It was a tilbury harnessed to a small white horse.
The noise which he had heard was the trampling of the horse’s hoofs on the pavement.
“What vehicle is this?” he said to himself.
“Who is coming here so early in the morning?”
At that moment there came a light tap on the door of his chamber.
He shuddered from head to foot, and cried in a terrible voice:—
“Who is there?”
Some one said:—
“I, Monsieur le Maire.”
He recognized the voice of the old woman who was his portress.
“Well!” he replied, “what is it?”
“Monsieur le Maire, it is just five o’clock in the morning.”
“What is that to me?”
“The cabriolet is here, Monsieur le Maire.”
“What cabriolet?”
“The tilbury.”
“What tilbury?”
“Did not Monsieur le Maire order a tilbury?”
“No,” said he.
“The coachman says that he has come for Monsieur le Maire.”
“What coachman?”
“M. Scaufflaire’s coachman.”
“M. Scaufflaire?”
That name sent a shudder over him, as though a flash of lightning had passed in front of his face.
“Ah! yes,” he resumed; “M. Scaufflaire!”
If the old woman could have seen him at that moment, she would have been frightened.
A tolerably long silence ensued.
He examined the flame of the candle with a stupid air, and from around the wick he took some of the burning wax, which he rolled between his fingers.
The old woman waited for him.
She even ventured to uplift her voice once more:—
“What am I to say, Monsieur le Maire?”
“Say that it is well, and that I am coming down.”
CHAPTER V—HINDRANCES
The posting service from Arras to M. sur M. was still operated at this period by small mail-wagons of the time of the Empire.
These mail-wagons were two-wheeled cabriolets, upholstered inside with fawn-colored leather, hung on springs, and having but two seats, one for the postboy, the other for the traveller.
The wheels were armed with those long, offensive axles which keep other vehicles at a distance, and which may still be seen on the road in Germany.
The despatch box, an immense oblong coffer, was placed behind the vehicle and formed a part of it.
This coffer was painted black, and the cabriolet yellow.
These vehicles, which have no counterparts nowadays, had something distorted and hunchbacked about them; and when one saw them passing in the distance, and climbing up some road to the horizon, they resembled the insects which are called, I think, termites, and which, though with but little corselet, drag a great train behind them.
But they travelled at a very rapid rate.
The post-wagon which set out from Arras at one o’clock every night, after the mail from Paris had passed, arrived at M. sur M. a little before five o’clock in the morning.
That night the wagon which was descending to M. sur M. by the Hesdin road, collided at the corner of a street, just as it was entering the town, with a little tilbury harnessed to a white horse, which was going in the opposite direction, and in which there was but one person, a man enveloped in a mantle.
The wheel of the tilbury received quite a violent shock.
The postman shouted to the man to stop, but the traveller paid no heed and pursued his road at full gallop.
“That man is in a devilish hurry!” said the postman.
The man thus hastening on was the one whom we have just seen struggling in convulsions which are certainly deserving of pity.
Whither was he going?
He could not have told.
Why was he hastening?
He did not know.