“But I honour pork with all my heart.”
She rose to her feet. She seemed to hesitate. But she never took her eyes off me.
“Whence do you come?” she said, in her soft, deliberate voice.
“From the woods—from the wastes—from anywhere. I am proscribed and in hiding. I am hungry, also,—and mademoiselle will give me to eat?”
“Why do you call me ‘mademoiselle’? Do you not see I am a swineherd?”
The little pig still screeched fitfully underground.
“Oh!” she cried, in sudden anguish. “Kill it, monsieur, if you know the way, and let us dine!”
I was pleased with that “us.”
“I have no technical knowledge,” I said. “But, let us see. It is injured?”
“Mon Dieu! I hope not. I had so longed to taste meat once more, and I had heard of pitfalls. There was a hole in the ground. I covered it over with branches, that one of these might step thereon and tumble in and be killed. But when I heard his cries I was sorry.”