scal!" said the fellow, "you lie, I am no
rascal; and as for quibbling with words--suppose I did! What then? All
the first people does it! The newspapers does it! the gentlefolks that
calls themselves the guides of the popular mind does it! I'm no
ignoramus. I read the newspapers, and knows what's what." "You read
them to some purpose," said I. "Well, if you are lamed for life, and
unfitted for any active line--turn newspaper editor; I should say you are
perfectly qualified, and this day's adventure may be the foundation of
your fortune," thereupon I turned round and rode off. The fellow
followed me with a torrent of abuse. "Confound you," said he--yet that
was not the expression either--"I know you; you are one of the
horse-patrol come down into the country on leave to see your relations.
Confound you, you and the like of you have knocked my business on the
head near Lunnon, and I suppose we shall have you shortly in the
country." "To the newspaper office," said I, "and fabricate falsehoods
out of flint stones;" then touching the horse with my heels, I trotted
off, and coming to the place where I had seen the old man, I found him
there, risen from the ground, and embracing his ass.

I told him that I was travelling down the road, and said, that if his way
lay in the same direction as mine he could do no better than accompany me
for some distance, lest the fellow who, for aught I knew, might be
hovering nigh, might catch him alone, and again get his ass from him.
After thanking me for my offer, which he said he would accept, he got
upon his ass, and we proceeded together down the road. My new
acquaintance said very little of his own accord; and when I asked him a
question, answered rather incoherently. I heard him every now and then
say, "Villain!" to himself, after which he would pat the donkey's neck,
from which circumstance I concluded that his mind was occupied with his
late adventure. After travelling about two miles, we reached a place
where a drift-way on the right led from the great road; here my companion
stopped, and on my asking him whether he was going any farther, he told
me that the path to the right was the way to his home.

I was bidding him farewell, when he hemmed once or twice, and said, that
as he did not live far off, he hoped that I would go with him and taste
some of his mead. As I had never tasted mead, of which I had frequently
read in the compositions of the Welsh bards, and, more