“That’s easy enough,” she said; “Julien, go with these gentlemen.—If you’re tired, I can let you have some donkeys.”
“We shall be very glad of them, for, first of all, we must find our groom, who must be somewhere in the neighborhood; and then we will try to rescue our horse, for he ought not to pass the night in the fields.”
“Come, Julien, get the donkeys out of the stable.—I ought to tell you that there’s no saddles for ’em.”
“No matter; they will be very useful to us all the same.”
The donkeys were produced, and I paid on the spot for their hire; I took a third one, for our groom, whom I hoped to find. Raymond hesitated a long while before mounting his beast; he wanted saddle, stirrups, and pads; he claimed to be able to ride like Franconi, but he could not sit on a donkey. Tired to death by all his lamentations, I started off with the young peasant, who rode the third donkey, and set out to find the groom. Raymond, seeing that I had ceased to listen to him, decided to follow me, clinging with one hand to the tail and with the other to the mane of his steed. He urged the poor beast along in my wake, and we were in the fields once more.
I let my donkey take his own course. I called the groom at the top of my lungs, and my companions did the same. At last someone answered us; we rode in the direction of the voice and found our young man lying on the ground, under a tree. The poor devil had sprained his foot and could not walk. I put him on the peasant’s donkey. It only remained for us to unharness our horse, whom we found on the ground beside the cabriolet. The rain had allayed the poor beast’s ardor, and he finally allowed us to raise him to his feet. Our guide assured us that he was uninjured; he mounted him, took his place at our head, and the cavalcade set out for Montmorency.
All these details had taken time. It was after half-past eleven when we left our little carriage, which I commended to the young peasant’s care; he promised to fetch a blacksmith to mend it at daybreak. We could have gone much faster but for Raymond; he compelled us to stop every few yards; his donkey refused to go, or else insisted on turning into another road; and he uttered heartrending cries when we did not wait for him. Luckily, the rain had ceased and it was a little less dark, so that we could see where we were going.
At midnight we caught sight of the first houses in Montmorency. Raymond gave a joyful cry, whereat his donkey was frightened and jumped, throwing its rider off into a muddy path, where he lost his shoes. As we were a little ahead, Raymond was obliged to pick himself up unassisted; the fear of losing us lent him strength, but his steed did not wait for him, and he ended his journey running after the beast, which he caught on the square just as we were dismounting. All the people of the inn had gone to bed, but we knocked until they answered. They were surprised that travellers should arrive so late; they would be far more surprised, I thought, when they saw the condition we were in, especially Raymond, whose last fall had plastered him with mud from head to foot. They admitted us, however, but, as I had foreseen, they were taken aback by our appearance. But I soon succeeded in telling my story. The landlord, seeing that he had to do with people of standing, apologized to us and hastened to show us to our rooms. They gave a room to our groom; the horse was taken to the stable, and the peasant went home with his donkeys.
I ordered a brisk fire made, to dry our clothes, and requested the host to serve whatever he had ready, for our misadventures had not taken away our appetites. We were served with a chicken, ham, salad, and fruit. While I took my place at the table, Raymond went into his bedroom, where he ordered another fire lighted, and asked the girl who waited on us to come to rub his back, so that he might avoid an illness. She was a robust peasant of some twenty years, not of the type to be afraid of a man. Still, Raymond’s proposition struck her as rather peculiar; she looked at him with a smile and seemed to hesitate.
“Go with him,” I said to her, “and don’t be afraid; monsieur is thinking of nothing but his health, and I’ll answer for his behavior.”