"So shall I, then," said Isaac, stoutly.
"And I," said Simpson.
The tunnel leading into the cave was not more than a few feet in length; they were quickly able to stand upright and to throw the light around them. And with a mutual fear they gripped each other's arms, for there huddled on the floor lay the body of an old, grey-headed man, who had evidently been stricken with death as he was counting over the secret hoard of which he had made this lonely place the receptacle.
"We will give that poor brute a fitting burial," said the bloodhound's master, as they went back to the farmstead. "He was a primitive savage in his ways, but a rare upholder of what he felt to be his rights. Bury him under the big elm-tree."
CHAPTER II
A STRANGER IN ARCADY
Where the animal which subsequently became so famous in the village to whose sober quietude it brought an unexpected breath of romance first came from no one ever knew. Its coming was as mysterious as the falling of rain or growing of corn in the night; it must, indeed, have arrived in the night, for it was certainly a part and parcel of Little St. Peter's when Little St. Peter's awoke one morning. Those early birds who were out and about before the gossamers on the hedgerows had felt the first kiss of the autumn sun were aware of the presence of a remarkably lean pig, who was exploring the one street of the village with inquisitive nose, questioning eyes, and flapping ears. It went from one side of the street to another, and it was obviously on the look-out for whatever might come in its way in the shape of food. There was an oak near the entrance to the churchyard; the stranger paused beneath it as long as there was an acorn to be found amongst the fallen leaves. Farther along, there was a crab-apple-tree in the parson's hedge, the fruit of which was too bitter for even the most hardened boy of the village; it stopped there to devour the fallen sournesses which lay in the shining grass. But always it was going on, searching and inquiring, and its eyes grew hungrier as its swinging gait increased in speed. And coming at last to a gap in the fence of Widow Grooby's garden, it made its way through and set to work on the lone woman's potatoes.
It was an hour later that the marauder was driven out of this harbour of refuge, bearing upon its lean body the marks of the switch with which Widow Grooby had chased it forth, but within its ribs the comfortable consciousness of a hearty meal. When it had uttered its final protest against the switch, it went along the street again, furtive and friendless, but this time with the more leisurely pace of the thing that has breakfasted. Widow Grooby gazed after it with an irate countenance.
"I could like to know whose gre't hungry beast that there is!" she remarked to a neighbour who had been attracted to her cottage door by the pig's lamentations as he quitted the scene of his misdeeds. "It's been all over my garden and etten half-a-row o' my best potatoes, drat it. And it couldn't have done that, Julia Green, if your Johnny hadn't made that gap in my fence when I ran him out t'other night for being at my winter apples, no it couldn't! I think your William might ha' mended that gap before now—that's what I think."
"Our William's summat else to do than mend gaps," said Mrs. Green sullenly. "And the gap were there before our Johnny came through it. And it's none our pig anyway, for ours is in its sty at this here present moment, a-eating its breakfast, so there!"