three o'clock in the morning
`` It is always as the good patriot says , '' observed the functionary . `` Rise and dress yourself , emigrant . '' Darnay complied , and was taken back to the guard-house , where other patriots in rough red caps were smoking , drinking , and sleeping , by a watch-fire . Here he paid a heavy price for his escort , and hence he started with it on the wet , wet roads at three o'clock in the morning . The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tri-coloured cockades , armed with national muskets and sabres , who rode one on either side of him . The escorted governed his own horse , but a loose line was attached to his bridle , the end of which one of the patriots kept girded round his wrist . In this state they set forth with the sharp rain driving in their faces : clattering at a heavy dragoon trot over the uneven town pavement , and out upon the mire-deep roads .