"I don't mean to be idle," said Geoff; "but if Mr. Eames doesn't find fault with me, you've no call to do so either."
He spoke more valiantly than he felt, perhaps, for Matthew's stolid face and small, twinkling eyes were not pleasant. He muttered something, and then went grumbling across the yard towards a wall, from behind which emanated an odour which required no explanation.
"Them's pigs," said he. Matthew had a curious trick of curtailing his phrases as his temper waxed sourer. Articles, prepositions, and auxiliary verbs disappeared, till at last his language became a sort of spoken hieroglyphics.
Geoff looked over the pig-sty wall. Grunt, grumph, snort—out they all tumbled, one on the top of the other, making for the trough. Poor things! it was still empty. Geoff could hardly help laughing, and yet he felt rather sorry for them.
"I'll go and fetch their dinner," he said. "I don't mind pigs; but they are awfully dirty."
"Ax the missus for soap to wash 'em," said Matthew, with a grin. He hadn't yet made up his mind if the new boy was sharp or not.
"No," said Geoff, "I'll not do that till the first of April; but I'll tell you what, Matthew, I'll not keep them as dirty as they are. And I should say that the chap that's been looking after them is a very idle fellow." Matthew scowled. "Pigs don't need to be so dirty," Geoff went on. "I know at Cole——" But he stopped abruptly. He was certainly not going to take Matthew into his confidence. He asked to be shown the pony—poor old pony! it didn't look as if it would be over "sperrity"—and then he went back to the house to fetch the pigs' dinner.
Very hot, instead of cold, he was by the time he had carried across pail after pail of Mrs. Eames's "swill," and emptied it into the barrel which stood by the sty. It wasn't savoury work, either, and the farmer's wife made a kind of excuse for there being so much of it. "Matthew were that idle," and they'd been a hand short the last week or two. But Geoff wasn't going to give in; there was a sort of enjoyment in it when it came to the actual feeding of the pigs, and for their digestion's sake, it was well that the farmer's wife warned him that there might be such a thing as over-feeding, even of pigs. He would have spent the best part of the afternoon in filling the trough and watching them squabble over it.
He was tired and hot, and decidedly dirtier-looking than could have been expected, when Eames and Jowett came back from the fields.
"Time to get the pony to!" shouted the farmer. Geoff turned off to the stable. He wanted to manage the harnessing alone; but, simple as it was, he found it harder than it looked, and he would have been forced to apply to Matthew, had not Jowett strolled into the stable. He felt sorry for the boy, sorrier than he thought it well to show, when he saw his flushed face and trembling hands, and in a trice he had disentangled the mysteries of buckles and straps, and got all ready.