A swampy day it was to be. The drops soon fell so thickly that heaven seemed shut from us by a skylight of blurred glass. The interval from cloud to earth was like a glaze upon the superficies of a fire-baked sphere. The starved clammy fields shone livid; the highway ran, literally; the poplars that skirted it were mere leafy piles in a lagoon. Then the wind rose, shouldering us forward and bombarding us from the rear in recurrent volleys, till I, at least, felt like a fugitive saurian escaping from the Deluge with my wet tail between my legs. I looked at my comrade, the delicate gallant lady. Her hair was whipped about her face, her skirt about her ankles. The red cap on her head, with which Gusman had provided her, hung over like the comb of a vanquished cockerel. She was not vanquished, however. Her white teeth clicked a little with the cold; but when she became conscious of my gaze, she returned it with an ardour of the sweetest drollery. “_Enfin, mon p’tit Thibaut_,” she said; “I prefer Liberty in her chilly moods, though she make a _noyade_ of us.” “It is almost come to that. With a brave effort, it seems, we might rise to the clouds by our own buoyancy. Take a long breath, Carinne. Canst thou swim?” She laughed and stopped a moment, and took me by the hands. “I should be able to,” she said; “I feel so like a fish, or a lizard, whose skin is a little loose on his body. Am I not a dreadful sight, Jean-Louis?” “Thou art never anything but beautiful in my eyes.” “Fie, then, fie then! cannot I see myself in them! Very small and very ugly, Jean-Louis--an imp of black waters.” “And I see babies in thine, Carinne. That is what the peasants call them. And I never loved my own image so well as now. It has a little blue sky to itself to spite the reality. It is a fairy peeping from a flower. _Ma mie_, and art thou so very cold and hungry?” “Truly, my teeth go on munching the air for lack of anything better.” “It is pitiful. We must brave the next town or village to procure food. There are no berries here, Carinne; no little conies to catch in a springe of withe and spit for roasting on an old sabre; and if there were, we must not stop to catch them.” “It is true we must eat, then. The plunge has to be made--for liberty or death. _Formez vos bataillons!_ Advance, M. le Comte, with thy heart jumping to the hilt of thy sword!” She cried out merrily. She was my own, my property, the soul of my confidence; yet I could have cheered her in the face of a multitude as (God forgive the comparison!) the mob cheered the _guenipe_ Théroigne when she entered the Bastille. So, once more we drove and were driven forward; and presently, six miles north of St Denis, down we came, with stout courage, I hope, upon the village of Écouen, and into immediate touch with that fortune that counselled us so amiably in the crisis of our affairs.