The gardener, whom I shall now call the muleteer, was a little, hearty,
broad-set, good-natured, chattering, toping kind of a fellow, who
troubled his head very little with the _hows_ and _whens_ of life; so
had mortgaged a month of his conventical wages in a borrachio, or
leathern cask of wine, which he had disposed behind the calesh, with a
large russet-coloured riding-coat over it, to guard it from the sun;
and as the weather was hot, and he not a niggard of his labours,
walking ten times more than he rode—he found more occasions than those
of nature, to fall back to the rear of his carriage; till by frequent
coming and going, it had so happen’d, that all his wine had leak’d out
at the legal vent of the borrachio, before one half of the journey was
finish’d.
Man is a creature born to habitudes. The day had been sultry—the
evening was delicious—the wine was generous—the _Burgundian_ hill on
which it grew was steep—a little tempting bush over the door of a cool
cottage at the foot of it, hung vibrating in full harmony with the
passions—a gentle air rustled distinctly through the leaves—“Come—come,
thirsty muleteer,—come in.”
—The muleteer was a son of _Adam_, I need not say a word more. He gave
the mules, each of ’em, a sound lash, and looking in the abbess’s and
_Margarita_’s faces (as he did it)—as much as to say “here I am”—he
gave a second good crack—as much as to say to his mules, “get on”——so
slinking behind, he enter’d the little inn at the foot of the hill.
The muleteer, as I told you, was a little, joyous, chirping fellow, who
thought not of to-morrow, nor of what had gone before, or what was to
follow it, provided he got but his scantling of Burgundy, and a little
chit-chat along with it; so entering into a long conversation, as how
he was chief gardener to the convent of _Andoüillets_, &c. &c. and out
of friendship for the abbess and Mademoiselle _Margarita_, who was only
in her noviciate, he had come along with them from the confines of
_Savoy_, &c. &c.—and as how she had got a white swelling by her
devotions—and what a nation of herbs he had procured to mollify her
humours, &c. &c. and that if the waters of _Bourbon_ did not mend that
leg—she might as well be lame of both—&c. &c. &c.—He so contrived his
story, as absolutely to forget the heroine of it—and with her the
little novice, and what was a more ticklish point to be forgot than
both—the two mules; who being creatures that take advantage of the
world, inasmuch as their parents took it of them—and they not being in
a condition to return the obligation _downwards_ (as men and women and
beasts are)—they do it side-ways, and long-ways, and back-ways—and up
hill, and down hill, and which way they can.——Philosophers, with all
their ethicks, have never considered this rightly—how should the poor
muleteer, then in his cups, consider it at all? he did not in the
least—’tis time we do; let us leave him then in the vortex of his
element, the happiest and most thoughtless of mortal men—and for a
moment let us look after the mules, the abbess, and _Margarita._
By virtue of the muleteer’s two last strokes the mules had gone quietly
on, following their own consciences up the hill, till they had
conquer’d about one half of it; when the elder of them, a shrewd crafty
old devil, at the turn of an angle, giving a side glance, and no
muleteer behind them,——
By my fig! said she, swearing, I’ll go no further——And if I do, replied
the other, they shall make a drum of my hide.——