A FOOTPATH WALK AND ITS INCIDENTS--HARVEST ASPECTS--ENGLISH AND
AMERICAN SKIES--HUMBLER OBJECTS OF CONTEMPLATION--THE DONKEY: ITS
USES AND ABUSES.
Immediately after breakfast the following morning, my kind host
accompanied me for a mile on my walk, and put me on a footpath
across the fields, by which I might save a considerable distance on
the way to Saffron Walden, where I proposed to spend the Sabbath.
After giving me minute directions as to the course I was to follow,
he bade me good-bye, and I proceeded on at a brisk pace through
fields of wheat and clover, greatly enjoying the scenery, the air,
and exercise. Soon I came to a large field quite recently ploughed
up _clean_, footpath and all. Seeing a gate at each of the opposite
corners, I made my way across the furrows to the one at the left, as
it seemed to be more in the direction indicated by my host. There
the path was again broad and well-trodden, and I followed it through
many fields of grain yellowing to the harvest, until it opened into
the main road. This bore a little more to the left than I expected,
but, as I had never travelled it before, I believed it was all
right. Thaxted was half way to Saffron Walden, and there I had
intended to stop an hour or two for dinner and rest, then push on to
the end of the day's walk as speedily as possible. At about noon, I
came suddenly down upon the town, which seemed remarkably similar to
the one I had left, in size, situation, and general features. The
parish church, also, bore a strong resemblance to the one I had
noticed the previous evening. These old Essex towns are "as much
alike as two peas," and you must make a note of it, as Captain
Cuttle says, was the thought first suggested by the coincidence. I
went into a cosy, clean-faced inn on the main street, and addressed
myself with much satisfaction to a short season of rest and
refreshment, exchanging hot and dusty boots for slippers, and going
through other preliminaries to a comfortable time of it. Rang the
bell for dinner, but before ordering it, asked the waiting-maid,
with a complacent idea that I had improved my walking pace, and made
more than half the way--
"How far is it to Saffron Walden?"
"Twelve miles, sir."
"Twelve miles, indeed! Why, it is only twelve miles from Great
Bardfield!"
"Well, this is Great Bardfield, sir."
"Great Bardfield! What! How is this? What do you mean?"
She meant what she said, and it was as true as two and two make
four; and she was not to be beaten out of it by a stare of
astonishment, however a discomfited man might expand his eyes with
wonder, or cloud his face with chagrin. It was a patent fact.
There, on the opposite side of the street, was the house in which I
slept the night before; and here, just coming up to the door of the
inn, was the good lady of my host. Her form and voice, and other
identifications dispelled the mist of the mistake; and it came out
as clear as day that I had followed the direction of my host, to
bear to the left, far too liberally, and that I had been walking at
my best speed in a "vicious circle" for full two hours and a half,
and had landed just where I commenced, at least within the breadth
of a narrow street of the same point.
My good friends urged me to stop and dine with them, and then make a
fair start for the end of my week's journey. But it was still
twelve miles to Saffron Walden, and I was determined to put half of
them behind me before dinner. So, taking a second leave of them in
the course of three hours, I set out again on my walk, a wiser man
in the practical understanding of the proverb, "The longest way
around is the shortest way there." At 2 p.m. I reached Thaxted,
and rectified my first notion of the town, formed when I mistook it
for Bardfield. Having made six miles extra between the two points,
I resumed my walk after a short delay at the latter.
The weather was glorious. A cloudless sun shone upon a little sky-
crystalled world of beauty, smaller in every dimension than you ever
see in America. And this is a feature of English scenery that will
strike the American traveller most impressively at the first glance,
whether he looks at it by night or day. It is not that Nature, in
adjusting the symmetries of her scenic structures, nicely apportions
the skyscape to the landscape of a country merely for artistic
effect. It is not because the island of Great Britain is so small
in circumference that the sky is proportioned to it, as the crystal
is to the dial of a watch; that it is so apparently low; that the
stars it holds to its moist, blue bosom are so near at midnight, and
the sun so large at noon. It comes, doubtless, from that constant
humidity of the atmosphere which distinguishes the climate of
England, and gives to both land and sky an aspect which is quite
unknown to our great western continent. An American, after having
habituated himself to this aspect, on returning to his own country,
will be almost surprised at a feature of its scenery which he never
noticed before. He will be struck at the loftiness of the sky; at
the vividness of its blue and gold, the sharp, unsoftened light of
the stars, and, as it were, the contracted pupil of the sun's eye at
mid-day. The sunset glories of our western heavens play upon a
ground of rigid blue. "The Northern Lights," which, at their winter
evening illuminations, seem to have shredded into wavy filaments all
the rainbows that have spanned the chambers of the East since the
Flood, and to upspring, in mirthful fantasy, to hang their
infinitely-tinted tresses to the zenith's golden diadem of stars--
even they sport upon the same lofty concave of dewless blue, which
looks through and through the lacework and everchanging drapery of
their mingled hues in the most witching mazes of their nightly
waltz, giving to each a definiteness that our homely Saxon tongue
might fit with a name.
But here, on the lower grounds of instructive meditation, is a
humbler individuality of the country to notice. Here is the most
sadly abused and melancholy living creature in all England's animal
realm that meets me in the midst of these reflections on things
supernal and glorious. I will let the Northern Lights go, with
their gorgeous pantomimes and midnight revelries, and have a
moment's communing with this unfortunate quadruped. It is called in
derision here a "_donkey_," but an ass, in a more generous time,
when one of his race and size bore upon his back into the Holy City
the world's Saviour and Re-Creator. Poor, libelled, hopeless beast!
I pity you from my heart's heart. How I wish for Sterne's pen to do
you some measure of justice or condolence under this heavy load of
opprobrium that bends your back and makes your life so sunless and
bitter! Come here, sir!--here is a biscuit for you, of the finest
wheat; few of your race get such morsels; so, eat it and be
thankful. What ears! No wonder our friend Patrick called you "the
father of all rabbits" at first sight. No! don't turn away your
head, as if I were going to strike you.
Most animals are best described from a certain point of _view_,--in
a fixed and quiescent attitude. But the donkey should be taken in
the very act of this characteristic motion. You put out your hand
in the gentlest manner to pat any one of them you meet, and he will
instinctively turn away his head for fear of a beating.
There is an interesting speculation now coming up among modern
reveries in regard to the immortality of certain animals of great
intelligence and domestic virtues. A large and tender kindness of
disposition is the father of the thought, it may be; but the thought
seems to gain ground and take shape, that so much of apparently
human mind and heart as the dog possesses cannot be destined to
annihilation at his death, but must live and enlarge in another
sphere of existence. Having thus opened, if it may be said
reverently, a back-door into immortality for sagacious and
affectionate dogs and horses, they leave it ajar for the admission
of animals of less intelligence--even for all the kinds that Noah
took into the ark, perhaps, although the theory is still nebulous
and undefined. Now, I would beg the kind-hearted adherents to this
theory not to think I am seeking to play off a satirical pleasantry
upon it, if I express a hope, which is earnest and true, that, if
there be an immortality for any class of dumb animals, the donkey
shall go into it first, and have a better place in it than their
parlor dogs or nicely-groomed horses. Evidently they are building
up a claim to this illustrious distinction of another existence for
these pets on the sole ground of merit, not of works, even, but of
mere intelligence, fidelity, and affection. Granted; but the donkey
should go in first and take the highest place on that basis. When
you come to the standard of moral measurement, it may be claimed as
among the highest of human as well as animal virtues, "to learn to
suffer and be strong." And this virtue the donkey has learned and
practised incomparably beyond any other creature that ever walked on
four legs since the Flood. Let these good people remember that
their fanciful and romantic favoritisms are not to rule in the
destinies awarded to the infinitesimally human spirits of domestic
animals in another world, if another be in reserve for them. Let
them remember that their softly-cushioned dogs, and horses so
delicately clad, and fed, and fondled, have had a pretty good time
of it in this life, and that in another, the poor, despised, abused
donkey, going about begging, with such a long and melancholy face,
for withered cabbage leaves and woody-grained turnips cast out and
trodden under feet of happier animals,--that this meek little
creature, kicked, cuffed, and club-beaten all the way from hopeless
youth to an ignominious grave, will carry into another world merits
and mementoes of his earthly lot that will obtain, if not entitle
him to, some compensation in the award of a future condition. It is
treading on delicate ground even to set one foot within the pale of
their unscriptural theory; but as many of them hold the Christian
faith in pureness of living and doctrine, let me remind them of that
parable which shows so impressively how the disparities in human
condition here are reversed in the destinies of the great hereafter.
But, to return to the earthly lot and position of this poor,
libelled animal. Among all the four-footed creatures domesticated
to the service of man, this has always been the veriest scapegoat
and victim of the cruellest and crabbedest of human dispositions.
Truly, it has ever been born unto sorrow, bearing all its life long
a weight of abuse and contumely which would break the heart of a
less sensitive animal in a single week. From the beginning it has
been the poor man's beast of burden; and "pity 'tis 'tis true," poor
men, in all the generations of human poverty, have been far too
prone to harshness of temper and treatment towards the beasts that
serve them and share their lot of humble life. The donkey is made a
kind of Ishmaelite in the great family of domestic animals. He is
made, not born so. He is beaten about the head unmercifully with a
heavy stick, and then jeered at for being stupid and obstinate! just
as if any other creature, of four or two legs, would not be stupid
after such fierce congestion of the brain. His long ears subject
him to a more cruel prejudice than ever color engendered in the
circle of humanity but just above him. True, he is rather
unsymmetrical in form. His head is disproportionately long and
large, quite sufficient in these dimensions to fit a camel. He is
generally a hollow-backed, pot-bellied creature, about the size of a
yearling calf, with ungainly, sloping haunches, and long, coarse
hair. But nearly all these deformities come out of the shameful
treatment he gets. You occasionally meet one that might hold up its
head in any animal society; with straight back, symmetrical body and
limbs, and hair as soft and sleek as the fur of a Maltese cat; with
contented face, and hopeful and happy eyes, showing that he has a
kind master.
The donkey is really a useful and valuable animal, which might be
introduced into America with great advantage to our farmers. I know
of no animal of its size so tough and strong. It is astonishing, as
well as shocking, to see what loads he is made to draw here. The
vehicle to which he is usually harnessed is a heavy, solid affair,
frequently as large as our common horse-carts. He is put to all
kinds of work, and is almost exclusively the poor man's beast of
burden and travel. In cities and large towns, his cart is loaded
with the infinitely-varied wares of street trade; with cabbages,
fish, fruit, or with some of the thousand-and-one nicknacks that
find a market among the masses of the common people. At watering-
places, or on the "commons" or suburban playgrounds of large towns,
he is brought out in a handsome saddle, or a well got-up little
carriage, and let by the hour or by the ride to invalid adults, or
to children bubbling over with life. Here, although the everlasting
club, to which he is born, is wielded by his driver, he often looks
comfortable and sleek, and sometimes wears a red ribbon at each ear.
It would not pay to bring on to the ground the scrawny, bony
creature that generally tugs in the costermonger's cart. It is in
the coal region or trade that you meet with him and his driver in
their worst apostacy from all that is seemly in man or beast. To
watch the poor creature, begrimed with coal-dust, wriggling up a
long, steep hill, with a load four times his own weight, griping
with his little sheep-footed hoofs into the black, slimy pavement of
the road, while his tall, sooty-faced and harsh-voiced master,
perhaps sitting on the top or on a shaft, is punching and beating
him; to see this is enough to stir up the old adam in the meekest
Christian to emotions of pugilistic indignation. It has often cost
me a doubtful and protracted effort to keep it down. Indeed, I have
often yielded to it so far as to wish that once more the poor
creature might be honored of God with His gift to Balaam's ass, and
be able to speak, bolt outright, an indignant remonstrance, in human
speech, against such treatment. It would serve them right!--these
lineal descendants of Balaam, who have inherited his club and wield
it more cruelly.
A word or two more about this animal, and I will pass on to others
of more dignity of position. He is the cheapest as well as smallest
beast of burden to be found in Christendom. You may buy one here
for twenty or thirty English shillings. I am confident that they
would be extremely serviceable in America, if once introduced. It
costs but very little to keep them, and they will do all kinds of
work up to the draught of 600 or 800 lbs. You frequently see here a
span of them trotting off in a cart, with brisk and even step.
Sometimes they are put on as leaders to a team of horses. I once
saw on my walk a heavy Lincolnshire horse in the shafts, a pony
next, and a donkey at the head, making a team graduated from 18
hands to 6 in height; and all pulling evenly, and apparently keeping
step with each other, notwithstanding the disparity in the length of
their legs.
It would be unjust to that goodwill to man and beast which is being
organised and stimulated in England through an infinite number of
societies, if I should omit to state that, at last, a little rill of
this benevolence has reached the donkey. That most valuable and
widely-circulated penny magazine, "The British Workman," and its
little companion for British workmen's children, "The Band of Hope
Review," have advocated the rights and better treatment of this
humble domestic for several years. His cause has also been pleaded
in a packet of little papers called "Leaflets of the Law of Kindness
for the Children." And now, at last, a wealthy and benevolent
champion, on whom the mantle of Elizabeth Fry, his aunt, has fallen,
has taken the lead in the work of raising the useful creature to the
level of the other animals of the pasture, stable, and barn-yard.
Up to the present time, every creature that walks on four or two
legs, either haired, woolled, or feathered, with the single
exception of the donkey has had the door of the Agricultural
Exhibition thrown wide open to it, to enter the lists for prizes or
"honorable mention," and for general admiration. A pig, whose legs
and eyes have all been absorbed out of sight by an immense rotundity
of fat, is often decked with a ribbon, of the Order of the Garter
genus, as a reward of merit, or of grace of form and proportions!
Turkeys, geese, ducks, and hens of different breeds, strut or waddle
off with similar distinctions. As for blood-horses, bulls, cows,
and sheep, one not versed in such matters might be tempted to think
that men, especially the poorer sort, were made for beasts, and not
beasts for men. And yet, mirabile dictu! at these great social
gatherings of man-and-animal kind, there has not been even "a negro-
pew" for the donkey. A genuine, raw, Guinea negro might have as
well entered the Prince of Wales' Ball in New York bare-footed, and
offered to play a voluntary on his banjo for the dancers, as this
despised quadruped have hoped to obtain the entree to these grand
and fashionable assemblies of the shorter-eared elite of society.
But this prejudice against color and long ears is now going the way
of other barbarisms. The gentleman to whom I have referred, a
Member of Parliament, whose means are as large as his benevolence,
has taken the first and decisive step towards raising the donkey to
his true place in society. He has offered a liberal prize for the
best conditioned one exhibited at the next Agricultural Fair. Since
this offer was made, a very decided improvement has been noticed
among the donkeys of the London costermongers, as if the competition
for the first prize was to be a very large one.
It will be a kind of St. Crispin's Day to the whole of the long-
eared race--a day of emancipation from forty centuries of obloquy
and oppression. Doubtless they will be admitted hereafter to the
Royal Agricultural Society's exhibitions, to compete for honors with
animals that have hitherto spurned such association with contempt.