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Leader (1850-1860), 6th September 1851, Edition Town of 2, Page 854, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      TRIALS AND TROUBLES OF A POOH WORKING ASS . ( Co ? icludedfrom our last , p . 829 . ) Part III . —The Weakest goes to the Wall . Several years had passed since the gathering on the moor , and once again our old friend Gaberlunzie was seen wandering disconsolately along the road opposite the old farm-house ; and peering vainly about what once had been a garden , looking for stumps of cabbages . The door was swinging on its rusty hinges , the roof was half thrown off , the north wind swept

      through the wreck of the old barn , and the grass was growing in straggling , unwholesome patches over the courtyard . The last cabbage had been long dead , and nothing was left in the once bright garden but brambles and sting nettles . The Ass was grown very old , and grey , and thin ; and his lank cheeks made his face look a great deal wiser than it used to look . He was stretching himself feebly towards a bunch of wild clematis which was lingering in flower into the autumn , when a bee flew out close to him .

      " Ah ! little black vagabond , " said the Ass , " would that I had never seen anyone of your race Oh ! to think of what I Mas , and what I might have been ! and then to look at these lean sides !" The Bee had turned her tail into the flower on which she had settled , and had been watching the Ass carefully over . Presently she burst out into a buzzing . " Why , it is you ! " she said . Who would have thought it after all these years ? Well , and how are you ? and how have you been getting on »" " What ! " said the Ass , " are you that Bee ? that same Bee ? Oh ! that I had you inside this mouth ( if mine , sting and all . I'd make you sure , I would . You shouldn ' t tell poor innocent creatures any more of your lies . "

      " Ay , " said the Bee , " very pretty , so much for gratitude ! This is what comes of giving advice . It is the old story . As the smoke of brimstone in the Bee ' s nostril , so are the words of the wise in the fool ' s head . " " Ah ! Bee , Bee , " said the Ass , " look at these cheeks of mine . Crawl down the hollows between my ribs and see the mountains wlii ; h will rise on either side of you ; and it is your doing , it is ; yes , it is . " " Well , but what do you stop here for ? It is your own fault . There is the old meadow , and plenty of grass on it . Why don ' t you go there ? You have no master now . " " No , indeed , " said the Ass ; " I wish I had . Grass in the meadow ! Look at the horses there , and those long-horned marl bulls . If I was to go in there , 1 should find a pair of heels in my mouth find a pair of horns in my belly long enough before I got any grass into either . " " You surprise mo , " said th . p Bee . " I told you my story the last time we met . You tell me your * . " " ( Jladly would I , " said the Ass , " if it would make you smart as yours made me , However , I may as well lie down and do that , as look about here for cabbages . I suppose you meant well , Bre . I hop ? , I try to think you did . But never tell that Btory to an Ass again ; with all the he-art that is left me , I beseech you , don ' t " " But tell me what happened to you , Ash . There has bt en a mistake somewhere , that in plain , from the look of you . But let me hear all about it . " " Well , Bee , after that unlucky day when you Bute in my far and talked to me , you must know we did as well as we could jutit . what you Huid . " " I didn ' t , say anything , " said the Ike . " However , go on . " " I did the best I could to understand , Bee . We put our wits together , and we told ( he men we couldn ' t work without peas and citbbages . The first thing which came of that was that we got a great beating . However , we bore that , and wouldn ' t give in , and they wouldn ' t . give in , mid for a time it went very hard with us ; for they got tlie horses and the oxen to do our work , and they tried to starve un . Al last , however , they found horses expensive keeping , and they put them on the old living they used to give us , and the horses would n ' t Ntnu'l that ; and the oxen wouldn ' t ; and 1 and one or two more got nt them and talked to them ; and they all settled to do hn we had done-so they wouldn t work either ; and then the . men got frightened and ngrced to give uh what we wanted— -particularly they promised tiny would put our little ; ussch to school , and give them a chunee of turning into heller , if better was in them . Hut we , foolish fellows , seeing Unit we hud got ho much , were not contented but whut we must have more . We said to ourselves asses un ; uh clever an men , and more too , because they Imvo heat the men ; and jhh to the work , if there is enough to keep an ubb

      and his driver , supposing the ass can do without the driver , he will get twice as much for his dinner . " " Quite right , " said the Bee , " that is what we found with the drones . " "Ah , " said the ass , " I think there must be some sort of a difference—at least wo found it so . However , we didn ' t find it so at first ; we had our little carts and our panniers , and we trotted about with nobodj r to manage us . Quite at the beginning the men didn ' t like to trust us . But they 8 oon found they couldn ' t help themselves , and they had to let us go our own way . And a brave time we had of it . For three or four years life went as well as life

      could go . We blessed the Bee . who had given us so good a thought , and we supposed it would always be as it was : we married and married , and somehow we liked our life so well , and our young ones liked it so well that we let well alone , and didn ' t trouble ourselves any more about school ; but we did as little as we pleased . We made the men pay us our price out of the best of their gardens , and we ate and drank , and the number of children we had was quite enormous . You wouldn ' t believe it , Bee . I am not

      such a very old fellow , and I am a great , great , great , I do not know how many great grandfathers . They came so thick that at last there was hardly room for them , all ; well , and as we throve so well the men didn ' t , and somehow it was first we who wouldn ' t work as much as they wished , and then as we got so man )' , it was they that couldn ' t find work for all of us to do . They didn ' t dig and sow as they used , and we couldn ' t do that , so it came about that while there were more mouths to fill , there was less food to fill them with .

      " Y ou should have come to me about the children , " said the Bee . " 1 would have told you how to manage—we had just the same trouble . " " Why , how do you manage ? " said the Ass . " Drive them away , " said the Bee . " Oh , for shame ! " said the ass , " you unnatural Bee !' "We do , though , " said the Bee sharply , " and what is more , if they won ' t go we just kill them . " " Ah , " said the ass , " I see it all ; I see , I see , we must go the whole devil or we had better not begin . However , I'll tell you the rest , and I'll be short with it , fur I can ' t bear to think of it all . " Just when we got so many , the men hadgot ruined altogether . The farm was ruined , and the town fell to pieces ; and Rome of the people died , and the rest turned wild . And it fill went to waste fvprv

      where ; we thought it didn ' t matter , for thf re was plenty of grass in the meadows , and nobody to say we shouldn ' t go there . But we found the difference —we did to our cost . As we grew to such numbers , so the horses grew nnd the bulls too : and iu as much as they were big and strong , and running wild grew bigger and stronger and fiercer ; and as our ears didn ' t turn to horns , and we didn ' t get bigger and stronger , they forgot that it was we who had done it all for them , and drove us fairly away out of the pnstims into the old lanes and hedgerows

      to live or to die as we could . Misfortunes never come single . I might still have been happy with my own family ; but a handsome young rascal of a pony came up one morning , and telling me there was no such thing an one ' s oicn anything any more , fairly turned my poor wife's head , and flipping me in the fate with a hind foot as a last blessing , carried off the silly creature , and left me here to make a last dinner in the rums of my old home , and die brokenhearted . Old fool that I was ; and I ' m only wiser now when life is none , which only cornea once ; and it is too late to mend .

      Untitled Article

      Part the Last . —iti' / ntinirnoN-. The evening had set in damp and cold : the Bee , after wishing her companion a pleasantcr evening than , as she observed , he was likely to get ; him ! apologizing somewhat t mntingly for being unable to offer him a lodging , li id flown away to her nest ; ami the Ash had crept away to forget his hoitow and his hunger into a corner of the well-remembered shed , which was better proof once against wind and weather than now he found it . He . scraped up a heap of the straw which in old liine . s had been its roof , and after an ineffectual attempt at staying his appetite with few morsels

      a , he lay down with u groan and called on ^ eep or dentli , whichever pleawed , to come nnd comfort him . Nature , which through good and evil had been Mill hi * friend , had alread y come to his help , and he was sinking off into a doze , when he was suddenly staitled with hearing a sigh from the other end of the hut . He was not . consiitutioniilly very brave ; hut wretchedness like his could hardly have much to fear . However , us often happens , Ulnae who have the least left to Hum to suffer aro often most , afraid when that little threatens to fall on them ; and um it . wan too dark to nee he crouched down in the straw , shaking from ear to tail

      1 recently a voice began to speak :... " Well , it said we are near the end now ; and , considering wlnt thing , have come to the world , may as well end too or all I nee . . . J » brut / cH ! They didn ' t know what they were doing . . . . JJ . it it was our faultB . NoBtra culpa , no » tra maxima culpa , and pust

      absolving this side the grave . . . We lived bv their sweat , and we only cared for ourselves W forgot the poor backs that ached for us , and now »! are justly served . '' ne V » ell did the ass know that familiar voice . Often in old times he had shaken at the oaths it had growled out . And once during his own short-lived prosperity he had met his old master in the road , and in his foolish way had mocked him and reviled him Oh ! how did he repent it now ! He forgot all but

      that ; he forgot the beatings , the hard fare , and hard words ; he forgot his present troubles ; he remembered nothing but his master and his master ' s miserable plight . In a flood of tears he crawled out of his straw . Master , master , " he said , Oh ! it is I . It is your old ass . Here I am ; it was I that did it . Fool that I was , ungrateful that I was ! What shall I do ? Punish me , master ; make me suffer fot it . You are hungry ; kill me , eat me . I am very thin , but you will find something . "

      The shower had cleared off . The moon began to shine in through the rents in the broken roof , and by its light an aged greyhaired man might be made out sitting against the wall . The ass saw him , and fell at his feet . " What ?" said the man . " Is it really you ? Poor fellow you have suffered enough , you as well as I ; and you too much , perhaps . For you knew no better . It was I . I that was to blame . I knew , or should have known ; but I forgot all . Eat you now ? No , no ; there was too much of that before . I forgot your services , your faithfulness . I forgot that you were flesh and blood . " "Oh , don ' t , don ' t , " blubbered the ass . " Please don ' t ; it is worse than beating . "

      " Yes , said the man , " it is true . It is my doing . Our doing . We were set over you for your good aa well as ours . We neglected you , starved you , illused you ; and , therefore , we are thrown down from our place which we disgraced ; and who shall say it is not just r " Sobs choked the poor ass . His master tried to comfort him ; he patted him ; he stroked his ears ; but tenderness onl ) ' made it worse . At last he faltered out , " Forgive me master . I'll work for you , I'll do anything for you . It will all be right again . It will . It shall . Oh that I had never seen that wicked , wicked Bee !"

      " You and I are too old to mend now , " said the man . " We have done with our work , and we must leave it now to those that come after . Our business now is to take ourselves off ; and the sand is near run for both of us ; but I am glad to have seen you once more , old friend , to exchange a kind word . " " Oh , the Bee ! the Bee ! " again groaned the ass . " What about the Bre ? " asked his master . The Ass told him all about it . It relieved him unspeakably to get it out ; he felt sure his master would thijik less hardly of him .

      " Ah ! " said the man , -when the ass had finished , " you see we were not altogether drones , and you could not get on without us . We were not drones , we were workers in our way , master workers , though you couldn ' t see what we did ; but we were had masters , and , therefore , evil has befallen us . The Bee , the rogue , knew the difference well ; but it was her wicked mischief , she hated us , and she was playing and practising upon you . Do you know where .-. lie lives , As 3 ? I should like to talk to her . " " Yes , I do , " said the Ass . " She lives in a hollow tree down the road . I know where it is . She told me ; nnd she paid she would be happy to see me as soon as I had grown thin enough to bo

      able to get in . ' " Just take a little of that straw on your back , " said the man , " and come along . The night is fine now . I have got a tinder-box . We will go «»"• take a look at her . " The Ass said nothing , but took up his bundle . It made him quite hnppy to be doing something that no was told , once more . He crept out of the hut , and led the way . " Now , " said the man as they stopped ; " ne more piece of justice at least shall be done in tin * world . "

      The Ass put down the straw . The man rut a sod of turf , and ( hen kindling a handful , he thrust " into the hole , which he carefully closed with the turf , leaving the smoke and the fire to do their work . " There , ' * said he , " that comes « . f being over b' ^ y in other body ' s mutters . You , at any rate , shall no laugh at the mischief which you have made . An " that you may know that , after all , your own worit shall not prosper erven fur yourself in the Avny y ° , . ; . . ii ,,, a .,., „ ,,. ! I ... ill . mid' n lietter BiipP itthe Ans and 1 will make a better huyr

      manage ; than we have hud these many days out of your store house . " They turned uwiiy as the flume blazed uj j wrapping tiee and hive in nun ; n deep fierce < ry agony burst for a few seconds dchiiul ihe lire , ' the blackened bodies f , 11 in thousands among i »" ashen «» the wretched bees struggled in viun J hreuk through into the night . Only one nrticiii '" ishriek whh heard iu the midst of the coiiiiwuj - " Fool , fool that I wuh , not to tell him whut wo <»" with our drones ! "

      Untitled Article

      We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages itself . —Gokthe .

      Untitled Article

      854 OLtyt VLtailtt . [ Saturday ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 6, 1851, page 854, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1899/page/18/