Perhaps Billy Bumps was as much amazed as anybody when he heard what seemed to be the pig expressing his dissatisfaction in a broad Irish brogue on the other side of the fence.
The old goat's expression was indeed comical. He backed away from the hole through which he had just shot the raider head-first, shook his own head, stamped, and seemed to listen intently to the hostile language.
"Be th' powers! 'Tis a dirthy, mane thrick, so ut is! An' th' poor pig kem t'roo th' hole like it was shot out of a gun."
"It's Mr. Murphy!" whispered Ruth, almost as much overcome with laughter as Agnes herself.
Neale O'Neil was frankly amazed; but in a moment he, like the girls, jumped to the right conclusion. The cobbler had run to the rescue of his pet. He had seized it by the ears as it was trying to crowd under the fence, and tugged, too. When old Billy Bumps had released his pigship, the latter had bowled the cobbler over.
Mr. Con Murphy possessed a vocabulary of most forceful and picturesque words, well colored with the brogue he had brought on his tongue from "the ould dart." Mr. Murphy's "Irish was up" and when he got his breath, which the pig had well nigh knocked out of him, the little old cobbler gave his unrestrained opinion of the power that had shot the pig under the fence.
Ruth could not allow the occurrence to end without an explanation. She ran to the fence and peered over.
"Oh, Mr. Murphy!" she cried. "You're not really hurt?"
"For the love av mercy!" ejaculated the cobbler. "Niver tell me that youse was the one that pushed the pig through the fince that har-rd that he kem near flyin' down me t'roat? Ye niver could have done it, Miss Kenway—don't be tillin' me. Is it wan o' thim big Jarmyn guns youse have got in there, that the pa-apers do be tillin' erbout?"
He was a comical looking old fellow at best, and out here at this early hour, with only his trousers slipped on over his calico nightshirt, and heelless slippers on his feet, he cut a curious figure indeed.