e at hand and measure my advance
exactly upon hers; for if I dropped a few yards into the rear, or went
on a few yards ahead, Modestine came instantly to a halt and began to
browse. The thought that this was to last from here to Alais nearly
broke my heart. Of all conceivable journeys this promised to be the most
tedious. I tried to tell myself it was a lovely day; I tried to charm my
foreboding spirit with tobacco; but I had a vision ever present to me of
the long, long roads, up hill and down dale, and a pair of figures ever
infinitesimally moving, foot by foot, a yard to the minute, and, like
things enchanted in a nightmare, approaching no nearer to the goal.
In the meantime there came up behind us a tall peasant, perhaps forty
years of age, of an ironical snuffy countenance, and arrayed in the
green tail-coat of the country. He overtook us hand over hand, and
stopped to consider our pitiful advance.
"Your donkey," says he, "is very old?"
I told him, I believed not.
Then, he supposed, we had come far.
I told him, we had but newly left Monastier.
"_Et vous marchez comme ca!_" cried he; and, throwing back his head, he
laughed long and heartily. I watched him, half prepared to feel
offended, until he had satisfied his mirth; and then, "You must have no
pity on these animals," said he; and, plucking a switch out of a
thicket, he began to lace Modestine about the stern-works, uttering a
cry. The rogue pricked up her ears and broke into a good round pace,
which she kept up without flagging, and without exhibiting the least
symptom of distress, as long as the peasant kept beside us. Her former
panting and shaking had been, I regret to say, a piece of comedy.
My _deus ex machina_, before he left me, supplied some excellent, if
inhumane, advice; presented me with the switch, which he declared she
would feel more tenderly than my cane; and finally taught me the true
cry or masonic word of donkey-drivers, "Proot!" All the time, he
regarded me with a comical, incredulous air, which was embarrassing to
confront; and smiled over my donkey-driving, as I might have smiled over
his orthography, or his green tail-coat. But it was not my turn for the
moment.
I was proud of my new lore, and thought I had learned the art to
perfection. And certainly Modestine did wonders for the rest of the
forenoon, and I had a breathing space to look about me. It was Sabbath;
the mountain-fields were all vacant in the sunshine; and as
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