He answered, "Have you a piece of rope and a knife?"
"Yes, sir."
He cut a branch and made a whipple-tree; it was a further loss of twenty minutes, but they started again at a gallop. The plain was dark, and a low, black fog was creeping over the hills. A heavy wind, which came from the sea, made in all the corners of the horizon a noise like that of furniture being moved. All that he could see had an attitude of terror, for how many things shudder beneath the mighty breath of night! The cold pierced him, for he had eaten nothing since the previous morning. He vaguely recalled his other night-excursion, on the great plain of D—— eight years before, and it seemed to him to be yesterday. A clock struck from a distant steeple, and he asked the lad,—
"What o'clock is that?"
"Seven, sir, and we shall be at Arras by eight, for we have only three leagues to go."
At this moment he made for the first time this reflection—and considered it strange that it had not occurred to him before—that all the trouble he was taking was perhaps thrown away; he did not even know the hour for the trial, and he might at least have asked about that; it was extravagant to go on thus, without knowing if it would be of any service. Then he made some mental calculations: usually the sittings of assize courts began at nine o'clock; this matter would not occupy much time, the theft of the apples would be easily proved, and then there would be merely the identification, four or five witnesses to hear, and little for counsel to say. He would arrive when it was all over.
The postilion flogged the horses; they had crossed the river and left Mont St Hoy behind them; the night was growing more and more dark.