"Yes, monsieur; but we can’t leave our donkey with you like that; all you’d have to do would be to ride off on him and we’d never see you again!"
"What, you little rascals! you take your lord for a thief?"
"My dear Robineau," said Alfred, "these boys are quite right not to leave their ass in your hands; for, after all, they don’t know you, and you haven’t the least idea how to play the seigneur. Do you suppose that all you have to do is to say: ‘I am the man?’—Prove it; draw your purse; that’s always the way to make people recognize you."
"Ah! to be sure, I didn’t think of that!" cried Robineau; and he immediately produced a five-franc piece and gave it to one of the small boys. The sight of the coin produced much more effect on the peasants than all the titles in the world. The elder consented to run on ahead to the château, and the younger allowed Robineau to ride the ass, on condition that he himself should remain to drive him.
The ass was a large, strong animal; he wore no saddle, so that the new landed proprietor was obliged to ride bareback, and in default of stirrups, to cling to the mane, confining his mount to a foot pace. But he sat proudly erect on the beast, requesting the boy not to make him go too fast, and Alfred declared that Robineau could not find a nobler animal on which to make his entry into the château.
"I certainly shall not ride into the courtyard on the ass," said Robineau, "but I am very glad to use him until we arrive there. You have kept me walking since yesterday noon, messieurs.—Don’t urge the ass, my boy, let him go quietly, I am not in such a hurry now; there will be no harm done if your brother arrives some time before us."
Thereupon the little peasant fell back and left Robineau to guide the ass as he chose. Alfred and Edouard could not help smiling whenever they glanced at the cavalier, who called to them from time to time:
"We are drawing near my château, messieurs; I feel it in the beating of my heart."
"I smell[8] nothing but an odor of barnyard," said Alfred.
"Oh! that comes from Monsieur Cheval’s—he keeps cows and oxen," said the boy.