This windmill plays an important rôle in the remainder of my story—for it will have been gathered that I have not described the road between Villers-Cotterets and Crespy (a road which would little interest my readers) for the mere love of description. The mill is totally isolated from all other dwelling-houses, it stands well above Vouffly, nearly three kilomètres from Largny, and a league from Villers-Cotterets.
This then was the road I followed, at as fast a trot as my baker's horse would permit, the highway of His Majesty King Louis XVIII. resounding heavily under its hoofs.
Towards about eight o'clock, I reached the neighbourhood of la Fontaine-Eau-Claire.
I have already pointed out that the weather was gloomy; the moon, in its first quarter, was shrouded in large clouds, which sped rapidly across the sky, ending off in flecks of greyish, foam-like scud.
I had money about me, I was unarmed, I was barely fifteen years old; the traditions of Fontaine-Eau-Claire were vividly present to my mind; therefore my heart was beating slightly.
Half-way down the hill I urged my horse into a trot, and, by the help of an oak branch that I had gathered in Tillet Wood, I succeeded in making him pass from a trot to a gallop.
I got past the dangerous place, the malo sitio, as they say in Spain, without accident, and, although it was behind me, I decided that I must still keep my steed to his gallop.
I was obliged, however, to slacken his pace down the steep and up the rising of Vauciennes; but I had hardly cleared the top of the hill, when I urged him into a gallop again by the help of a dig from my spur, and a couple of good lashes with my switch.
Everything round me seemed asleep. The landscape, steeped in darkness, was not even rendered less sombre by a light on the horizon or by a falling star; not even a dog bayed, a sound that would have indicated the presence, in the invisible distance, of a farmhouse, which I knew was there, and which my eyes searched for in vain.
The windmill seemed asleep with the rest of nature; its sails were stiff and motionless, and looked like the arms of a skeleton raised to the heavens in a despairing attitude.