Pagina 591 van 896

Happily, however, there was sleep in Beauvais that night to help

them out of it and they passed on once more into solitude and

loneliness: jingling through the untimely cold and wet, among

impoverished fields that had yielded no fruits of the earth that

year, diversified by the blackened remains of burnt houses, and

by the sudden emergence from ambuscade, and sharp reining up

across their way, of patriot patrols on the watch on all the

roads.

Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris. The barrier

was closed and strongly guarded when they rode up to it.

"Where are the papers of this prisoner?" demanded a

resolute-looking man in authority, who was summoned out by the

guard.

Naturally struck by the disagreeable word, Charles Darnay

requested the speaker to take notice that he was a free traveller

and French citizen, in charge of an escort which the disturbed

state of the country had imposed upon him, and which he had paid

for.