“What, all by yourself? Where are Miss Dorcas and Miss Porcas? Not ill, I trust?”
Robinson explained about the narrow stiles.
“Dear, dear! Too fat, too fat? So you are going all alone? Why don’t your aunts keep a dog to run errands?”
Robinson answered all Mr. Pepperil’s questions very sensibly and prettily. He showed much intelligence, and quite a good knowledge of vegetables, for one so young. He trotted along almost under the horse, looking up at its shiny chestnut coat, and the broad white girth, and Mr Pepperil’s gaiters and brown leather boots. Mr. Pepperil was pleased with Robinson; he gave him another penny. At the end of the flints, he gathered up the reins and touched the horse with his heel.
“Well, good day, little pig. Kind regards to the aunts. Mind yourself in Stymouth.” He whistled for his dogs, and trotted away.
Robinson continued to walk along the road. He passed by an orchard where seven thin dirty pigs were grubbing. They had no silver rings in their noses! He crossed Styford bridge without stopping to look over the parapet at the little fishes, swimming head up stream, balanced in the sluggish current; or the white ducks that dabbled amongst floating masses of water-crowsfoot. At Styford Mill he called to leave a message from Aunt Dorcas to the Miller about meal; the Miller’s wife gave him an apple.
At the house beyond the mill, there is a big dog that barks; but the big dog Gypsy only smiled and wagged his tail at Robinson. Several carts and gigs overtook him. First, two old farmers who screwed themselves round to stare at Robinson. They had two geese, a sack of potatoes, and some cabbages, sitting on the back seat of their gig. Then an old woman passed in a donkey cart with seven hens, and long pink bundles of rhubarb that had been grown in straw under apple barrels. Then with a rattle and a jingle of cans came Robinson’s cousin, little Tom Pigg, driving a strawberry roan pony, in a milk float.
He might have offered Robinson a lift, only he happened to be going in the opposite direction; in fact, the strawberry roan pony was running away home.
“This little pig went to market!” shouted little Tom Pigg gaily, as he rattled out of sight in a cloud of dust, leaving Robinson standing in the road.
Robinson walked on along the road, and presently he came to another stile in the opposite hedge, where the footpath followed the fields again. Robinson got his basket through the stile. For the first time he felt some apprehension. In this field there were cows; big sleek Devon cattle, dark red like their native soil. The leader of the herd was a vicious old cow, with brass balls screwed on to the tips of her horns. She stared disagreeably at Robinson. He sidled across the meadow and got out through the farther stile as quickly as he could. Here the new trodden footpath followed round the edge of a crop of young green wheat. Someone let off a gun with a bang that made Robinson jump and cracked one of Aunt Dorcas’s eggs in the basket.
A cloud of rooks and jackdaws rose cawing and scolding from the wheat. Other sounds mingled with their cries; noises of the town of Stymouth that began to come in sight through the elm trees that bordered the fields; distant noises from the station; whistling of an engine; the bump of trucks shunting; noise of workshops; the hum of a distant town; the hooter of a steamer entering the harbour. High overhead came the hoarse cry of the gulls, and the squabbling cawing of rooks, old and young, in their rookery up in the elm trees.
Robinson left the fields for the last time and joined a stream of country people on foot and in carts, all going to Stymouth Market.
Chapter Four
Stymouth is a pretty little town, situated at the mouth of the river Pigsty, whose sluggish waters slide gently into a bay sheltered by high red headlands. The town itself seems to be sliding downhill in a basin of hills, all slipping seaward into Stymouth harbour, which is dammed back by quays and the outer breakwater.
The outskirts of the town are untidy, as is frequently the case with seaports. A straggling suburb on the western approach is inhabited principally by goats, and persons who deal in old iron, rags, tarred rope, and fishing nets. There are rope walks, and washing that flaps on waggling lines above banks of stony shingle, littered with seaweed, whelk shells and dead crabs — very different from Aunt Porcas’s clothes lines over the clean green grass.
And there are marine stores that sell spy-glasses, and sou’westers, and onions; and there are smells; and curious high sheds, shaped like sentry boxes, where they hang up herring nets to dry; and loud talking inside dirty houses. It seemed a likely place to meet a pantechnicon. Robinson kept in the middle of the road. Somebody in a public-house shouted at him through the window, “Come in, fat pig!” Robinson took to his heels.
The town of Stymouth itself is clean, pleasant, picturesque, and well-behaved (always excepting the harbour); but it is extremely steep downhill. If Robinson had started one of Aunt Dorcas’s eggs rolling at the top of High Street, it would have rolled all the way down to the bottom; only it would have got broken certainly against a doorstep, or underfoot. There were crowds in the streets, as it was market day.
Indeed, it was difficult to walk about without being pushed off the pavement; every old woman that Robinson met seemed to have a basket as big as his own. In the roadway were fish barrows, apple barrows, stalls with crockery and hardware, cocks and hens riding in pony carts, donkeys with panniers, and farmers with wagon-loads of hay.
Also there was a constant string of coal carts coming up from the docks. To a country-bred pig, the noise was confusing and fearful.
Robinson kept his head very creditably until he got into Fore Street, where a drover’s dog was trying to turn three bullocks into a yard, assisted by Stumpy and half the other dogs of the town. Robinson and two other little pigs with baskets of asparagus bolted down an alley and hid in a doorway until the noise of bellowing and barking had passed.
When Robinson took courage to come out again into Fore Street, he decided to follow close behind the tail of a donkey who was carrying panniers piled high with spring broccoli. There was no difficulty in guessing which road led to market.
But after all these delays it was not surprising that the church clock struck eleven.
Although it had been open since ten, there were still plenty of customers buying, and wanting to buy, in the market hall. It was a large, airy, light, cheerful, covered-in place, with glass in the roof. It was crowded, but safe and pleasant, compared with the jostling and racket outside in the cobble-paved streets; at all events there was no risk of being run over. There was a loud hum of voices; market folk cried their wares; customers elbowed and pushed round the stalls. Dairy produce, vegetables, fish, and shell fish were displayed upon the flat boards on trestles.
Robinson had found a standing place at one end of a stall where Nanny Nettigoat was selling periwinkles.
“Winkle, winkle! Wink, wink, wink! Maa, maa-a!” bleated Nanny.
Winkles were the only thing that she offered for sale, so she felt no jealousy of Robinson’s eggs and primroses. She knew nothing about his cauliflowers; he had the sense to keep them in the basket under the table. He stood on an empty box, quite proud and bold behind the trestle table, singing:
“Eggs, new laid! Fresh new-laid eggs! Who’ll come and buy my eggs and daffodillies?”
“I will, sure,” said a large brown dog with a stumpy tail, “I’ll buy a dozen. My Miss Rose has sent me to market on purpose to buy eggs and butter.”
“I am so sorry, I have no butter, Mr. Stumpy; but I have beautiful cauliflowers,” said Robinson, lifting up the basket, after a cautious glance round at Nanny Nettigoat, who might have tried to nibble them. She was busy measuring periwinkles in a pewter mug for a duck customer in a tam-o’-shanter cap. “They are lovely brown eggs, except one that got cracked; I think that white pussy cat at the opposite stall is selling butter — they are beautiful cauliflowers.”
“I’ll buy a cauliflower, lovey, bless his little turned-up nose; did he grow them in his own garden?” said old Betsy, bustling up; her rheumatism was better; she had left Susan to keep house.
“No, lovey, I don’t want any eggs; I keep hens myself. A cauliflower and a bunch of daffodils for a bow-pot, please,” said Betsy.
“Wee, wee, wee!” replied Robinson.
“Here, Mrs. Perkins, come here! Look at this little pig stuck up at a stall all by himself!”
“Well, I don’t know!” exclaimed Mrs. Perkins, pushing through the crowd, followed by two little girls. “Well, I never! Are they quite new laid, sonny? Won’t go off pop and spoil my Sunday dress like the eggs Mrs. Wyandotte took first prize with at five flower shows, till they popped and spoiled the judge’s black silk dress? Not duck eggs, stained with coffee? That’s another trick of flower shows! New laid, guaranteed? Only you say one is cracked? Now I call that real honest; it’s no worse for frying. I’ll have the dozen eggs and a cauliflower, please. Look, Sarah Polly! Look at his silver nose-ring.”
Sarah Polly and her little girl friend went into fits of giggling, so that Robinson blushed. He was so confused that he did not notice a lady who wanted to buy his last cauliflower, till she touched him. There was nothing else left to sell, but a bunch of primroses. After more giggling and some whispering the two little girls came back, and bought the primroses. They gave him a peppermint, as well as the penny, which Robinson accepted; but without enthusiasm and with a preoccupied manner.
The trouble was that no sooner had he parted with the bunch of primroses than he realised that he had also sold Aunt Dorcas’s pattern of darning wool. He wondered if he ought to ask for it back; but Mrs. Perkins and Sarah Polly and her little girl friend had disappeared.
Robinson, having sold everything, came out of the market hall, sucking the peppermint. There were still numbers of people coming in. As Robinson came out upon the steps his basket got caught in the shawl of an elderly sheep, who was pushing her way up. While Robinson was disentangling it, Stumpy came out. He had finished his marketing. His basket was full of heavy purchases. A responsible, trustworthy, obliging dog was Stumpy, glad to do a kindness to anybody.
When Robinson asked him the way to Mr. Mumby’s, Stumpy said: “I am going home by Broad Street. Come with me, and I will show you.”
“Wee, wee, wee! Oh, thank you, Stumpy!” said Robinson.
Chapter Five
Old Mr. Mumby was a deaf old man in spectacles, who kept a general store. He sold almost anything you can imagine, except ham — a circumstance much approved by Aunt Dorcas. It was the only general store in Stymouth where you would not find displayed upon the counter a large dish, containing strings of thin, pale-coloured, repulsively uncooked sausages, and rolled bacon hanging from the ceiling.
“What pleasure,” said Aunt Dorcas feelingly — “what possible pleasure can there be in entering a shop where you knock your head against a ham? A ham that may have belonged to a dear second cousin?”
Therefore the aunts bought their sugar and tea, their blue bag, their soap, their frying pans, matches, and mugs from old Mr. Mumby.
All these things he sold, and many more besides, and what he did not keep in stock he would obtain to order. But yeast requires to be quite fresh, he did not sell it; he advised Robinson to ask for yeast at a baker’s shop. Also he said it was too late in the season to buy cabbage seed; everybody had finished sowing vegetable seeds this year. Worsted for darning he did sell; but Robinson had forgotten the colour.
Robinson bought six sticks of delightfully sticky barley sugar with his pennies, and listened carefully to Mr. Mumby’s messages for Aunt Dorcas and Aunt Porcas — how they were to send some cabbages next week when the donkey cart would be mended; and how the kettle was not repaired yet, and there was a new patent box-iron he would like to recommend to Aunt Porcas.
Robinson said “Wee, wee, wee?” and listened, and little dog Tipkins who stood on a stool behind the counter, tying up grocery parcels in blue paper bags — little dog Tipkins whispered to Robinson — “Were there any rats this spring in the barn at Piggery Porcombe? And what would Robinson be doing on Saturday afternoon?”
“Wee, wee, wee!” answered Robinson.
Robinson came out of Mr. Mumby’s, heavily laden. The barley sugar was comforting; but he was troubled about the darning wool, the yeast, and the cabbage seed. He was looking about rather anxiously, when again he met old Betsy, who exclaimed:
“Bless the little piggy! Not gone home yet? Now it must not stop in Stymouth till it gets its pocket picked!”
Robinson explained his difficulty about the darning wool.
Kind old Betsy was ready with help.
“Why, I noticed the wool round the little primrose posy; it was blue-grey colour like the last pair of socks that I knitted for Sam. Come with me to the wool shop — Fleecy Flock’s wool shop. I remember the colour; well I do!” said Betsy.
Mrs. Flock was the sheep that had run against Robinson; she had bought herself three turnips and come straight home from market, for fear of missing customers while her shop was locked up.
Such a shop! Such a jumble! Wool all sorts of colours, thick wool, thin wool, fingering wool, and rug wool, bundles and bundles all jumbled up; and she could not put her hoof on anything. She was so confused and slow at finding things that Betsy got impatient.
“No, I don’t want wool for slippers; darning wool, Fleecy; darning wool, same colour as I bought for my Sam’s socks. Bless me, no, not knitting needles! Darning wool.”
“Baa, baa! Did you say white or black, m’m? Three ply, was it?”
“Oh, dear me, grey darning wool on cards; not heather mixture.”
“I know I have it somewhere,” said Fleecy Flock helplessly, jumbling up the skeins and bundles. “Sim Ram came in this morning with part of the Ewehampton clip; my shop is completely cluttered up —”
It took half an hour to find the wool. If Betsy had not been with him, Robinson never would have got it.
“It’s that late, I must go home,” said Betsy. “My Sam is on shore today for dinner. If you take my advice you will leave that big heavy basket with the Miss Goldfinches, and hurry with your shopping. It’s a long uphill walk home to Piggery Porcombe.”
Robinson, anxious to follow old Betsy’s advice, walked towards the Miss Goldfinches’. On the way he came to a baker’s, and he remembered the yeast.
It was not the right sort of baker’s, unfortunately. There was a nice bakery smell, and pastry in the window; but it was an eating house or cook shop.
When he pushed the swing door open, a man in an apron and a square white cap turned round and said, “Hullo! Is this a pork pie walking on its hind legs?” — and four rude men at a dining table burst out laughing.
Robinson left the shop in a hurry. He felt afraid to go into any other baker’s shop. He was looking wistfully into another window in Fore Street when Stumpy saw him again. He had taken his own basket home, and come out on another errand. He carried Robinson’s basket in his mouth and took him to a very safe baker’s, where he was accustomed to buy dog biscuits for himself. There Robinson purchased Aunt Dorcas’s yeast at last.
They searched in vain for cabbage seed; they were told that the only likely place was a little store on the quay, kept by a pair of wagtails.
“It is a pity I cannot go with you,” said Stumpy. “My Miss Rose has sprained her ankle; she sent me to fetch twelve postage stamps, and I must take them home to her, before the post goes out. Do not try to carry this heavy basket down and up the steps; leave it with the Miss Goldfinches.”
Robinson was very grateful to Stumpy. The two Miss Goldfinches kept a tea and coffee tavern which was patronized by Aunt Dorcas and the quieter market people. Over the door was a sign board upon which was painted a fat little green bird called “The Contented Siskin”, which was the name of their coffee tavern. They had a stable where the carrier’s donkey rested when it came into Stymouth with the washing on Saturdays.
Robinson looked so tired that the elder Miss Goldfinch gave him a cup of tea; but they both told him to drink it up quickly.
“Wee, wee, wee! Yock yock!” said Robin
son, scalding his nose.
In spite of their respect for Aunt Dorcas, the Miss Goldfinches disapproved of his solitary shopping; and they said that the basket was far too heavy for him.
“Neither of us could lift it,” said the elder Miss Goldfinch, holding out a tiny claw. “Get your cabbage seed and hurry back. Sim Ram’s pony gig is still waiting in our stable. If you come back before he starts I feel sure he will give you a lift; at all events he will make room for your basket under the seat — and he passes Piggery Porcombe. Run away now!”
“Wee, wee, wee!” said Robinson.
“Whatever were they thinking of to let him come alone? He will never get home before dark,” said the elder Miss Goldfinch. “Fly to the stable, Clara; tell Sim Ram’s pony not to start without the basket.”
The younger Miss Goldfinch flew across the yard. They were industrious, sprightly little lady birds, who kept lump sugar and thistle seed as well as tea in their tea-caddies. Their tables and china were spotlessly clean.
Chapter Six
Stymouth was full of inns; too full. The farmers usually put up their horses at the “Black Bull” or the “Horse and Farrier”; the smaller market people patronized the “Pig and Whistle”.
There was another inn called the “Crown and Anchor” at the corner of Fore Street. It was much frequented by seamen; several were lounging about the door with their hands in their pockets. One sailor-man in a blue jersey sauntered across the road, staring very hard at Robinson.
Said he — “I say, little pig! do you like snuff?”
Now if Robinson had a fault, it was that he could not say “No”; not even to a hedgehog stealing eggs. As a matter of fact, snuff or tobacco made him sick. But instead of saying, “No, thank you, Mr. Man,” and going straight away about his business, he shuffled his feet, half closed one eye, hung his head on one side, and grunted.
The Tale of Little Pig Robinson Page 2