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 guardhouse 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 redcap, 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 redcap. “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.”