp rain driving in their faces: clattering at a heavy dragoon trot over the uneven town pavement, and out upon the mire-deep roads. In this state they traversed without change, except of horses and pace, all the mire-deep leagues that lay between them and the capital.
They travelled in the night, halting an hour or two after daybreak, and lying by until the twilight fell. The escort were so wretchedly clothed, that they twisted straw round their bare legs, and thatched their ragged shoulders to keep the wet off Apart from the personal discomfort of being so attended, and apart from such considerations of present danger as arose from one of the patriots being chronically drunk, and carrying his musket very recklessly, Charles Darnay did not allow the restraint that was laid upon him to awaken any serious fears in his breast; for, he reasoned with himself that it could have no reference to the merits of an individual case that was not yet stated, and of representations, confirmable by the prisoner in the Abbaye, that were not yet made.
But when they canto to the town of Beauvais--which they did at eventide, when the streets were filled with people--he could not `conceal from himself that the aspect of affairs was very alarming. An ominous crowd gathered to see him dismount at the posting-yard, and many voices called out loudly, `Down with the emigrant!'
He stopped in the act of swinging himself out of his saddled and, resuming it as his safest place, said:
`Emigrant, my friends! Do you not see me here, in France, of my own will?'
`You are a cursed emigrant,' cried a farrier, making at him In a furious manner through the press, hammer in hand; `and you are a cursed aristocrat!'
The postmaster interposed himself between this man and the rider's bridle (at which he was evidently making), and soothingly said, `Let him be; let him be! He will be judged at Paris.'
`Judged!' repeated the farrier, swinging his hammer. `Ay! and condemned as a traitor.' At this the crowd roared approval.
Checking the postmaster, who was for turning his horse's head to the yard (the drunken patriot sat composedly in his saddle looking on, with the line round his wrist), Darnay said, as soon as he could make his voice heard:
`Friends, you deceive yourselves, or you are deceived. I am not a traitor.'
`He lies!' cried the smith. `He is a traitor since the decree. His life is forfeit to the people. His cursed life is not his own!'
At the instant when Darnay saw a rush in the eyes of the crowd, which another instant would have brought upon him, the postmaster turned his horse into the yard, the escort rode in close upon his horse's flanks, and the postmaster shut and barred the crazy double gates. The farrier struck a blow upon them with his hammer, and the crowd groaned; but, no more was done.
`What is this decree that the smith spoke of?' Darnay asked the postmaster, when he had thanked him, and stood beside him in the yard.
`Truly, a decree for selling the property of emigrants.'
`When passed?'
`On the fourteenth.'
`The day I left England!'
