“He meant that for me,” I said to myself; and I was going to turn away when I caught sight of something lying in the shadow beneath the little old four-paned window.
It was something I had never seen before except in pictures; and I was so interested that I stepped in and was about to pick up the object, but Shock snatched it away.
“Where did you get it?” I said eagerly.
He did not answer for a few moments, and then said gruffly, “Fields.”
“It’s a hedgehog, isn’t it?” I said. “Here, let me look.” He slowly laid the little prickly animal down on the earthen floor and pushed it towards me—a concession of civility that was wonderful for Shock; and I eagerly examined the curious little creature, pricking my fingers a good deal in the efforts to get a good look at the little black-faced animal with its pointed snout.
“What are you going to do with it?” I said.
Shock looked up at me in a curious half-cunning way, as he beat out his clay into a broad sheet; and then, as if about to make a pudding, he made the hedgehog into a long ball, laid it on the clay, and covered it up, rolling it over and over till there was nothing visible but a clay ball.
“What a baby you are, Shock, playing at making mud puddings!” I said.
He did not reply, only smiled in a half-pitying way, took an old broomstick that he used for a poker, and scraping the ashes of the fire aside rolled the clay pig-pudding into the middle of the fire, and then covered it over with the burning ashes, and piled on some bits of wood and dry cabbage-stumps, making up a good fire, which he set himself to watch.
It was a wet day, and there was nothing particular to do in the garden; so I stood looking at Shock’s cookery for a time, and then grew tired and was coming away when for a wonder he spoke.