return the obligation downwards (as men and women and beasts are)—they do it sideways, and longways, and back-ways—and up hill, and down hill, and which way they can.⸻Philosophers, with all their ethicks, have never considered this rightly—how should the poor muleteer, then in his cups, consider it at all? he did not in the least—’tis time we do; let us leave him then in the vortex of his element, the happiest and most thoughtless of mortal men⸺and for a moment let us look after the mules, the abbess, and Margarita .
By virtue of the muleteer’s two last strokes the mules had gone quietly on, following their own consciences up the hill, till they had conquer’d about one half of it; when the elder of them, a shrewd crafty old devil, at the turn of an angle, giving a side glance, and no muleteer behind them⸺
By my fig! said she, swearing, I’ll go no further⸺And if I do, replied the other, they shall make a drum of my hide.⸺
And so with one consent they stopp’d thus⸺