The abbess of _Andoüillets_, which, if you look into the large set of
provincial maps now publishing at _Paris_, you will find situated
amongst the hills which divide _Burgundy_ from _Savoy_, being in danger
of an _Anchylosis_ or stiff joint (the _sinovia_ of her knee becoming
hard by long matins), and having tried every remedy----first, prayers
and thanksgiving; then invocations to all the saints in heaven
promiscuously----then particularly to every saint who had ever had a
stiff leg, before her----then touching it with all the reliques of the
convent, principally with the thigh-bone of the man of _Lystra_, who had
been impotent from his youth----then wrapping it up in her veil when she
went to bed--then cross-wise her rosary--then bringing in to her aid the
secular arm, and anointing it with oils and hot fat of animals----then
treating it with emollient and resolving fomentations----then with
poultices of marsh-mallows, mallows, bonus Henricus, white lillies and
fenugreek--then taking the woods, I mean the smoak of ’em, holding her
scapulary across her lap----then decoctions of wild chicory,
water-cresses, chervil, sweet cecily and cochlearia----and nothing all
this while answering, was prevailed on at last to try the hot baths of
_Bourbon_----so having first obtain’d leave of the visitor-general to
take care of her existence--she ordered all to be got ready for her
journey: a novice of the convent of about seventeen, who had been
troubled with a whitloe in her middle finger, by sticking it constantly
into the abbess’s cast poultices, &c. --had gained such an interest,
that overlooking a sciatical old nun, who might have been set up for
ever by the hot-baths of _Bourbon_, _Margarita_, the little novice, was
elected as the companion of the journey.
An old calesh, belonging to the abbesse, lined with green frize, was
ordered to be drawn out into the sun--the gardener of the convent being
chosen muleteer--led out the two old mules, to clip the hair from the
rump-ends of their tails, whilst a couple of lay-sisters were busied,
the one in darning the lining, and the other in sewing on the shreads of
yellow binding, which the teeth of time had unravelled----the
under-gardener dress’d the muleteer’s hat in hot wine-lees----and a
taylor sat musically at it, in a shed over-against the convent, in
assorting four dozen of bells for the harness, whistling to each bell,
as he tied it on with a thong.----
----The carpenter and the smith of _Andoüillets_ held a council of
wheels; and by seven, the morning after, all look’d spruce, and was
ready at the gate of the convent for the hot-baths of _Bourbon_--two
rows of the unfortunate stood ready there an hour before.
The abbess of _Andoüillets_, supported by _Margarita_ the novice,
advanced slowly to the calesh, both clad in white, with their black
rosaries hanging at their breasts----
----There was a simple solemnity in the contrast: they entered the
calesh; and nuns in the same uniform, sweet emblem of innocence, each
occupied a window, and as the abbess and _Margarita_ look’d up--each
(the sciatical poor nun excepted)--each stream’d out the end of her veil
in the air--then kiss’d the lilly hand which let it go: the good abbess
and _Margarita_ laid their hands saint-wise upon their breasts--look’d
up to heaven--then to them--and look’d “God bless you, dear sisters.”
I declare I am interested in this story, and wish I had been there.
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.----
And so with one consent they stopp’d thus----