They
pricked on our mules with a good-will, and when one of them fell lame
they scoured the neighbourhood to find another, for which Eustace
endeavoured to pay the just price, but I am afraid it went into the
corporal's pocket, and Clement never so nearly betrayed himself as
when he refused to share with the escort the reckoning of which they
stripped the landlord. Integrity in a Parisian valet was all too
suspicious! However, to us they behaved very well; and, if all we
heard were true, their presence may have saved us from being robbed,
if not murdered, long before we reached the frontier.
CHAPTER XXXIII
BRIDAL PEARLS
When once over the border, and our passports duly examined, we
breathed freely, and at our first resting-place Clement took out a
suit of my brother's clothes and appeared once more as a gentleman,
except for his short hair. He was able, whenever French would serve,
to take the management of our journey.
We finished it as before in a canal boat, and the rest of mind and
body, and the sense of approaching Millicent, certainly did Eustace
good; the hectic fever lessened, and though he slept little at night,
he had much good slumber by day, lying on cloaks on deck as we
quietly glided along the water, between the fields full of corn, with
harvest beginning, and the tall cocks of hay in the large fields, all
plenty and high cultivation, and peaceful industry, in contrast with
the places we had left devastated by civil war, and the famished
population.
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