Was there any driver?  Had I any reason to suppose that he was not lying gagged and bound on the roadside, and the highwayman with blackened face who did the thing so quietly driving me—­whither?  The thing is perfectly feasible.  And what is this fancy now being jolted out of me?  A story?  It’s of no use to keep it back—­particularly in this abysmal vehicle, and here it comes:  I am a Marquis—­a French Marquis; French, because the peerage is not so well known, and the country is better adapted to romantic incident—­a Marquis, because the democratic reader delights in the nobility.  My name is something LIGNY.  I am coming from Paris to my country seat at St. Germain.  It is a dark night, and I fall asleep and tell my honest coachman, Andre, not to disturb me, and dream of an angel.  The carriage at last stops at the chateau.  It is so dark that when I alight I do not recognize the face of the footman who holds the carriage door.  But what of that?—­Peste!  I am heavy with sleep.  The same obscurity also hides the old familiar indecencies of the statues on the terrace; but there is a door, and it opens and shuts behind me smartly.  Then I find myself in a trap, in the presence of the brigand who has quietly gagged poor Andre and conducted the carriage thither.  There is nothing for me to do, as a gallant French Marquis, but to say, “PARBLEU!” draw my rapier, and die valorously!  I am found a week or two after outside a deserted cabaret near the barrier, with a hole through my ruffled linen and my pockets stripped.  No; on second thoughts, I am rescued—­rescued by the angel I have been dreaming of, who is the assumed daughter of the brigand but the real daughter of an intimate friend.

Looking from the window again, in the vain hope of distinguishing the driver, I found my eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness.  I could see the distant horizon, defined by India-inky woods, relieving a lighter sky.  A few stars widely spaced in this picture glimmered sadly.  I noticed again the infinite depth of patient sorrow in their serene faces; and I hope that the vandal who first applied the flippant “twinkle” to them may not be driven melancholy-mad by their reproachful eyes.  I noticed again the mystic charm of space that imparts a sense of individual solitude to each integer of the densest constellation, involving the smallest star with immeasurable loneliness.  Something of this calm and solitude crept over me, and I dozed in my gloomy cavern.  When I awoke the full moon was rising.  Seen from my window, it had an indescribably unreal and theatrical effect.  It was the full moon of Norma—­that remarkable celestial phenomenon which rises so palpably to a hushed audience and a sublime andante chorus, until the CASTA diva is sung—­the “inconstant moon” that then and thereafter remains fixed in the heavens as though it were a part of the solar system inaugurated by Joshua.  Again the white-robed Druids filed past me, again I saw that improbable mistletoe cut from that impossible oak, and again cold chills ran down my back with the first strain of the recitative.  The thumping springs essayed to beat time, and the private-box-like obscurity of the vehicle lent a cheap enchantment to the view.  But it was a vast improvement upon my past experience, and I hugged the fond delusion.