'What's the matter, La Fleur,' said I, 'with this bidet of thine?' 'Monsieur,' said he, 'c'est un cheval le plus opiniatre du monde.' 'Nay, if he is a conceited beast, he must go his own way,' replied I. So La Fleur got off him, and giving him a good sound lash, the bidet took me at my word, and away he scampered back to Montriul. 'Peste!' said La Fleur.
Le Diable! which is the first and positive degree, is generally used for ordinary emotions of the mind, where small things only fall out contrary to your expectation, such as—the throwing one's doublets—La Fleur's being kicked off his horse, and so forth—cuckoldom, for the same reason, is always—Le Diable!
But in cases where the cast has something provoking in it, as in that of the bidet's running away after—and leaving La Fleur aground in jack-boots—'tis the second degree. 'Tis then Peste!
As there was no hunting down a frightened horse in jack-boots, there remained no alternative but taking La Fleur either behind the chaise or into it.
I preferred the latter, and in half an hour we got to the post-house at Namport.
NAMPORT.
The Dead Ass.—'And this,' said he, putting the remains of a crust into his wallet, 'and this should have been thy portion,' said he, 'had'st thou been alive to have shared it with me.' I thought by the accent it had been an apostrophe to his child; but it was to his ass, and to the very ass we had seen dead in the road, which had occasioned La Fleur's misadventure. The man seemed to lament it much; and it instantly brought into my mind Sancho's lamentation for his; but he did it with more true touches of nature.
The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, with the ass's pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from time to time—then laid them down—looked at them, and shook his head. He then took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as if to eat it; held it some time in his hand, then laid it upon the bit of his ass's bridle—looked wistfully at the little arrangement he had made, and then gave a sigh.