But Michal threw her arms round his neck and consoled him.
"Let us thank God," said she, "for so marvelously delivering us from so great a peril."
She knew now what a great danger she had escaped, but she had no idea of the still greater danger that she was about to encounter.
CHAPTER V.
Which will be a short chapter but not a very merry one.
The young married people had now neither horse nor mule to carry them any further. They had to look about for some sort of vehicle to take them to Zeb, and the wagoner whom they hunted up at last swore by hook and by crook that he would go by sledge or not at all, for snow had fallen in Praszkinocz, and there was now a sledging track all the way. As they could not be choosers they of course consented. Simplex begged them to take his bundle with them, for he too wanted to get to Eperies. He had come off the luckiest of them all, for as he had carried his few worldly possessions slung over his shoulder, he had not been plundered by the robbers. The wagoner granted him his request, and even allowed him to run along behind the sledge and hang on by the trestle when he was tired.
He ran as long as the sledge-track lasted, but, as might have been anticipated (though the driver absolutely refused to believe in the possibility of any such thing), when they arrived at the foot of the mountain they saw that there was no more snow but only mud. Simplex had now to shove the sledge much oftener than mount behind it, especially when the road lay uphill. The clergyman also had to lend a hand occasionally, while the countryman in front dragged the horses along by main force. Thus, in addition to their other troubles, they were saddled with a sledge on muddy roads.
They had fallen far behind the caravan; even the carriers with the baggage were now a long way ahead of them. It was late in the evening before they saw in the distance the lofty church of Zeb with its copper roof, and the bastions of the city embowered in gardens. The wind wafted to their ears the sound of the evening Ave Maria, and a very comfortable sound it is to him who sits snugly by his own fireside. But it is far from pleasant to those who are outside the walls, for after the Angelus all the gates are closed, the bridges drawn up, and not a living soul that wanders in a bodily shape upon the earth is admitted within the city.
"We are shut out," growled the wagoner, scratching his head. "Now we shall have to sleep under some haystack. I only wish we had not taken that vagabond student's bundle into the sledge, that was what made us creep along so slowly."