Jane is always
overcome by sentiment when she sees that left-hand road. She bears
to the left like a whirlwind, and nothing can stop her mad career
until she is again amid the scenes so dear to her recollection, the
beloved pastures where the mother still lives at whose feet she
brayed in early youth!
Now this is all very pretty and touching. Her action has, in truth,
its springs in a most commendable sentiment that I should be the
last to underrate. Shady Dell Farm is interesting, too, for once,
if one can swallow one's wrath and dudgeon at being taken there
against one's will; and one feels that Jane's parents and Jane's
early surroundings must be worth a single visit, if they could
produce a donkey of such unusual capacity. Still, she must know, if
she knows anything, that a person does not come from America and pay
one and fourpence the hour (or thereabouts) merely in order to visit
the home of her girlhood, which is neither mentioned in Baedeker nor
set down in the local guide-books as a feature of interest.
Whether, in addition to her affection for Shady Dell Farm, she has
an objection to St. Bridget's Well, and thus is strengthened by a
double motive, I do not know. She may consider it a relic of popish
superstition; she may be a Protestant donkey; she is a Dissenter, -
there's no doubt about that.
But, you ask, have you tried various methods of bringing her to
terms and gaining your own desires? Certainly. I have coaxed,
beaten, prodded, prayed. I have tried leading her past the Shady
Dell turn; she walks all over my feet, and then starts for home, I
running behind until I can catch up with her. I have offered her
one and tenpence the hour; she remained firm. One morning I had a
happy inspiration; I determined on conquering Jane by a subterfuge.
I said to myself: "I am going to start for St. Bridget's Well, as
usual; several yards before we reach the two roads, I shall begin
pulling, not the right, but the left rein. Jane will lift her ears
suddenly, and say to herself: 'What! has this girl fallen in love
with my birthplace at last, and does she now prefer it to St.
Bridget's Well? Then she shall not have it!' Whereupon Jane will
race madly down the right-hand road for the first time, I pulling
steadily at the left rein to keep up appearances, and I shall at
last realise my wishes."
This was my inspiration. Would you believe that it failed utterly?
It should have succeeded, and would with an ordinary donkey, but
Jane saw through it. She obeyed my pull on the left rein, and went
to Shady Dell Farm as usual.
Another of Jane's eccentricities is a violent aversion to
perambulators. As Belvern is a fine, healthy, growing country, with
steadily increasing population, the roads are naturally alive with
perambulators; or at least alive with the babies inside the
perambulators.
