When the resolution was made, it was carried into execution that very day. My mother and I climbed to the highest elevation about the farm, we explored all round, and, when we could not discover any appearance of Cossacks, we ventured to return to the town.
We had hardly gone a hundred steps before we met a clerk called Crétet on horseback. He was a good sort of lad, who had been in my brother-in-law's employment.
He was going from house to house.
"What are you looking for?" my mother asked.
"I am hunting for a carriage, a cab, a wagon, a berlin, or any sort of conveyance to harness my horse to and set off in," he said; "Mademoiselle Adélaïde does not want to stay in Villers-Cotterets any longer."
Mademoiselle Adélaïde was an old, humpbacked spinster, possessing several thousand francs of income, towards which I suspect Crétet had leanings.
"Ah! now that is lucky!" exclaimed my mother; "it is exactly what we are looking out for too. May we leave with you? You are two in number, and we two; we shall travel at half the cost."
It is always cheaper to travel four, rather than two; so the offer was accepted.