"Here is a fine opportunity!" At the bottom of the hole lay the recent coffin, covered with a few shovelfuls of white dust, while awaiting the rest. A piece of linen was gleaming upon the grass: the dead took care of their shroud. Far from his country, the Christian has it always in his power suddenly to waft himself there; he has but to visit man's last resting-place around the churches: the cemetery is the family field and religion the universal mother-land. It was noon when I returned; by every calculation, the express could not be back before three o'clock; nevertheless every stamping of horses made me run to the window: as the hour approached, I grew convinced that the permit would not come. To destroy the time, I asked for my bill; I set myself to reckon up the chickens I had eaten: a greater than I did not disdain this trouble. Henry Tudor, seventh of the name, in whom ended the Wars of the Roses, red and white, even as I am going to unite the white and the tricolour cockades, Henry VII.[548] initialled one after the other the pages of a little account-book which I have seen: "To a woman for three apples, 12 pence; for discovering three hares, 6 shillings 8 pence; to Master Bernard, the blind poet, 100 shillings [this was better than Homer]; to a little man at Shaftesbury, 20 shillings." We have many little men to-day, but they cost more than twenty shillings. [Sidenote: Country road to Waldmünchen.] At three o'clock, the hour at which the express might be back, I went with Hyacinthe along the road to Haselbach. It was a windy day, the sky was strewn with clouds that passed across the sun, casting their shadows over the fields and fir-groves. We were preceded by a herd of cattle from the village, which raised, as it went, the noble dust of the army of the Grand-duke of Quirocia, to which the Knight of the Mancha so valiantly gave battle[549]. A Calvary rose at the top of one of the ascents of the road; from there one discerned a long ribbon of the high-way. Seated in a ravine, I questioned Hyacinthe: "Sister Anne, seest thou no one coming?" Some village carts seen from afar made our hearts beat; as they approached, they proved to be empty, like everything that bears dreams. I had to return home and dine very sadly. A plank offered after the shipwreck: the diligence was to pass at six o'clock; might it not bring the Governor's reply? Six o'clock struck: no diligence. At a quarter past six, Baptiste entered the room: "The ordinary post from Prague has just arrived; there is nothing for Monsieur." The last ray of hope was extinguished. Scarcely had Baptiste left my room, when Schwartz appeared, waving a big letter, with a big seal, in the air and shouting: "Here is de bermid!" I threw myself upon the dispatch; I tore open the envelope: it contained, together with a letter from the Governor, the permit and a note from M. de Blacas. Here is M. le Comte de Chotek's letter: "PRAGUE, 23 _May_ 1833.