30 A MONTH IN THE FORESTS OF FRANCE. 



were ordered to drive first to the French Tattersall's, 

 and then to the Orleans station, and your thick head 

 has reversed the mission. Turn about and gallop to 

 the French Tattersall's, and if you don't get there 

 and back in time for the train, I will deliver you over 

 to the pains and penalties of the condemned, and not 

 a centime shall you have from me." 



Oh, that there had been a priest at hand of the 

 severest Jesuitical order, just to have heard the string 

 of demoniac expressions which then rang from the 

 recently awakened lips of this Roman Catholic as he 

 ** yawed " round the heavy heads attached to the 

 living skins within his harness, and turned my 

 vehicle the other way ! For a moment, the two 

 white galloways hobbled a little faster ; but, as that 

 was a momentary agony, and they soon relapsed 

 again into a snail-like hobble, my ^' quick and quicker " 

 again resounded, and again called forth the impious 

 vocabulary of the French driver. The market peo- 

 ple stared at us ; the decent foot-passengers were 

 amused (a Frenchman is too civil to laugh at the 

 obvious distress of a foreigner) ; and fusty, snuffy, 

 old gentlemen peering into musty old books along 

 the wall overhanging the river by the bridge, looked 

 up as if stricken by an electric shock. At last, 

 time hung so heavily, and my vehicle got so slow. 



