Behind a squadron of sleek, well-fed cart-horses, formed in fours, with straw braid in mane and tail, came the ponies, for the most part a merry company.Long strings of rusty, shaggy two-year-olds, unbroken, unkempt, the short Down grass still sweet on their tongues; full of fun, frolic, and wickedness, biting and pulling, casting longing eyes at the hedgerows.The boys appear to recognise them as kindred spirits, and are curiously forbearing and patient.Soon both ponies and boys vanish in a white whirl, and a long line of carts, which had evidently waited for the dust to subside, comes slowly up the incline.For the most part they carry the pigs and fowls, carriage folk of the road.The latter are hot, crowded, and dusty under the open netting; the former for the most part cheerfully remonstrative.
I drew a breath of relief as the noise of wheels died away and my road sank into silence.The hedgerows are no longer green but white and choked with dust, a sight to move good sister Rain to welcome tears.The birds seem to have fled before the noisy confusion.I wonder whether my snake has seen and smiled at the clumsy ruling of the lord he so little heeds? I turned aside through the gate to plunge face and hands into the cool of the sheltered grass that side the hedge, and then rested my eyes on the stretch of green I had lacked all day.The rabbits had apparently played and browsed unmindful of the stir, and were still flirting their white tails along the hedgerows; a lark rose, another and another, and I went back to my road.Peace still reigned, for the shadows were lengthening, and there would be little more traffic for the fair.I turned to my work, grateful for the stillness, and saw on the white stretch of road a lone old man and a pig.Surely I knew that tall figure in the quaint grey smock, surely I knew the face, furrowed like nature's face in springtime, and crowned by a round, soft hat? And the pig, the black pig walking decorously free? Ay, I knew them.
In the early spring I took a whole holiday and a long tramp; and towards afternoon, tired and thirsty, sought water at a little lonely cottage whose windows peered and blinked under overhanging brows of thatch.I had, not the water I asked for, but milk and a bowl of sweet porridge for which I paid only thanks; and stayed for a chat with my kindly hosts.They were a quaint old couple of the kind rarely met with nowadays.They enjoyed a little pension from the Squire and a garden in which vegetables and flowers lived side by side in friendliest fashion.Bees worked and sang over the thyme and marjoram, blooming early in a sunny nook; and in a homely sty lived a solemn black pig, a pig with a history.
It was no common utilitarian pig, but the honoured guest of the old couple, and it knew it.A year before, their youngest and only surviving child, then a man of five-and-twenty, had brought his mother the result of his savings in the shape of a fine young pig:
a week later he lay dead of the typhoid that scourged Maidstone.
Hence the pig was sacred, cared for and loved by this Darby and Joan.
"Ee be mos' like a child to me and the mother, an' mos' as sensible as a Christian, ee be," the old man had said; and I could hardly credit my eyes when I saw the tall bent figure side by side with the black pig, coming along my road on such a day.
I hailed the old man, and both turned aside; but he gazed at me without remembrance.
I spoke of the pig and its history.He nodded wearily."Ay, ay, lad, you've got it; 'tis poor ****'s pig right enow.""But you're never going to take it to E - ?""Ay, but I be, and comin' back alone, if the Lord be marciful.The missus has been terrible bad this two mouths and more; Squire's in foreign parts; and food-stuffs such as the old woman wants is hard buying for poor folks.The stocking's empty, now 'tis the pig must go, and I believe he'd be glad for to do the missus a turn; she were terrible good to him, were the missus, and fond, too.Idursn't tell her he was to go; she'd sooner starve than lose poor ****'s pig.Well, we'd best be movin'; 'tis a fairish step."The pig followed comprehending and docile, and as the quaint couple passed from sight I thought I heard Brother Death stir in the shadow.He is a strong angel and of great pity.
