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 fore-
noon, and I had a breathing space to look about me. It was Sabbath; the
mountain-fields were all vacant in the sunshine; and as we came down
through St. Martin de Frugeres, the church was crowded to the door, there
were people kneeling without upon the steps, and the sound of the
priest's chanting came forth out of the dim interior. It gave me a home
feeling on the spot; for I am a countryman of the Sabbath, so to speak,
and all Sabbath observances, like a Scottish accent, strike in me mixed
feelings, grateful and the reverse. It is only a traveller, hurrying by
like