The two attendants, accustomed to execute commands which required despatch, set out instantly on their journey, proceeding with all speed to Beaumont, and thence to Pontoise, where crossing the river Oise they soon after arrived at Meulan: and here a dispute arose concerning the necessity of calling upon two Exempts of that city to aid in arresting Philip the woodman, the one servant arguing that they had no such orders from their Lord, and the other replying that the said Philip might have twenty companions for aught they knew, who might resist their authority, they not being legally entitled to arrest his Majesty's lieges. This argument was too conclusive to be refuted; and they therefore waited at Meulan till the two Exempts were ready to accompany them. It being night when they arrived at Meulan, and the two Exempts being engaged in "potations deep and strong," drinking long life to the Cardinal de Richelieu, and success to the royal prisons of France, some time was of course spent before the party could proceed. However, after the lapse of about an hour, discussed no matter how, they all contrived to get into their saddles, and passing the bridge over the Seine, soon reached the first little village, whose white houses, conspicuous in the moon-light, seemed, on the dark back-ground of the forest, as if they had crept for protection into the very bosom of the wood; while it, sweeping round them on every side, appeared in its turn to afford them the friendly shelter that they sought. All was silence as they passed through the village, announcing plainly that its sober inhabitants were comfortably dozing away the darkness. This precluded them from asking their way to Philip's dwelling; but Chavigni had been so precise in his direction, that notwithstanding the wine-pots of Meulan, the two servants, in about half an hour after having entered the wood, recognized the _abreuvoir_ and cottage, with the long-felled oak and piece of broken ground, and all the other _et-cetera_, which entered into the description they had received. There is nothing half so amusing as the bustle with which little people carry on the trifles that are intrusted to them. They are so important, and so active, one would think that the world's turning round upon its axis depended upon them; while all the mighty business of the universe slips by as quietly as if the wheels were oiled; and the government of a nation is often decided over a cup of coffee, or the fate of empires changed by an extra bottle of Johanisberg.