At length they came to a toll-bar. Melton put his head out and asked the Count where they were.
"Hounslow."
"Is that the Bell Inn?"
"Yes."
"Then suppose we get out, wake the people up, and give the horses a rest, while we have a little trip on foot to Hounslow Heath?"
"Is not that where all the murders and robberies used to be committed?" Miss Brunel was heard to say.
"This is the very inn," said Will Anerley, "which the gentlemen of the road used to frequent; but unfortunately, the Heath has been all enclosed. There is no more Heath."
"We shall find something that will do for it," said Melton, as the party left the brougham, and passed down the opposite road.
Once out of the glare of the lamp at the toll-bar, they had nothing to guide them but the cold, clear starlight. Black lay the hedges on either side; black stood the tall trees against the sky; blacker still the deep ditch which ran along the side of the path, or disappeared under the gravelled pathway leading up to some roadside cottage. How singularly the light laughter of the little party smote upon the deep, intense silence of the place; and what a strange contrast there was between their gay abandonment and the sombre gloom around them! There was something weird and striking running through the absurdity of this incomprehensible excursion.
"There," said Melton, going up to a gate, and peering over into a vague, dark meadow, "is a bit of the old Heath, I know. Was it here, I wonder, that Claude Duval danced his celebrated dance with the lady?"