Explore "The Way of the Scarlet Pimpernel" by Emma Orczy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The small diligence which had left Les Andelys in the early morning rattled into the courtyard of the Auberge du Cheval Blanc in Rouen soon after seven o'clock in the evening. It had encountered bad weather the whole of the way: torrential rain lashed by gusty north- westerly winds made going difficult for the horses. The roads were fetlock-deep in mud: on the other hand, the load had been light--two passengers in the front compartment and only four in the rear, and very little luggage on top.
In the rear of the coach the four passengers had sat in silence for the greater part of the journey, the grey sky and dreary outlook not being conducive to conversation. The desolation of the country, due to lack of agricultural labour, was apparent even along the fertile stretch of Normandy. The orchard trees were already bare of leaves and bent their boughs to the fury of the blast; their naked branches, weighted with the rain, were stretched out against the wind like the great gaunt arms of skinny old men suffering from rheumatism and doing their best to run away.