Gudgel gave him another rap with his stick, swearing that they would not get their brandered kidneys, and pork steak from the inside of the shoulder, in any reasonable time, by the madness and absurdity of that fellow, and waddled away to the slaughter-house as fast as his posts of legs could carry him. When he came there, and found a booby of a clown lying bound on the killing-stool, instead of his highly esteemed hog, he was utterly confounded, and wist not what to say, or how to express himself. He was in a monstrous rage, but he knew not on whom to vend it, his greasy wits being so completely bemired, that they were incapable of moving, turning, or comprehending any thing farther than a grievous sensation of a want not likely to be supplied by the delicious roasted kidneys, and pork steak from the inside of the shoulder. He turned twice round, puffing and gasping for breath, and always apparently looking for something he supposed he had lost, but as yet never uttering a distinct word.
The rest of the people were soon all around him—the Goodman, Pery, Gale, and the whole household of Eildon-Hall were there, all standing gaping with dismay, and only detained from precipitate flight by the presence of one another. The defrauded Gudgel first found expression—“Where is my hog, you scoundrel?” cried he, in a tone of rage and despair.
“Ye see a’ that’s to the fore o’ him,” said Croudy.
“I say, where is my hog, you abominable caitiff?—You miserable wretch!—you ugly whelp of a beast!—tell me what you have made of my precious hog?”
“Me made o’ him!” said Croudy, “I made naething o’ him; but some ane, ye see, has made a man o’ him—It was nae swine, but me.—I tell ye, that ye see here a’ that’s to the fore o’ him.”
“Oh! oh!” groaned Gudgel, and he stroaked down his immense flanks three or four times, every one time harder than the last. “Pooh! so then I am cheated, and betrayed, and deceived; and I shall have nothing to eat!—nothing to eat!—nothing to eat!—Goodman Fletcher, you shall answer for this;—and you, friend beast, or swine, or warlock, or whatever you may be, shall not ’scape for nought;” and, so saying, he began to belabour Croudy with his staff, who cried out lustily; and it was remarked somewhat in the same style and tenor, too, as he exhibited lately in a different capacity.
The rest of the people restrained the disappointed glutton from putting an end to the poor clown; and notwithstanding that appearances were strangely against him, yet, so well were they accustomed to Croudy’s innocent and stupid face, that they loosed him with trembling hands, Pery being as active in the work as any, untying her red garters. “I know the very knots,” said she,—“No one can tie them but myself.”
“By the Rood, my woman! gin I war but up, I’ll knot you weel eneuch,” said Croudy; and if he had not been withheld by main force, he would have torn out her hair and her eyes. He, however, accused her of being a witch, and took witnesses on it; and said, he would make oath that she had changed him into a boar on such an evening at the Moss Thorn.
Pery only laughed at the accusation, but all the rest saw it in a different light. They all saw plainly that Croudy had been metamorphosed for a time by some power of witchcraft or enchantment—they remembered how Mumps had still continued to recognise and acknowledge him in that degraded state; and hearing, as they did, his bold and intrepid accusal of Pery, they all judged that it would stand very hard with her.