“To the back entrance,” called out D'Esmonde. And they drove into a spacious courtyard, where a number of men were engaged in washing carriages, cleaning horses, and all the other duties of the stable. One large and cumbrous vehicle, loaded with all the varied “accessories” of the road, and fortified by many a precaution against the accidents of the way, stood prominent. It was covered with stains and splashes, and bore unmistakable evidence of a long Journey. A courier, with a red-brown beard descending to his breast, was busy in locking and unlocking the boxes, as if in search of some missing article. “How heavy the roads are in the north!” said D'Esmonde, addressing him in German. The man touched his cap in a half-sullen civility, and muttered an assent. “I once made the same journey myself, in winter,” resumed the Abbé, “and I remembered thinking that no man undergoes such real hardship as a courier. Sixteen, seventeen, ay, twenty days and nights of continued exposure to cold and snows, and yet obliged to have all his faculties on full stretch the whole time, to remember every post station, every bridge and ferry,--the steep mountain passes, where oxen must be hired,--the frontiers of provinces, where passports are vised.” “Ay, and when the lazy officials will keep you standing in the deep snow a full hoar at midnight, while they ring every copeck to see it be good money.” “That's the true and only metal for a coinage,” said D'Esmonde, as he drew forth a gold Napoleon, and placed it in the other's hand. “Take it, my worthy fellow,” said he; “it's part of a debt I owe to every man who wears the courier's jacket. Had it not been for one of _your_ cloth, I 'd have been drowned at the ford of Ostrovitsch.” “It's the worst ferry in the Empire,” said the courier. “The Emperor himself had a narrow escape there. The raft is one half too small.” “How many days have you taken on the way?” asked D'Esmonde, carelessly “Twenty-eight--yesterday would have made the twenty-ninth--but we arrived before noon.” “Twenty-eight days!” repeated D'Esmonde, pondering. “Ay, and nights too! But remember that Vradskoi Noteki is three hundred and eighty versts below St. Petersburg.” “I know it well,” said D'Esmonde, “and with a heavily loaded carriage it's a weary road. How did she bear the journey?” said he, in a low, scarcely uttered whisper. “Bear it I----better than I did; and, except when scolding the postilions for not going twelve versts an hour, in deep snow, she enjoyed herself the entire way.” D'Esmonde gave a knowing look and a smile, as though to say that he recognized her thoroughly in the description. “You know her, then?” asked the courier. “This many a year,” replied the Abbé, with a faint sigh. “She's a rare one,” said the man, who grew at each instant more confidential, “and thinks no more of a gold rouble than many another would of a copeck. Is it true, as they say, she was once an actress?”