Thus soliloquized our little man when he arrived near a farm-house called "Les Pins." He heard a pig squeak, and hastened along as fast as his naked and now sore foot would allow him.
There, in the farmyard, was a sight which he had never before witnessed. One man, a butcher, was pulling on a rope which was tied around a porker's snout. Three other men were forcibly pushing the animal along. They made but little progress however, for master piggy placed his feet so firmly on the ground that it required all the efforts of the four men to make him move.
At last he was with difficulty brought near the scaffold; the altar upon which he was to be sacrificed to supply the voracious appetites of man.
He was forcibly lifted upon the wooden bench and firmly held down. Then the butcher twisted the piece of rope around his hand and the pig's snout, and unsheathing a sharp knife, he plunged it in the animal's throat. The porker's life-blood gushed out in a red stream. Frank fairly danced with joy. He forgot all his troubles while witnessing those of the pig. The latter tried to shake himself free. He filled the air with protestations against the treatment to which he was being subjected, he invoked his gods, but all in vain. Firmly held down by the four men he soon ceased to struggle and lay quite still.
"It does not seem to me," Frank heard one of the men remark, "that he has given a very violent shake before dying, as porkers generally do." "Oh, he is dead enough," said the butcher, "fetch the water and let us make haste." The men obeyed the order which was given rather peremptorily and the half drunk butcher followed them, so did a lad of fourteen years (the heir to the estate), who, according to a Guernsey custom, had been holding the pig's tail.
Frank was just considering whether he would go nearer to the animal when the latter gave a jump. In a moment piggy got down and galloped in an awkward fashion straight in the direction of Frank, who uttered a cry of terror and ran away as fast as his legs would carry him. He forgot all about his exposed foot, and received a few nasty bruises and cuts against the sharp stones that were placed in the road for macadamizing purposes.
He cast an anxious glance behind him to see if the porker was following him, for he had now no other idea but that the pig was being sent to complete the punishment which he thought had been dealt out to him for his disobedience. But the porker was not to be seen. He had fallen dead after having run a few yards. When Frank came higher up the road, he proceeded to examine his foot. It hurt him considerably. He tied his handkerchief around it and resumed his walk. Seeing a great gap in the hedge he looked through it and saw that the men were plunging the porker in a great tub full of steaming water. Then followed a scraping with ormer shells, and, in a few minutes, the black pig was divested of his hairy coat. His skin was white and smooth, like those which Frank had seen at the meat market.
Not caring to see more, and feeling very cold, he resumed his journey homewards. He was so excited with what he had witnessed, that he did not think so much about his wretched condition as he would otherwise have done, and when he arrived in front of his father's house, at the Rohais, he was almost cheerful.
But he suddenly stopped short. "If I go inside with this countenance on, mamma will punish me severely," he thought.
He therefore called to his aid all the hypocrisy which his years were able to muster, and assumed a most miserable expression. But this was not enough to satisfy Frank's idea of the exigencies of the present situation. He doubled his fists, rubbed his eyes vigorously, and uttered a very plaintive and doleful cry.