No one ever dreamed of questioning any order which Miss Lavinia Dorney issued, and the stray pig was ere long safely housed in a sty which had certainly never been used before.
"Nice new job for you, Mitchell!" said Burton, over a jug of ale in the kitchen. "And if you want a word of advice, keep the beast fastened in—he's a good 'un for gardens."
"You don't know what direction he came from?" asked Mitchell, anxiously.
"Not I!" answered the pinder. "What for?"
"Nothing," said Mitchell. "At least, if you did, I'd send my son on the road, making inquiries about him. He must belong to somebody, and I don't want no pigs in my stableyard. And you know what the missis is?—if she takes a fancy to anything, well——"
Mitchell ended with an expressive grimace, and Burton nodded his head sympathetically. Then he remembered his dinner and hurried off, and the gardener, who had not kept pigs for many years, begged another jug of ale from the cook in order to help him to remember what the staple sustenance of those animals really was. As he consumed it his ideas on the subject became more and more generous, and when Miss Lavinia Dorney went into the stable-yard after luncheon to see how her latest protégé was getting on she found the new-comer living and housed in a style which he himself may have dreamed of, but certainly never expected two hours previously.
"I'm glad to see you have made the poor thing so comfortable, Mitchell," said Miss Lavinia. "Of course, you understand what pigs require?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am!" replied Mitchell. "What a fine pig like that wants is plenty of good wheat straw to lie in, and the best pig-meal—that's crushed peas and beans and maize and such-like, ma'am—and boiled potatoes, and they're none the worse for a nice hot mash now and again. They're very nice eaters, is pigs, ma'am, as well as uncommon hearty."
"Don't you think this is a very thin pig, Mitchell?" asked the mistress.
"Yes, ma'am, he's uncommon thin," replied Mitchell. "I should say, ma'am, that that there pig had known what it was to feel hungry."