Thus harshly treated and sent into banishment, I betook myself to a corner of the stable. And while I reflected on the insolence of my companions, and formed plans of vengeance against the perfidious steed, for the next day, when I should have become Lucius once more by the aid of the roses, I beheld against the central square pillar which supported the beams of the stable, a statue of the goddess Hippona, standing within a shrine, and nicely adorned with garlands of roses, and those, too, recently gathered. Inspired with hope, the moment I espied the salutary remedy I boldly mounted as far as ever my forelegs could stretch; and then, with neck at full length, and extending my lips as much as I possibly could, I endeavored to catch hold of the garlands. But by a most unlucky chance, just as I was endeavoring to accomplish this, my servant lad, who had the constant charge of my horse, suddenly espied me, sprang to his feet in a great rage, and exclaimed, “How long are we to put up with this vile hack, which but a few moments ago was for making an attack upon the food of the cattle, and is now doing the same even to the statues of the gods? But if I don’t this very instant cause this sacrilegious beast to be both sore and crippled”--and searching for something with which to strike me, he stumbled upon a bundle of sticks that lay there, and, picking out a knotted cudgel, the largest he could find among them all, he did not cease to belabor my poor sides, until a loud thumping and banging at the outer gates, and an uproar of the neighbors shouting “Thieves!” struck him with terror, and he took to his heels. --_The Golden Ass._ _VICISSITUDES OF A DONKEY_ When the keeper of the horses had taken me to the country, I found there none of the pleasure or the liberty I expected; for his wife, an avaricious, bad woman, immediately yoked me to the mill, and frequently striking me with a green stick, prepared bread for herself and her family at the expense of my hide. And not content to make me drudge for her own food only, she also ground corn for her neighbors, and so made money by my toil. Nor, after all my weary labors, did she even afford me the food which had been ordered for me; for she sold my barley to the neighboring husbandmen, after it had been bruised and ground in that very mill by my own roundabout drudgery; but to me, who had worked during the whole of the day at that laborious machine, she only gave, toward evening, some dirty, unsifted, and very gritty bran. I was brought low enough by these miseries; but cruel fortune exposed me to fresh torments, in order, I suppose, that I might boast of my brave deeds, both in peace and war, as the saying is. For that excellent equerry, complying, rather late, indeed, with his master’s orders, for a short time permitted me to associate with the herds of horses.