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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.