listening. But he was a good-hearted man, and, though he would
not delay for his own amusement, he could not refuse to stop when
fellow-pilgrims asked him for assistance. Little children were
continually straying from the path, and without Jacques and his little
dog would inevitably have been lost. Feeble old people were standing
looking with despair at some obstacle that without Jacques's friendly
arm they would have found it impossible to pass. Young men who never
looked where they were walking were continually calling on him for a
hand to help them out of the ditch where they had fallen; and young
girls--well, one would have supposed they had never been given feet
of their own to walk with, from the trouble they were to poor Jacques.
The worst of it was, that when all these good people were well over
their troubles they called Jacques a simpleton for his pains, and
refused to have any intercourse with him, giving him the worst side of
the road and laughing at his old-fashioned staff and scrip, and even
at his little dog, to which they gave many a sly kick. Nor was it
any wonder, for there were many in the company robed in silk, wearing
precious stones and with well-filled wallets by their sides. Jacques
was but human, and often he wished he had never set out for heaven at
all in such company; but even in their bitterest moods neither
Jacques nor the little dog could ever hear a cry of distress without
forgetting all unkindness and rushing at once to the rescue.

These labors exhausted Jacques's strength: the little dog, too, was
worn to a shadow, and so timid from ill-treatment that it was only
when some great occasion called out his mettle that you saw what a
noble little dog-heart he had. He did his best to comfort his master,
but when Jacques's sandals were worn out and his cloak in rags, and
when he looked forward and saw nothing yet of the holy city in view,
though he still tried to go forward, Nature gave way: he sank to the