"Pigs must be killed."
The animal heaved in a final convulsion, and, despite the rope, kicked out with all his last strength. A tablespoonful of black clot came forth, the trickling of red blood having ceased for some seconds.
"That's it; now he'll go," said she. "Artful creatures—they always keep back a drop like that as long as they can!"
The last plunge had come so unexpectedly as to make Jude stagger, and in recovering himself he kicked over the vessel in which the blood had been caught.
"There!" she cried, thoroughly in a passion. "Now I can't make any blackpot. There's a waste, all through you!"
Jude put the pail upright, but only about a third of the whole steaming liquid was left in it, the main part being splashed over the snow, and forming a dismal, sordid, ugly spectacle—to those who saw it as other than an ordinary obtaining of meat. The lips and nostrils of the animal turned livid, then white, and the muscles of his limbs relaxed.
"Thank God!" Jude said. "He's dead."
"What's God got to do with such a messy job as a pig-killing, I should like to know!" she said scornfully. "Poor folks must live."
"I know, I know," said he. "I don't scold you."
Suddenly they became aware of a voice at hand.