"I did not hurt him, indeed I did not!" she exclaimed, as having succeeded in grasping piggy in her two hands, the little animal uttered such piercing shrieks that she let him drop in alarm.
"No, no, of course not!" Farmer Jo, who was standing by looking on in some amusement, answered reassuringly.
"I never heard such a dreadful noise in my life," she continued. "Do little pigs always cry like that, Mr. Adams?"
"Always, if you touch them."
"They are very pretty; I thought pigs were ugly, dirty things!"
"That is quite a mistaken idea."
Marigold accompanied her host around his farm. He gave her a great deal of information about matters of which she had known nothing before; and she feared he must consider her extremely ignorant, especially when she mistook barley for wheat, and had to confess that she did not know the difference between a rook and a blackbird!
In the afternoon Dumpling was brought around to the front gate in the little basket carriage, and Mrs. Adams took Marigold for a most delightful drive through narrow shady lanes rich in ferns, where foxgloves grew tall, and meadow-sweet scented the air with its fragrance.
Dumpling was very fat, and his mistress allowed him to take his time; so the little girl could look about at leisure, and feast her eyes on the beautiful scenery visible from every gateway—wooded valleys, pleasant meadows, through which flowed a rippling stream, and far away in the distance the massive tore of the Dartmoor hills faintly visible through a soft blue haze.
"When Dartmoor looks near, we say it is going to rain," Mrs. Adams explained; "but if the distance appears great, as it does to-day, we know the weather will continue fine."