Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/55

 ing heaps of pigs' chitterlings, which they were washing in the running water. One or two pairs of eyes slyly glanced up, and perceiving that his attention had at last been attracted, and that he was watching them, they braced themselves for inspection by putting their mouths demurely into shape and recommencing their rinsing operations with assiduity.

"Thank you!" said Jude, severely.

"I didn't throw it, I tell you!" asserted one girl to her neighbor, as if unconscious of the young man's presence.

"Nor I," the second answered.

"Oh, Anny, how can you!" said the third.

"If I had thrown anything at all, it shouldn't have been such an indecent thing as that!"

"Pooh! I don't care for him!" And they laughed and continued their work, without looking up, still ostentatiously accusing each other.

Jude grew sarcastic as he wiped the spot where the clammy flesh had struck him.

"You didn't do it—oh no!" he said to the up-stream one of the three.

She whom he addressed was a fine dark-eyed girl, not exactly handsome, but capable of passing as such at a little distance, despite some coarseness of skin and fibre. She had a round and prominent bosom, full lips, perfect teeth, and the rich complexion of a Cochin hen's egg. She was a complete and substantial female human no more, no less; and Jude was almost certain that to her was attributable the enterprise of throwing the lump of offal at him, the bladder from which she had obviously just cut it off lying close beside her.

"That you'll never be told," said she, deedily.

"Whoever did it was wasteful of other people's property."

"Oh, that's nothing. The pig is my father's."

"But you want it back, I suppose?"