Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/344

 324 Hijlory of Domejiic Maimers a houfe with me, fo that I could go into it when the rain came, and not get my clothes dirtied and wet." The earl and his followers let Jean down for a fool, and looked forward to be made merry by him. Soon afterwards they came to the banks of a river, into which the earl rode, without firft afcertaining if it were fordable, and he was carried away by the ftream, and only faved from drowning by a fillierman in a boat. The reft of the company found a ford, where they palfed the river without danger. The earl's clothes had now been completely foaked in the water, and, as his baggage-horfes were too far in the rear, he made one of his knights ftrip, and give him his dry clothes, and left him to make the beft of his wet ones. " If I were as rich, and had fo many men, as you," faid Jean, laughing again, " I would not be expofed to misfortunes of this kind, for I would carry a bridge with me." The earl and his retinue were merry again, at what they fuppofed to be the folly of their travelling companion. They were now near Oxford, and Jean took his leave of the earl of Gloucefter. We learn, in the courfe of the ftory, that all that Jean meant by the houfe, was that the earl ought to have had at hand a good cloak and cape to cover his fine clothes in cafe of rain; and that, by the bridge, he intended to intimate that he ought to have fent fome of his men to afcertain the depth of the river before he went into it ! Thefe illullrations of the manner and inconveniences of travelling apply more efpecially to thofe who could travel on horfeback ; but the difficulties were ftill greater for the numerous clafs of people who were obliged to travel on foot, and who could rarely make fure of reaching, at the end of each day's journey, a place where they could obtain a lodging. They, moreover, had alio to take with them a certain quantity of baggage. Foot-travellers feem to have had fometimes a mule or a donkey, to carry luggage, or for the weak women and children. Every one will remember the mediaeval fable of the old man and his afs, in which a father and his fon have the one afs between them. In mediaeval illuminations reprefenting the flight into Egypt, Jofeph is often repre- fented as walking, while the Virgin and Child ride upon an als which he is leading. The party of foot-travellers in our cut No. 218, taken from a manufcript