Waiting for me! Surrounded by a group of men in blouses, and two or three fat women, who were to be my fellow-passengers, there was the villain, discussing a capital dinner--the bare-armed wenches of the place rushing between the vast fireplace and the table, with no end of the savouriest and the most garlicky of dishes, and the whole party in the highest state of feather and enjoyment. The cool impertinence of the greeting, however, tickled me amazingly; and room being immediately made, I was entreated to join the company, and exhorted to eat, as it would be a good many hours before I had another chance. This looked ominous; and besides, the whole meal, full of nicely browned stews, was so appetising, that I fear I committed the enormity of making a very tolerable second dinner; and so about half-past eight we at last got under weigh.
But not in the vehicle which I had been shown. There was some cock-and-bull story of that having been damaged; and we were squeezed--six of us, including the fat ladies--into a dreadful square box, with our twelve legs jammed together like the sticks of a faggot, in the centre. Oh, the woes of that dreary night!--the gruntings and the groanings of the fat ladies--the squabbles about "making legs," and, notwithstanding our crowded condition, the intensity of the pinching cold--one window was broken, another wouldn't pull up, and the whole vehicle was full of cracks and crevices. Outside, the gale had increased to a hurricane; the rain and sleet lashed the ground, so that you could hardly hear the driver shouting at the full pitch of his voice to the poor jades, who drearily dragged us through the mire. After an hour or two's riding, the water began to trickle in on all sides. The fat ladies said they could not possibly survive the night; and a poor thin slip of a soldier next me accepted half a railway wrapper with the most vehement "_Merci-bien merci!_" I ever heard in my life. About one in the morning we pulled up at a lone public-house, in the kitchen of which the passengers refreshed themselves with coffee, and I myself, to their great surprise, with a liberal application of cognac and hot water. But the French have no notion of the mellow beauties of toddy. The rest of the night wore slowly and wretchedly on. I believe we had the same horses all the way. Day was grey around us when we heard the voices of the market people flocking in to Tarbes; and looking forth, after a short, nightmareish dose, I beheld around me a wide champaign country, as white with snow as Nova Zembla at Christmas. And this was the boasted South of France, and the date was the twentieth of October!