Changing the case, but not the meaning, the pigman chanted as he now advanced, and now retreated, doing wonderful things with his bandy legs, and achieving marvels with a set of features which, naturally grotesque, lent themselves with indiarubber-like adaptability to the exigencies of grimace:
“Her—be—an—Arr!”
And with a final, fatal inspiration followed up with:
“Soger’s—Arr!...”
The epithet hit like a lump from the dungheap. The clumsy pirouette that accompanied it brought the pigman within the reach of retribution.
The gaunt eyes of Sarah saw the stalwart arm of her son shoot forth suddenly. The iron hand belonging to the arm seized the pigman by the rearward combination of matted hair, unwashed skin, and slack smock that served him as a scruff. As a rat in the mouth of a bulldog was Jason Digweed shaken, then hurled away with a rotatory motion, a human teetotum spinning against its will....
Splash! the brown pond received the gyrating one in its oozy yielding bosom. A horrible wallowing succeeded, accompanied by a smell of such terrific potency, that Adam and Eve, as they retreated from their forfeited Paradise, were forced, after homespun rustic fashion, to hold their noses.
Suppose you have heard the whitewashed gate with the carrier’s wisp of rag tied on it, clash to behind the horse, the man, and the woman.... Even so, you have not done with them yet;—not quite yet....
Nor with Sarah, praying in the empty farm-kitchen, clamorously justifying herself before the Face of her Maker, as the white-faced clock ticked sorrowfully by the wall. Old Time has seen so many of us drive away the being we most loved and longed for. When has he ever seen that banished joy return in answer to our desperate prayer?