"If I might suggest," observed Gilbert, "you could cut ahead by a by-road."
The vehicle therefore turned off to the right and came out on the main road at Chalons. The princess had breakfasted at Vitry, but was so tired that she was reposing, having ordered the horses to be ready to start again at three or four P. M. This so delighted the lady traveler that she paid the postboy lavishly and said to Gilbert:
"We shall have a feast at the next posting house."
But it was decreed that Gilbert should not dine there.
The change of horses was to be at Chaussee village. The most remarkable object here was a man who stood in the mid-road, as if on duty there. He looked along it and on a long-tailed barb which was hitched to a window shutter and neighed fretfully for its master to come out of the cottage.
At length the man knocked on the shutter, and called.
"I say, sir," he demanded of the man who showed his head at the window, "if you want to sell that horse, here is the customer."
"Not for sale," replied the peasant, banging the shutter to.
This did not satisfy the stranger, who was a lusty man of forty, tall and ruddy, with coarse hands in lace ruffles. He wore a laced cocked hat crosswise, like soldiers who want to scare rustics.
"You are not polite," he said, hammering on the shutter. "If you do not open, I shall smash in the blind."