which it was really painful to see, I halted too, and tried to press out the water which made my riding-boots like two reservoirs in which my legs were soaking.
"Your boots begin to stick to your feet?" said he to me.
"It is four nights since I have taken them off."
"Bah! in a week you will think no more of it," he replied, with his hoarse voice. "It is something to be alone in times like these, I can tell you. Do you know what I have got inside there?"
"No," said I.
"It is a woman."
"Ah!" was my answer, with no particular astonishment, as I quietly resumed my route at a walk again. He followed.
"This wretched covering here did not cost me very dear," he resumed, "nor the mule neither; but it is all that I need, although this road here is rather a long queue ribbon."
I offered him my horse to mount when he should be tired; and as I only spoke gravely and simply of his equipage, of which he feared the ridiculous appearance, he became suddenly quite at his ease, and approaching my stirrup, gave me a slap on the knee, and said:
"Come, you are a good fellow, though you are one of the red."
I felt in the bitterness of his accent, as he thus
