With my weapons of offence and defence I must have appeared a "caution"
to robbers, and it seems that the business of the fair was suspended to
witness my departure. I was profoundly unconscious at the time of the
public interest taken in my humble self, but later I heard a very
humorous account of the whole proceeding from some relatives who visited
Kronstadt about three weeks afterwards. I believe I am held in
remembrance in the town as a typical Englishman!
Well, to take up the thread of my narrative--like Don Quixote, "I
travelled _all_ that day." If any reader can remember Gustave Dore's
illustration of the good knight on that occasion, he will have some idea
of how the sky looked on this very ride of mine. As evening approached,
the settled grey clouds, which had hung overhead like a pall all the
afternoon, were driven about by a rough wind, which went on rising
steadily. The grim phantom-haunted clouds came closer and closer round
about me as darkness grew apace, and now and then the gust brought with
it a vicious "spate" of rain. With no immediate prospect of shelter, my
position became less and less lively. I had not bargained for a night on
the highroad, or lodgings in a dry ditch or under a tree. Indeed those
luxuries were not at hand; for trees there were none bordering the road,
or in the open fields which stretched away on either side; and as for a
_dry_ ditch, I heard the streams gurgling along the watercourses, which
were full to overflowing, as well they might be, seeing that it had
rained for three days.
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