“Killed him to eat him?” wonderingly asked Clare, who had never associated live pigs with roast pork.
“For sure,” replied her grandfather.
“Then he had not done somewhat naughty?”
“Nay, not he.”
“I would, Gaffer,” said Clare, very gravely, “that Tom had not smothered the pig ere he began to lay eggs. (The genuine speech of a child of Clare’s age.) I would so have liked a little pig!”
The suggestion of pig’s eggs was too much for Mr Avery’s gravity. “And what hadst done with a little pig, my maid.”
“I would have washed it, and donned it, and put it abed,” said Clare.
“Methinks he should soon have marred his raiment. And maybe he should have loved cold water not more dearly than a certain little maid that I could put a name to.”
Clare adroitly turned from this perilous topic, with an unreasoning dread of being washed there and then; though in truth it was not cleanliness to which she objected, but wet chills and rough friction.
“Gaffer, may I go with Bab to four-hours unto Mistress Pendexter?”