he
ass the business which had proved too weighty for themselves. The
highly-honoured Neddy was conducted accordingly to the gate of the
castle, laden with the money to be expended for the building, and
with the insignia of the convent, and then left to take whatever way
might in his wisdom seem good to him. "Slowly and deliberately did he
pace down towards the valley, the monks following at a reverential
distance. Now and then the sagacious animal stopped, and cropped a
thistle, doubtless to give himself time for reflection, and
occasionally he stood still and looked around, as if to consider the
capabilities of the place. He went on till he entered a shady grove,
that afforded a delicious refuge from the burning rays of the
afternoon sun, and stopped where a bright rivulet, trickling from the
Spechtshard, and marking its course by a strip of the liveliest
green, fell into the beautiful Dhun. The monks watched him with
breathless expectation, for here they thought would be a delightful
spot, and they dreaded lest he should go farther. The respectable
animal, after due consideration, slowly stooped and tasted the water;
and then, that he might omit no means of forming a correct judgment,
began to try a little of the fragrant grass that grew in rich
abundance on the bank. At length he lay down, and having apparently
quite made up his mind, rolled over "heels upwards," and gave vent to
his feelings in the trumpet tones of a loud and joyful bray. His
sonorous voice was drowned in the exulting psalms of the monks--and
on this, the loveliest spot of the whole valley, the sacred edifice
was erected."

If the ass was a great favourite with the monk, it was still more so with
the populace. With no other animal was so much of the rough humour of the
middle ages associated. It might be worth consideration how far the
introduction of the ass in certain religious or semi-religious
festivals--as in the feast of the ass--has aided in investing him with
that peculiar grave humour which modern wits associate with him. _Apropos_
of this feast of the ass, we may as well correct a general error which
Robertson has led his readers into, when he describes it as "a festival in
commemoration of the Virgin Mary's flight into Egypt." The Virgin Mary
appears to have had nothing to do with it, and the ass from which the
fest