Page:The world's show, 1851, or, The adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys and family, who came up to London to "enjoy themselves", and to see the Great Exhibition (IA worldsshow1851or00mayh).pdf/36

 driving string in his hand, cut by the sharp craigs in his fall—while the legs, the loin, the griskin, and the chine—that were to have consoled the family for weeks, were running off upon the pettitoes which he had privately set aside for his own supper on some quiet evening.

Elcy, who, throughout the whole chase, had been bewailing the poor "piggy's" troubles, and exclaiming to her father not to hurt it, screamed with terror, as, from the gate, she saw the plunge and splash; while the wicked Jobby, who had been rendered powerless by laughter, and the want of shoes, and Postlethwaite, who also had been inwardly enjoying the scene, now rushed forward to the rescue, in company with the whole household, and dragged out from the beck the bruised, tattered, bedraggled, bespattered, bedrenched, and wretched Sandboys—the more annoyed, because the first inquiry addressed to him by Mrs. Sandboys, in a voice of mingled terror and tenderness, was, "Whatever has become of the pig?"

That was a mystery which took some hour or two to solve; for it was not until Elcy and Jobby, in Postlethwaite's old shoes, had explored both Robinson and the Moss, that they caught sight of "Cwoley" on the slope beside the foot of Buttermere Lake, dancing, in wild delight, round the shaft of a deserted mine, known as "Muddock," where, as became evident from the string twisted round the bushes, the pig, like Curtius, had plunged suicidally into the gulf, and was then lying, unbaked, unroasted, and unboiled, in twelve foot water!

Sandboys, when the news was brought him, was, both metaphorically and literally, in hot water. He sat with his two feet in a steaming pail, and wrapped in a blanket, with a basin of smoking oatmeal gruel in his hand, Mrs. Sandboys by his side, airing a clean shirt at the fire, and vowing all the while, that she would not wonder if his obstinacy in stopping down there, starving all the family, and denying them even the necessaries of life, to gratify his own perversity, were not the death of herself and the dear children. If he caught his death, he would only have himself to blame; for there was not a Dover's Powder within twenty miles to be had for love or money; and as for tallowing his nose, it was more than she could afford to do, for the candles were running so short, and there was not a tallow-chandler remaining in the neighbourhood, so that in a few days she knew that, all through his fine management, they would be left not only tealess, beerless, meatless, and, she would add, her dear boy shoeless, but also in positive darkness.

This second outbreak on the part of the generally placid and anti-metropolitan Mrs. Sandboys was superinduced by a discovery she had made that morning, when about to give out the soap for the next day's monthly wash. She then remembered that the stock which she had ordered of Harker had not come to hand; and there being no opportunity of getting to Dodgson or to Herd—supposing either of them to be at Cockermouth—or of reaching any other oilman or tallow-chandler—even if such a character existed in the neighbourhood within a circuit of fifty miles—she began to see that by remaining at