“Be done soon,” he said.
Just then I heard my name called, and running through the rain I found that Old Brownsmith wanted me for a while about some entries that he could not find in the book, and which he thought had not been made.
I was able, however, to show him that the entries had been made; and as soon as I was at liberty I ran down the garden again to see how the cookery was going on.
As I reached the door the little shed was all of a glow, for Shock was raking the fire aside, but, apparently not satisfied, he raked it all back again, and for the next half hour he amused himself piling up scraps of wood and refuse to make the fire burn, ending at last by raking all away, leaving the lump of clay baked hard and red.
I had been standing by the door watching him all the time; and now he just turned his head and looked at me over his shoulder as he rose and took a little old battered tin plate from where it stuck beneath the rough thatch, giving it a rub on the tail of his jacket.
“Like hedgehog?” he said grimly.
“No,” I cried with a look of disgust.
“You ain’t tasted it,” he said, growing wonderfully conversational as he took a hand-bill from a nail where it hung.
Then, kneeling down before the fire, he gave the hard clay ball a sharp blow with the hand-bill, making it crack right across and fall open, showing the little animal steaming hot and evidently done, the bristly skin adhering to the clay shell that had just been broken, so that there was no difficulty in turning it out upon the tin plate, the shell in two halves being cast upon the fire, where the interior began to burn.
It seemed very horrible!