emper
to almost equal heat with his own; and standing one each side of the poor
beast, they both abused it. They abused its dead mother, they insulted
its father; they made cutting remarks about its personal appearance, its
intelligence, its moral sense, its general ability as a horse. The
animal bore the torrent with exemplary patience for awhile; then it did
the best thing possible to do under the circumstances. Without losing
its own temper, it moved quietly away. The lady returned to her washing,
and the man followed it up the street, still abusing it.

A kinder-hearted people than the Germans there is no need for. Cruelty
to animal or child is a thing almost unknown in the land. The whip with
them is a musical instrument; its crack is heard from morning to night,
but an Italian coachman that in the streets of Dresden I once saw use it
was very nearly lynched by the indignant crowd. Germany is the only
country in Europe where the traveller can settle himself comfortably in
his hired carriage, confident that his gentle, willing friend between the
shafts will be neither over-worked nor cruelly treated.

CHAPTER XI

Black Forest House: and the sociability therein--Its perfume--George
positively declines to remain in bed after four o'clock in the
morning--The road one cannot miss--My peculiar extra instinct--An
ungrateful party--Harris as a scientist--His cheery confidence--The
village: where it was, and where it ought to have been--George: his
plan--We promenade a la Francais--The German coachman asleep and
awake--The man who spreads the English language abroad.

There was one night when, tired out and far from town or village, we
slept in a Black Forest farmhouse. The great charm about the Black
Forest house is its sociability. The cows are in the next room, the
horses are upstairs, the geese and ducks are in the kitchen, while the
pigs, the children, and the chickens live all over the place.

You are dressing, when you hear a grunt behind you.

"Good-morning! Don't happen to have any potato peelings in here? No, I
see you haven't; good-bye."

Next there is a cackle, and you see the neck of an old hen stretched
round the corner.

"Fine morning, isn't it? You don't mind my bringing this worm of mine in
here, do you? It is so difficult in this house to find a room where one
can enjoy one's food with any quietness. From a chicken I have always
been a slow eater, and when a dozen--there, I t