Such a shriek, or rather such a chorus of confused cries, came forth from the dark sides of that small and closely-shut vehicle!
"Au secours!" "Jesus-Maria!" "Vite, vite!" "Relevez-nous!" "Pour l'amour de Dieu!"
"Ah ça, j'étouffe!" said a deep, gruff voice, in the midst of the hubbub.
As neither the postilion nor myself were hurt, we were quickly on our legs: he trying to get the horses disentangled--for they were kicking each other to pieces--and I to aid a thin, meek-looking peasant lad, who had been driving the shandrydan, to right the crazy vehicle.
'Twas a square, black-looking thing, covered at top, with no opening whatever but a small window in the door behind. It might have been built some time in the reign of Louis le Bien-aimé, and its cracked leather sides and harness seemed as if they had been strangers to oil ever since. If people were not very corpulent, four might have squeezed into it--not that they would have been comfortable, but they could have got in, and would have sat on the opposite seats, without much room to spare.
Some honest old Frenchman, thought I to myself, with his wife and daughter, and perhaps their maid. Poor man! he is coming from the Baths, cured of some painful malady, and now has had the misfortune to run the risk of his life--if, indeed, his bones be not broken--and all through that étourdi of a postilion. "If I do not report him to the maître de poste!" said I to myself.
"For the love of God, messieurs," said a faint voice, "get us out!"
"The door! the door! open the door then!" said at least three other voices, one after the other and all together.
"Je meurs!" wept the bass-voice from the inmost recesses of the vehicle--or it might have been from under ground, so deep and sepulchral was its tone.
"Don't disturb yourself, monsieur," grumbled the postilion, who had now got one of his horses on its legs; "'tis nothing! Come along, you varmint!" said he to the poor young peasant, who stood wringing his hands and looking distractedly at his whip--'twas broken clean in half--"Arrive, te dis-je!--pousse bien là!--là bien! encore! hardi! houp!"
The door of the shandrydan burst open, and there emerged, in sadly rumpled state, a pitiable confusion of rustled petticoats and tumbled headgear, red as the roses on a summer's morn, and dewy as the grass on an autumn eve--_six soeurs-de-charité_, all white and black like sea-fowl thrown from the shooter's bag--and after them, slowly toiling forth and writhing through the door in unwieldy porpoise-guise--M. le Curé!