Читать книгу Mr. Poskitt's Nightcaps: Stories of a Yorkshire Farmer - J. S. Fletcher - Страница 9

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Where the animal which subsequently became so famous in the village to whose sober quietude it brought an unexpected breath of romance first came from no one ever knew. Its coming was as mysterious as the falling of rain or growing of corn in the night; it must, indeed, have arrived in the night, for it was certainly a part and parcel of Little St. Peter's when Little St. Peter's awoke one morning. Those early birds who were out and about before the gossamers on the hedgerows had felt the first kiss of the autumn sun were aware of the presence of a remarkably lean pig, who was exploring the one street of the village with inquisitive nose, questioning eyes, and flapping ears. It went from one side of the street to another, and it was obviously on the look-out for whatever might come in its way in the shape of food. There was an oak near the entrance to the churchyard; the stranger paused beneath it as long as there was an acorn to be found amongst the fallen leaves. Farther along, there was a crab-apple-tree in the parson's hedge, the fruit of which was too bitter for even the most hardened boy of the village; it stopped there to devour the fallen sournesses which lay in the shining grass. But always it was going on, searching and inquiring, and its eyes grew hungrier as its swinging gait increased in speed. And coming at last to a gap in the fence of Widow Grooby's garden, it made its way through and set to work on the lone woman's potatoes.

It was an hour later that the marauder was driven out of this harbour of refuge, bearing upon its lean body the marks of the switch with which Widow Grooby had chased it forth, but within its ribs the comfortable consciousness of a hearty meal. When it had uttered its final protest against the switch, it went along the street again, furtive and friendless, but this time with the more leisurely pace of the thing that has breakfasted. Widow Grooby gazed after it with an irate countenance.

"I could like to know whose gre't hungry beast that there is!" she remarked to a neighbour who had been attracted to her cottage door by the pig's lamentations as he quitted the scene of his misdeeds. "It's been all over my garden and etten half-a-row o' my best potatoes, drat it. And it couldn't have done that, Julia Green, if your Johnny hadn't made that gap in my fence when I ran him out t'other night for being at my winter apples, no it couldn't! I think your William might ha' mended that gap before now—that's what I think."

"Our William's summat else to do than mend gaps," said Mrs. Green sullenly. "And the gap were there before our Johnny came through it. And it's none our pig anyway, for ours is in its sty at this here present moment, a-eating its breakfast, so there!"

The styless and proper-breakfastless pig, unconscious of this discussion and of its possibilities of development into a good, old-fashioned, neighbourly quarrel, went farther along the village street, still prospecting. There were people about now, men and women, and the door of the Fox-and-Fiddle had been thrown open, and one or two habitués stood within the sanded hall, taking their accustomed morning glass. The pig passed by, and as he passed turned an inquisitive nose towards the scent of stale ale and tobacco. He went forward, and as he went, one man put his head out of the door after him.

"Whose pig's that there?" he said, scratching his ear. "I don't rek'lect seein' that pig before, nowhere."

Another man, standing at the bar, strode to the door and looked forth at the stranger. He was a curious-looking individual, very porcine of appearance, very red and greasy of face and hand, and as bald as man could be. He wore a blue linen apron over his clothes, and from his side a formidable steel dangled from a leather belt. He was, in short, the butcher and pig-killer of the village, and had a professional interest in pigs of all classes. And he surveyed the wandering pig with a keen eye, shook his head, and went back to his ale. He knew every pig in Little St. Peter's—this was a stray-away from somewhere else.

"That's none of ours," he said, with a sniff of disdain. "Jack Longbottom's pig's the only one in Peter's that's in a badly way, and it's a stone heavier nor what that pig is."

"It'll be a poorish pig, then!" remarked the other man. "But Jack were never much of a hand at pig-feeding."

The ownerless pig continued his explorations. He went up a by-lane or two, looked in at the gates of a farmstead here and a farmstead there, but always returned to the street unsatisfied. He managed to get a light lunch off a bowl of potato peelings which a woman threw into the road as he passed, but he was still hungry, and had visions of a trough, liberally furnished with pig-meal. And at noon, being famished, and remembering the gap in Widow Grooby's garden fence, he went recklessly back to it, and finding that William Green had not yet repaired it, pushed his way through and once more entered on work of a destructive nature.

This time Widow Grooby on discovering him made no personal effort to dislodge the intruder. She was doing a day's starching and ironing, being by profession a laundrywoman, and she and her assistant, a young woman from a few doors away, were as throng, said Mrs. Grooby, as Throp's wife, and were not to be interrupted by anything or anybody.

"Blest if that there dratted pig isn't in my garden agen!" exclaimed Widow Grooby. "That's the second time this morning, and now it's at them carrots. Howsumever, it's not a woman's place to take up stray cattle—Martha Jane, slip round to James Burton's, the pinder's, and tell him there's a strange pig on my premises, and I'll thank him to come and take it out at once and put it in the pinfold, which is its lawful place. Them as it belongs to can come and pay for it—and then I'll talk to 'em about paying me for the damage it's done."

The pinder, interrupted at his dinner, came slowly and unwillingly to perform his duty. It was no easy thing to drive a stray pig into the village pound; stray horses, donkeys, and cattle were not so difficult to manage, but a pig was a different thing.

"Whose pig is it?" he inquired surlily, as he followed Martha Jane and munched his last mouthfuls. "If it be that rampagious rorp-scorp o' Green's, why don't they fetch it out theirselves?"

"Then it isn't," answered Martha Jane. "It's an animal as comes from nowhere, and you've to put it in the pinfold this minute, Mrs. Grooby says."

"Aw, indeed!" remarked the pinder. "An' I wonder how she'd like breaking off her dinner to put pigs in pound. Howsumever——"

There were boys and girls coming from school just then, and Mr. Burton enlisted their services in driving the stray pig out of the widow's garden and conducting it to the place of incarceration. Pig-like, as soon as it began to be chivied it showed a powerful inclination to go anywhere but where it was wanted to go. In a few moments the quiet street was riotous with noise and commotion.

The pinfold lay in the shadow of the old lych-gate which gave admittance to the churchyard, the spreading yew-trees, and the ancient church itself. Like all the rest of the things about it, it was grey and time-worn, and redolent of a long-dead past. A square enclosure of grey, lichen-covered walls, against one of which stood the village stocks, against another the mounting-steps from which many a fine old squire and sprightly damsel had taken saddle to ride homeward after church, its interior, now rarely used, was a mass of docks and nettles; its door was green and mouldy, and would scarce have withstood a couple of sturdy kicks from a stout ass. When that door was opened, however, for the reception of captives, most of them backed away.

The pig proved himself as unwilling to enter the pound as any of his many predecessors. He looked in, saw the uninviting gloom, the nettles, the docks, the absence of anything amongst which he could root, and he turned and made valiant efforts to escape his captors. He doubled this way and that; he struggled out of corners; he tried to wriggle through the lych-gate. The pinder, remembering his interrupted dinner, shouted; the boys yelled; the girls screamed. But the stray pig, dodging hither and thither, still eluded their attempts to impound him, though he now screamed a little and was getting short of breath. Suddenly he collapsed against the churchyard wall, as if wearied out.

It was at this moment that Miss Lavinia Dorney, who occupied the pretty house and garden close to the church, came down to the foot of her lawn, attracted by the unwonted commotion, and beheld the exhausted pig and his tormentors. Miss Lavinia was a spinster lady of fine presence, very noble and dignified in manner, who was noted for her shawls and her caps, both of which she wore with distinction. She looked very imposing as she stood there, half-concealed by the shining holly-hedge whose neatly clipped edges fitted in so well with the elegance of their surroundings, and Burton touched his cap, the boys pulled their forelocks, and the girls curtsied.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Lavinia, lifting a pair of elegantly-mounted pince-nez to the bridge of her aristocratic nose. "Dear me, what a noise! Oh, that's you, James Burton, isn't it? And what is all this commotion about?"

"We want to get that there pig into the pinfold, mum," answered the pinder, wiping his forehead. "But it's the contrariest beast ever I see! It's eaten up nearly all Mistress Grooby's kitchen garden."

Miss Lavinia looked more closely and saw the fugitive.

"Dear me!" she said. "It must be hungry, Burton. Whose animal is it?"

"Dunno, mum," answered the pinder, in a tone that suggested an utter lack of interest in the subject. "But it's none a Little Peter's pig—it's too thin, there's naught but skin and bone on it. It's my opinion, mum, it would eat anything, that pig would, if it had the chance."

"And who is going to feed it in the pound?" asked Miss Lavinia.

Burton shook his head. He was much more concerned about feeding himself than about feeding the pig.

"Dunno, mum," he replied. "It's none of my business. And nobody might never come for that there pig, and it's naught but skin and bone as it is."

"The poor animal needs food and rest," said Miss Lavinia with decision. She turned and called across her lawn. "Mitchell—come here," she commanded.

A man who was obviously a gardener approached, looking his curiosity. Miss Lavinia indicated the group in the road below the holly-hedge.

"Mitchell," she said, "isn't there a piggery in the stable-yard?"

Mitchell, coachman, gardener, general factotum in Miss Lavinia's small establishment, gathered an idea of what his mistress meant and almost gasped. A pig in his scrupulously kept preserves!

"Well, ma'am," he said, rubbing his chin, "there is certainly a sty, ma'am. But it's never been used since we came here, ma'am."

"Then we will use it now, Mitchell," said Miss Lavinia. "There is a poor animal which needs rest and refreshment. Burton and the bigger boys will help you to drive it in, and Burton may have a pint of ale, and the boys some apples. See that the pig has straw, or hay, or whatever is proper, Mitchell, and feed it well. Now, all you smaller children, run home to your dinners."

No one ever dreamed of questioning any order which Miss Lavinia Dorney issued, and the stray pig was ere long safely housed in a sty which had certainly never been used before.

"Nice new job for you, Mitchell!" said Burton, over a jug of ale in the kitchen. "And if you want a word of advice, keep the beast fastened in—he's a good 'un for gardens."

"You don't know what direction he came from?" asked Mitchell, anxiously.

"Not I!" answered the pinder. "What for?"

"Nothing," said Mitchell. "At least, if you did, I'd send my son on the road, making inquiries about him. He must belong to somebody, and I don't want no pigs in my stableyard. And you know what the missis is?—if she takes a fancy to anything, well——"

Mitchell ended with an expressive grimace, and Burton nodded his head sympathetically. Then he remembered his dinner and hurried off, and the gardener, who had not kept pigs for many years, begged another jug of ale from the cook in order to help him to remember what the staple sustenance of those animals really was. As he consumed it his ideas on the subject became more and more generous, and when Miss Lavinia Dorney went into the stable-yard after luncheon to see how her latest protégé was getting on she found the new-comer living and housed in a style which he himself may have dreamed of, but certainly never expected two hours previously.

"I'm glad to see you have made the poor thing so comfortable, Mitchell," said Miss Lavinia. "Of course, you understand what pigs require?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am!" replied Mitchell. "What a fine pig like that wants is plenty of good wheat straw to lie in, and the best pig-meal—that's crushed peas and beans and maize and such-like, ma'am—and boiled potatoes, and they're none the worse for a nice hot mash now and again. They're very nice eaters, is pigs, ma'am, as well as uncommon hearty."

"Don't you think this is a very thin pig, Mitchell?" asked the mistress.

"Yes, ma'am, he's uncommon thin," replied Mitchell. "I should say, ma'am, that that there pig had known what it was to feel hungry."

"Poor thing!" said Miss Lavinia. "Well, see that he has all he can eat, Mitchell. Of course, I must advertise for his owner—you're sure he doesn't belong to any one in the village?"

"I'm certain he doesn't, ma'am!" replied Mitchell. "There isn't another pig in Little St. Peter's as thin as what he is. Nor in Great St. Peter's, neither, ma'am," he added as by an afterthought.

"Well, as his former owner, or owners, seems to have neglected him," said Miss Lavinia with severe firmness, "I shall feed him well before advertising that he is found. So see to it, Mitchell. And by the bye, Mitchell, don't you think he is very dirty?"

Mitchell eyed the pig over. His glance was expressive.

"I think he must have been sleeping out, ma'am," he replied. "When an animal's homeless it gets neglected shocking."

"Couldn't you wash him, Mitchell?" suggested Miss Lavinia. "I'm sure it would do him good."

Mitchell stroked his chin.

"Well, ma'am," he said, "I never heard of a pig being washed unless it was for show or after it had been killed, ma'am, but I dare say I could, ma'am. As soon as I've an hour to spare, ma'am," he continued, "I'll get my son to help me, and we'll have some hot water and turn the biggest hosepipe on him in the little yard—I'll get it off him, ma'am!"

Miss Lavinia cordially approved this proposition and went away, and Mitchell remarked to himself that no man ever knew what a day might not bring forth, and went to smoke in the loneliest part of the garden. Later in the afternoon he and his son performed the pig's ablutions, and the junior Mitchell, remarking that it was no use doing things by halves, got a stout scrubbing-brush from the scullery and so successfully polished the animal that he looked as if he had just been killed and scalded. Miss Lavinia, going to see him next morning on her usual round of the stables and poultry-yard, was delighted with his changed appearance, and praised her gardener unreservedly.

Mitchell, however, was not so much enamoured of his new occupation as he professed to be in his mistress's presence. For one thing, he was just then very busy in the garden; for another, the pig began to make more and more calls upon his time. It speedily developed, or, rather, made manifest, a most extraordinary appetite, and by some almost malevolent prescience discovered that it had only to call loudly for anything that it wanted to have its desires immediately satisfied. No one who had chanced to see its entry into Little St. Peter's would have recognized it at the end of a fortnight. Its ribs were no longer visible; it was beginning to get a certain breadth across its back; its twinkling eyes were disappearing in its cheeks. The weekly bill for its board and lodging amounted to a considerable figure in shillings, but Miss Lavinia neither questioned nor grumbled at it. She was delighted with the pig's progress, and she believed it had come to recognize her. There was distinct regret in her voice when one morning she remarked—

"Now that the animal is so much better after its wanderings, Mitchell, I think we must advertise for its owner. He will no doubt be glad to have his property restored to him. I will write out the advertisement to-day, and send it to the newspaper."

Mitchell stroked his chin. He had different ideas—of his own.

"I don't think there's need to do that, ma'am," he said. "I've been making an inquiry about that pig, and I rather fancy I know who it is as he belongs lawful to. If you'll leave it to me, ma'am, I think I can find out for certain, without advertising of him."

"Very good, Mitchell," agreed Miss Lavinia. Then she added, half-wistfully, "I hope his owner will be glad to have him back."

"I don't think there's much doubt about that, ma'am," said Mitchell, glancing at the pig, who at that moment was stuffing himself out with his third breakfast. "I should think anybody 'ud be glad to see a pig like that come home looking as well as what he does."

"And so beautifully clean, Mitchell, thanks to you," said Miss Lavinia.

Mitchell replied modestly that he had done his best, and when his mistress had gone into the house he slapped the pig's back just to show that he had better thoughts of it than formerly.

"Blest if I don't make something out of you yet, my fine fellow!" he said.

That evening, after he had had his supper, Mitchell put on his second-best suit and went to call on a small farmer who lived up a lonely lane about three miles off. He spent a very pleasant hour or two with the farmer and came away full of that peaceful happiness which always waits on those who do good actions and engineer well-laid schemes to success.

"It'll benefit him and it'll benefit me," he mused, as he went homeward, smoking a two-penny cigar which the small farmer had pressed upon him in the fulness of his gratitude. "And if that isn't as things ought to be, well, then I'm a Dutchman!"

Next day, as Miss Lavinia sat in her morning-room, going through the weekly accounts, the parlour-maid announced the arrival of a person who said he had come about the pig. Miss Lavinia looked dubiously at the spotlessness of the linen carpet-cover, and asked the parlour-maid if the person's boots seemed clean. As it happened to be a bright frosty morning the parlour-maid considered the person suitable for admittance and brought him in—a shifty-eyed man with a shock of red hair who ducked and scraped at Miss Lavinia as if he experienced a strange joy in meeting her.

"So you have come about the pig which I found!" said Miss Lavinia pleasantly. "You must have been very sorry to lose it."

The caller elevated his eyes to the ceiling, examined it carefully, and then contemplated the inside of his old hat.

"I were sorry, mum," he said. "It were a vallyble animal, that there, mum—it's a well-bred 'un."

"But it was so thin and—and dirty, when it came to me," said Miss Lavinia with emphasis. "Painfully thin, and so very, very dirty. My gardener was obliged to wash it with hot water."

The man scratched his head, and then shook it.

"Ah, I dessay, mum!" he said. "Of course, when a pig strays away from its proper home it's like a man as goes on the tramp—it don't give no right attention to itself. Now, when I had it, ah!—well, it were a picture, and no mistake."

"You shall see it now," said Miss Lavinia, who felt the caller's last words to contain something of a challenge. "You will see we have not neglected it while it has been here."

She led the way out to the stable-yard or to the sty, where the pampered pig was revelling in the best wheat straw and enjoying a leisurely breakfast—even Miss Lavinia had noticed that now that it was certain of its meals, and as many of them as it desired, it ate them with a lordly unconcern. It looked up—the man with the red hair looked down. And he suddenly started with surprise and breathed out a sharp whistle.

"Yes, mum!" he said with conviction. "That's my pig—I know it as well as I know my own wife."

"Then, of course, you must have it," said Miss Lavinia. There was a touch of regret in her voice—the pig had already become a feature of the stable-yard, and she believed that he knew his benefactress. "I suppose," she continued, "that you have many pigs?"

"A goodish few on 'em, mum," replied the man.

"Would you—I thought, perhaps, that as you have others, and this one seems to have settled down here, you might be inclined to—in fact, to sell him to me?" said Miss Lavinia hurriedly.

The red-haired person once more scratched his head.

"Well, of course, mum, pigs is for selling purposes," he said. "But that there pig, he's an uncommon fine breed. What would you be for giving for him, mum, just as he stands?"

At this moment the pig, full of food and entirely happy, gave several grunts of satisfaction and begun to rub its snout against the door of the sty. Miss Lavinia made up her mind.

"Would you consider ten pounds a suitable sum?" she asked timidly.

The red-haired man turned his head away as if to consider this proposal in private. When he faced round again his face was very solemn.

"Well, of course, mum," he said, "of course, as I said, he's a vallyble animal is that there, but as you've fed him since he were found and have a liking to him—well, we'll say ten pounds, mum, and there it is!"

"Then if you will come into the house I will give you the money," said Miss Lavinia. "And you may rest assured we shall treat the pig well."

"I'm sure of that, mum," said the seller. "And very pretty eating you'll find him when his time comes."

Then he got his money, and drank a jug of ale, and went away, rejoicing greatly, and on his way home he met Mitchell, who had been to the market-town in the light cart, and who pulled up by the road-side at sight of him.

The red-haired man winked knowingly at the gardener.

"Well?" said Mitchell.

"All right," answered the other. He winked again.

Mitchell began to look uneasy.

"Where's the pig?" he asked.

"Where I found it," answered the red-haired man. "In the sty."

"Why didn't you bring it away?" asked Mitchell. "You said you would."

The red-haired man again winked and smiled widely.

"I've sold it," he said. "Sold it to your missis. For ten pounds."

He slapped his pocket and Mitchell heard the sovereigns jingle. He almost fell out of his seat.

"Sold it!—to our missis!—for ten pounds!" he exclaimed. "You—why, it weren't yours to sell!"

"Weren't it?" said the red-haired man. "Well, there you're wrong, Mestur Mitchell, 'cause it were. I knew it as soon as I set eyes on it, 'cause it had a mark in its left ear that I gave it myself. And as your missis had taken a fancy to it and bid me ten pound for it, why, of course, I took her at her word. Howsumever," he concluded, putting his hand in his pocket, "as you put me on to the matter, I'll none be unneighbourly, and I'll do the handsome by you."

Therewith he laid half-a-crown on the splashboard of the light cart, winked again, and with a cheery farewell strode away, leaving the disgusted gardener staring at the scant reward of his schemings.