Page:Travels with a Donkey In The Cevennes.djvu/12

vi the second expedition started, on the 23rd of September, 1878, Modestine and her master comprised the only members of the party.

The twelve days' tramp through the Cévennes, though in some ways more exhausting than the canoe voyage, was more to the traveller's taste, having elements of romance the former lacked. To the end of his life the author of Treasure Island and the Child's Garden remained at heart a boy. What could appeal more strongly to the imagination of a "lantern bearer" than the thought of sleeping alone under the stars in a fleecy blue bag, and breaking his fast on bits of chocolate?—to say nothing of the pistol, which I doubt would have proved a very efficient weapon in time of need, had such a chance occurred, it being of an antiquated pattern, uncertain in its mechanism, and more likely to be a menace than a protection to its owner.

The management of Modestine's pack must have been a source of exasperation and perplexity to her master, for my husband was, like his father before him, what the Scotch call a "handless