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Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes-Part1_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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warm clothing - besides my travelling wear of country velveteen,



pilot-coat, and knitted spencer - some books, and my railway-rug,

which, being also in the form of a bag, made me a double castle for



cold nights. The permanent larder was represented by cakes of

chocolate and tins of Bologna sausage. All this, except what I



carried about my person, was easily stowed into the sheepskin bag;

and by good fortune I threw in my empty knapsack, rather for



convenience of carriage than from any thought that I should want it

on my journey. For more immediate needs I took a leg of cold



mutton, a bottle of Beaujolais, an empty bottle to carry milk, an

egg-beater, and a considerable quantity of black bread and white,



like Father Adam, for myself and donkey, only in my scheme of

things the destinations were reversed.



Monastrians, of all shades of thought in politics, had agreed in

threatening me with many ludicrous misadventures, and with sudden



death in many surprising forms. Cold, wolves, robbers, above all

the nocturnal practical joker, were daily and eloquently forced on



my attention. Yet in these vaticinations, the true, patent danger

was left out. Like Christian, it was from my pack I suffered by



the way. Before telling my own mishaps, let me in two words relate

the lesson of my experience. If the pack is well strapped at the



ends, and hung at full length - not doubled, for your life - across

the pack-saddle, the traveller is safe. The saddle will certainly



not fit, such is the imperfection of our transitory life; it will

assuredly topple and tend to overset; but there are stones on every



roadside, and a man soon learns the art of correcting any tendency

to overbalance with a well-adjusted stone.



On the day of my departure I was up a little after five; by six, we

began to load the donkey; and ten minutes after, my hopes were in



the dust. The pad would not stay on Modestine's back for half a

moment. I returned it to its maker, with whom I had so



contumelious a passage that the street outside was crowded from

wall to wall with gossips looking on and listening. The pad



changed hands with much vivacity; perhaps it would be more

descriptive to say that we threw it at each other's heads; and, at



any rate, we were very warm and unfriendly, and spoke with a deal

of freedom.



I had a common donkey pack-saddle - a BARDE, as they call it -

fitted upon Modestine; and once more loaded her with my effects.



The doubled sack, my pilot-coat (for it was warm, and I was to walk

in my waistcoat), a great bar of black bread, and an open basket



containing the white bread, the mutton, and the bottles, were all

corded together in a very elaboratesystem of knots, and I looked



on the result with fatuous content. In such a monstrous deck-

cargo, all poised above the donkey's shoulders, with nothing below



to balance, on a brand-new pack-saddle that had not yet been worn

to fit the animal, and fastened with brand-new girths that might be



expected to stretch and slacken by the way, even a very careless

traveller should have seen disaster brewing. That elaboratesystem



of knots, again, was the work of too many sympathisers to be very

artfully designed. It is true they tightened the cords with a



will; as many as three at a time would have a foot against

Modestine's quarters, and be hauling with clenched teeth; but I



learned afterwards that one thoughtful person, without any exercise

of force, can make a more solid job than half-a-dozen heated and



enthusiastic grooms. I was then but a novice; even after the

misadventure of the pad nothing could disturb my security, and I



went forth from the stable door as an ox goeth to the slaughter.

THE GREEN DONKEY-DRIVER



THE bell of Monastier was just striking nine as I got quit of these

preliminary troubles and descended the hill through the common. As



long as I was within sight of the windows, a secret shame and the

fear of some laughable defeat withheld me from tampering with



Modestine. She tripped along upon her four small hoofs with a

sober daintiness of gait; from time to time she shook her ears or



her tail; and she looked so small under the bundle that my mind

misgave me. We got across the ford without difficulty - there was



no doubt about the matter, she was docility itself - and once on

the other bank, where the road begins to mount through pine-woods,






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