endarme
returned; our lamp was still burning, but he had a light of his own. He
looked at the beds, perceived at once that he had been duped, went to
the open window, and then exclaimed, "_Sacre Dieu! ils m'ont echappes et
je ne suis plus caporal. F----tre! a la chasse_!" He rushed out of the
room, and in a minute afterwards we heard him open the street door, and
go away.

"That will do, Peter," said O'Brien, laughing; "now we'll be off also,
although there's no great hurry." O'Brien then resumed his dress of a
gendarme; and about an hour afterwards we went down, and wishing the
hostess all happiness, quitted the cabaret, returning the same road by
which we had come. "Now, Peter," said O'Brien, "we're in a bit of a
puzzle. This dress won't do any more, still there's a respectability
about it, which will not allow me to put it off till the last moment."
We walked on till daylight, when we hid ourselves in a copse of trees.
At night we again started for the forest of Ardennes, for O'Brien said
our best chance was to return, until they supposed that we had had time
to effect our escape; but we never reached the forest, for on the next
day a violent snowstorm came on; it continued without intermission for
four days, during which we suffered much. Our money was not exhausted,
as I had drawn upon my father for L60, which, with the disadvantageous
exchange, had given me fifty Napoleons. Occasionally O'Brien crept into
a cabaret, and obtained provisions; but, as we dared not be seen
together as before, we were always obliged to sleep in the open air, the
ground being covered more than three feet with snow. On the fifth day,
being then six days from the forest of Ardennes, we hid ourselves in a
small wood, about a quarter of a mile from the road. I remained there
while O'Brien, as a gendarme, went to obtain provisions. As usual, I
looked out for the best shelter during his absence, and what was my
horror at falling in with a man and woman who lay dead in the snow,
having evidently perished from the weather. Just as I discovered them,
O'Brien returned, and I told him; he went with me to view the bodies.
They were dressed in a strange attire, ribands pinned upon their
clothes, and two pairs of very high stilts lying by their sides. O'Brien
surveyed them, and then said, "Peter, this is the very best thing that
could have happened to us. We may now walk through France without
soiling our feet with the cursed country."

"How do you