But This Was Not After The
Pattern Of The Ass At Lyons.
He was of a white colour, that seemed
to fit him rather for rare festal occasions than for constant
drudgery.
Besides, he was very small, and of the daintiest
portions you can imagine in a donkey. And so, sure enough, you had
only to look at him to see he had never worked. There was
something too roguish and wanton in his face, a look too like that
of a schoolboy or a street Arab, to have survived much cudgelling.
It was plain that these feet had kicked off sportive children
oftener than they had plodded with a freight through miry lanes.
He was altogether a fine-weather, holiday sort of donkey; and
though he was just then somewhat solemnised and rueful, he still
gave proof of the levity of his disposition by impudently wagging
his ears at me as I drew near. I say he was somewhat solemnised
just then; for, with the admirable instinct of all men and animals
under restraint, he had so wound and wound the halter about the
tree that he could go neither back nor forwards, nor so much as put
down his head to browse. There he stood, poor rogue, part puzzled,
part angry, part, I believe, amused. He had not given up hope, and
dully revolved the problem in his head, giving ever and again
another jerk at the few inches of free rope that still remained
unwound. A humorous sort of sympathy for the creature took hold
upon me.
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