“Well, we are one to one,” said he in sudden decision, and came splashing out on the Coutras side. The moment he climbed up the bank I closed with him. He was fairly handicapped by his liquid load, and out of breath and of conceit with his luck besides. He aimed a blow at me with his pistol-butt, but I easily avoided it and let him topple his length again--assisting him in fact--but this time in the dust. Then I sat on him, and threatened his head with a great stone. “_Pouf!_” said he, panting. “I protest I am no adept at this business.” “Is it your only one?” said I. “At this date, yes.” “So--you have been an honest man? And what more can a patriot boast of?” I whistled and called to my companions. My prisoner looked amazed. “You are not alone!” he exclaimed. “By no means. My escort is round the curve of the road there.” He seemed to collapse under me. “_Merci, monsieur!_” he muttered, “_merci!_” “What, in these days!” He dared his chance of the stone, and began to struggle violently. I doubt if I could have held him long if Crépin and one of the postilions had not come running up to my shout. A few words were enough to explain the situation, and we conducted the fellow to the carriage and strapped him upon one of the horses in a way compromising to his dignity. And so he became of our party when we moved on once more. * * * * * * * Coutras clacks with mills and is musical with weirs. The spirit of the warlike king yet informs its old umber walls and toppling houses. I found it a place so fragrant with antique and with natural beauties, that my heart wept over the present human degeneracy that vulgarised it. It lies amongst the last distant swells, as it were, of the great billows of the Auvergne mountains, before those swells have rolled themselves to waste in the sombre flats of the Landes. It is the hill-slope garden on the fringe of the moor; the resting-place of the sea and the high-rock winds; the hostelry where these meet and embrace and people the vineyards with baby breezes. It has grown old listening under its great chestnuts to the sweet thunder of the Isle and the Dronne. Its peasants, pagan in their instinct for beauty, train their vines up the elm and walnut trees, that in autumn they may dance under a dropping rain of grapes. At the same time, I am bound to confess that their wine suffers for the sake of this picturesqueness. Now, as we entered it by moonlight, it was a panic town, restless, scurrying, lurid. The new spirit ran vile and naked in its venerable streets; the air was poisonous with the breath of _ça ira_. For, since we left Paris, this had happened. The Girondists were fallen and hunted men, and Tallien and Ysabeau were at La Réole, preparing for a descent on Bordeaux. We learned it all at the gate, and also that the spies and agents of these scoundrels were everywhere abroad, nosing after the escaped deputies, bullying, torturing, and denouncing.