424 Les Miserables
He followed the road-mender’s advice, retraced his steps,
and, half an hour later, he passed the same spot again, but
this time at full speed, with a good horse to aid; a stable-
boy, who called himself a postilion, was seated on the shaft
of the cariole.
Still, he felt that he had lost time.
Night had fully come.
They turned into the cross-road; the way became fright-
fully bad; the cart lurched from one rut to the other; he said
to the postilion:—
‘Keep at a trot, and you shall have a double fee.’
In one of the jolts, the whiffle-tree broke.
‘There’s the whiffle-tree broken, sir,’ said the postilion; ‘I
don’t know how to harness my horse now; this road is very
bad at night; if you wish to return and sleep at Tinques, we
could be in Arras early to-morrow morning.’
He replied, ‘Have you a bit of rope and a knife?’
‘Yes, sir.’
He cut a branch from a tree and made a whiffle-tree of
it.
This caused another loss of twenty minutes; but they set
out again at a gallop.
The plain was gloomy; low-hanging, black, crisp fogs
crept over the hills and wrenched themselves away like
smoke: there were whitish gleams in the clouds; a strong
breeze which blew in from the sea produced a sound in all
quarters of the horizon, as of some one moving furniture;
everything that could be seen assumed attitudes of terror.
How many things shiver beneath these vast breaths of the