But in cases where the cast has something provoking in it, as in that of the _bidet's_ running away after--and leaving La Fleur aground in jack-boots--'tis the second degree. 'Tis then _Peste!_
As there was no hunting down a frightened horse in jack-boots, there remained no alternative but taking La Fleur either behind the chaise or into it.
I preferred the latter, and in half an hour we got to the post-house at Namport.
_The Dead Ass._--'And this,' said he, putting the remains of a crust into his wallet, 'and this should have been thy portion,' said he, 'had'st thou been alive to have shared it with me.' I thought by the accent it had been an apostrophe to his child; but it was to his ass, and to the very ass we had seen dead in the road, which had occasioned La Fleur's misadventure. The man seemed to lament it much; and it instantly brought into my mind Sancho's lamentation for his; but he did it with more true touches of nature.
The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, with the ass's pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from time to time--then laid them down--looked at them, and shook his head. He then took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as if to eat it; held it some time in his hand, then laid it upon the bit of his ass's bridle--looked wistfully at the little arrangement he had made, and then gave a sigh.
The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and La Fleur among the rest, whilst the horses were getting ready; as I continued sitting in the postchaise, I could see and hear over their heads.
[Illustration: LA FLEUR AND THE DEAD ASS.]
He said he had come last from Spain, where he had been from the farthest borders of Franconia, and had got so far on his return home, when his ass died. Everyone seemed desirous to know what business could have taken so old and poor a man so far a journey from his own home.
It had pleased heaven, he said, to bless him with three sons, the finest lads in Germany; but having, in one week, lost two of them by the smallpox, and the youngest falling ill of the distemper, he was afraid of being bereft of them all; and made a vow, if heaven would not take him from him also, he would go, in gratitude, to St. Jago, in Spain.