They turned into the crossroad; the way became frightfully 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 whiffletree broke.

“There’s the whiffletree 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 tomorrow morning.”

He replied, “Have you a bit of rope and a knife?”

“Yes, sir.”

He cut a branch from a tree and made a whiffletree of it.

This caused another loss of twenty minutes; but they set out again at a gallop.