Misery, looking himself more dead than alive (he informed us presently in an access of confidence that he had had four teeth taken out that day and felt none the better for it), was told off to act as guide, and shouldering such baggage as we needed for the night, stepped forth.  We pitied him, he seemed so completely at the end of all things; and feeling, by comparison, that there was a deeper depth of suffering than our own, we revived.  His name was not Misery, but Andre.

Monsieur accompanied us to the door and wished us Good-night.  Madame had disappeared and was nowhere to be found; the lights were out in her bureau.  It looked very much as if she, too, had gone to bed and forgotten us.  “Cette chere dame is tired,” said the sympathetic landlord.  “We really have no rest day or night at the time of the fair.  But you may depend upon it she has made it all right with her bouchere.”

So we departed in faith.  It was impossible to be angry with Monsieur, though we felt neglected.  He was so unlike the ordinary run of landlords that one could only repose confidence in him and overlook small inattentions.  He had a way of throwing himself into your interests, and making them his own for the time being.  But I fear that his memory was very short.

We departed with thanksgiving, and followed our guide.  I cannot say that we trod in his footsteps, for, too far gone to lift his feet bravely, he merely shuffled along the pavement.  With one hand he supported the luggage on his shoulder; with the other he carried a candle, ostensibly to light our pathway, in reality only complicating matters and the darkness.  As we turned round by the hotel, the clocks struck the witching hour.  H.C. shivered and looked about for ghosts.  It was really a very ghostly scene and atmosphere.  In spite of the occasion of the fair, the town was in repose.  The theatre was long over; the extra entertainment on account of the fair had been a mere invention of the imaginative waiter’s; people had very properly gone home to bed, and lights were out.  No noisy groups were abroad, making night hideous with untimely revelry.

We formed a strange procession.  Our little guide slipped and shuffled, hardly able to put one foot before the other.  He wore house-slippers of list or wool, and made scarcely any noise as he went along.  Every now and then he groaned in the agonies of toothache; and each time H.C. shivered and looked back for the ghost.  It was excusable, for the candle threw weird shadows around, which flitted about like phantoms playing at hide-and-seek.  The night was so calm that the flame scarcely flickered.

In spite of the darkness, we could see how picturesque was the old town, and we longed for daylight.  Against the dark background of sky the yet darker outlines of the houses stood out mysteriously.  We turned into a narrow street where opposite neighbours might almost have shaken hands with each other from the upper windows.  Wonderful gabled roofs succeeded each other in a long procession.  There seemed not a vestige of anything modern in the whole thoroughfare.  We were in a scene of the Middle Ages, back in those far-off days.