Near the end of July, 1842, an open _caleche_ might have been seen rolling along one of the three highways that lead from the frontiers of Holland toward Antwerp.

Although the vehicle had evidently been cleaned with the utmost care, every thing about it betokened decay.

Its joints were open, discolored, and weather-beaten, and it swung from side to side on its springs like a rickety skeleton.

Its patched leathers shone in the sunshine with the oil that had been used to freshen them, but the borrowed lustre could not hide the cracks and repairs with which they were defaced.

The door-handles and other parts of the vehicle that were made of copper had been carefully polished, and the vestiges of silver-plating, still visible in the creases of the ornaments, denoted a former richness which had been almost entirely worn out by time and use.
The _caleche_ was drawn by a stout, heavy horse, whose short and lumbering gait intimated very clearly that he was oftener employed in the plough and cart than in carrying his owner toward the capital.
A peasant-boy of seventeen or eighteen was perched on the driver's seat.
He was in livery; a tarnished gold band adorned his hat, and brass buttons glistened on his coat; but the hat fell over his ears, and the coat was so large that the driver seemed lost in it as in a bag.