weeping, there is the heavy breathing of the insensible traveller.

“Are we not going too slowly? Can they not be induced to go

faster?” asks Lucie, clinging to the old m an.

“It would seem like flight, my darling. I must not urge them too

much; it would rouse suspicion.”

“Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued!”

“The road is clear my dearest. So far, we are not pursued.”

Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruinous

buildings, dye-works, tanneries, and the like. open country,

avenues of leafless trees. The hard uneven pavement is under us,

the soft deep mud is on either side. Sometimes, we strike into the

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

skirting mud. to avoid the stones that clatter us and shake us;

sometimes we stick in ruts and sloughs there. The agony of our

impatience is then so great, that in our wild alarm and hurry we

are for getting out and runninghidingdoing anything but

stopping.

Out of the open country, in again among ruinous buildings,

solitary farms, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, cottages in twos

and threes, avenues of leafless trees. Have these men deceived us,

and taken us back by another road? Is not this the same place

twice over? Thank Heaven, no. A village. Look back, look back,

and see if we are pursued! Hush! the posting-house.

Leisurely, our four horses are ta