“That is not a proper elephant at all. Give us back our peppercorns!”shouted all four little pigs, scrambling over the turf seats into the ring, and sniffing at Paddy’s calico trousers. Then Sandy lost his temper; he barked and he bit the four little pigs, and chased them out. The elephant and his riders galloped away under the tent flap in such a hurry that Tuppenny and Xarifa were nearly pulled off by the canvas.

Then Jane Ferret was led round in a heavy chain and a large wire muzzle, to impersonate the “Live Polecats and Weasels,” mentioned on the posters. Jenny Ferret lived on bread and milk and she had not a tooth in her head, being, in fact, cook-housekeeper to the circus company, but the rabbits scrambled hastily into back seats. Of course that was part of the performance that they had paid for and expected; if they had not had a fright for their peppercorns, they would have been dissatisfied too. In the meantime the elephant had changed his clothes; he came back as Paddy Pig himself, and he danced a jig to perfection, while Sandy fiddled. The four little pigs, quite restored to good humour and polite behaviour, applauded loudly and threw potatoes at him; and the audience went home at 4.30 a.m. well satisfied. And two hours later the farmer, who owned the four little pigs, when he fed them, remarked that ‘For sure they were doing a deal of grunting and talking together that morning’; and there were a lot of little pig-foot-marks in the lane. But they were shut up all right in the sty when he brought them their breakfast, so he never guessed that they had been to Sandy and William’s Circus to see the Pigmy Elephant.

CHAPTER IX

By Wilfin Beck

All upon a day in the month of April, the circus company crept slowly through soft green meadows. It was early morning. Long shadows from the woods lay across the grass. Birds sang to greet the rising sun. Iky Shepster, the starling whistled, and fluttered his wings on the roof of the caravan.

Pony Billy bent to the collar. The dew splashed from his shaggy fetlocks as he lifted his feet amongst the wet grass. Paddy Pig toiled between the shafts of the tilt-cart, assisted by the panting Sandy, harnessed tandem. “We shall stick fast, Sandy! Let us go back to Pool Bridge.”  “Yap! yap! we will try the next ford higher up.”  “Get out of my way,”said Pony Billy, coming up behind them, steadily pulling the caravan.

They were trying to cross a stream that ran through the middle of the valley. In summer it was a little brook, but spring rains had filled it to the brim. The forget-me-nots waved to and fro, up to the waist in water; the primroses on the banks drew up their toes; the violets took a bath. Wilfin Beck [60] was in high flood.

Paddy Pig disliked water. The ford which they should have crossed, had proved to be a swirling stream, instead of a broad rippling shallow. He wished to turn back and go round by the bridge.

The proprietors of the circus refused. “If we cross the stream as far down as Pool Bridge, there will be two days’ toilsome march through the woods. We broke a spring of the caravan last time we went by the drift road; and the wagoners [57] have been snigging [46] timber since then,” objected Sandy. “Go on to the Ellers ford,” said Pony Billy. So Paddy Pig pulled, grunting, through the fast-asleep buttercups and daisies.

Xarifa and Tuppenny, in the cart, were fast asleep too. Jenny Ferret was awake inside the caravan. A pot had hit her on the head, when the wheel sank into a drain and caused the caravan to lurch.

When Tuppenny woke up and peeped out, the procession had halted, and unharnessed, beside the beck. Sandy was rolling on the grass. Paddy Pig was smoking a pipe and looking pig-headed, which means obstinate. “You will be drowned,” said he to Pony Billy. The pony was pawing the water with his forefeet, enjoying the splashes, and wading cautiously step by step further across. “Drowned? Poof!” yapped Sandy, taking a flying leap splash into the middle; he was carried down several yards by the current before he scrambled out on the further bank. Then he swam back. “It’s going down,” said Sandy, sniffing at a line of dead leaves and sticks which had been left stranded by the receding flood. Pony Billy nodded. “Let us pull round under the alder bushes and wait.”  “Then you will not go back by Pool Bridge?”  “What! all across those soft meadows again? No. We will lie in the sun behind this wall, and talk to the sheep while we rest.”

So they pitched their camp by the wall, where there is a watergate across the stream, and a drinking place for cattle. Pony Billy’s collar had rubbed his neck; Sandy was dog tired; Jenny Ferret was eager for firewood; everyone was content except Paddy Pig. He did his share of camp work; but he wandered away after dinner, and he was not to be found at tea time. “Let him alone, and he’ll come home,” said Sandy.

“Baa baa!” laughed some lambs, “let us alone and we’ll come home, and bring our tails behind us!” They frisked and kicked up their heels. Their mothers had come down to Wilfin Beck to drink. When their lambs went too near to Sandy, the ewes stamped their feet. They disapproved of strange dogs – even a very tired little dog, curled up asleep in the sun.

The sheep watched Jenny Ferret curiously. She was collecting sticks and piling them in little heaps to dry; short, shiny sticks that had been left by the water.

ELLER-TREE CAMP

Xarifa and Tuppenny were at their usual occupation, giving Tuppenny’s hair a good hard brushing. Xarifa was finding difficulty in keeping awake. The pleasant murmur of the water, the drowsiness of the other animals, the placid company of the gentle sheep, all combined to make her sleepy. Therefore, it fell to Tuppenny to converse with the sheep. They had lain down where the wall sheltered them from the wind. They chewed their cud. “Very fine wool,” said the eldest ewe, Tibbie Woolstockit, after contemplating the brushing silently for several minutes. “It’s coming out a little,” said Tuppenny, holding up some fluff. “Bring it over here, bird!” said Tibbie to the starling, who was flitting from sheep to sheep, and running up and down on their backs. “Wonderfully fine; it is finer than your Scotch wool, Maggie Dinmont,”said Tibbie Woolstockit to a black-faced ewe with curly horns, who lay beside her. “Aye, it’s varra fine. And its lang,” said Maggie Dinmont, approvingly. “It would make lovely yarn for mittens; do you keep the combings?” asked another ewe, named Habbitrot. “I have a little bag, there is only a little in it, yes please, I put it in a little bag,”twittered Tuppenny, much flattered by their approbation.

“Baa! baa! black sheep! Three bags full!” sang the lambs, kicking up their heels.

“Now, now! young lambs should be seen, not heard. Take care, you will fall in!” said Tibbie Woolstockit, severely. Three more ewes hurried up, and gave their lambs a good hard bat with their heads; but the lambs minded nothing.

The ewes, whose names were Ruth Twinter, Hannah Brighteyes, and Belle Lingcropper, stepped down to the water side to drink. Then they lay down by the others, and considered Tuppenny. “His hair is as fine as rabbit wool, and longer. Rabbit wool is sadly short to spin,” said Habbitrot. “Save all the combings in your little bag, in case you pass this way again.”  “You were not with the circus last time they camped by the Ellers?” said Tibbie Woolstockit. “What may your name be, little guinea-pig man?”  “Tuppenny.”  “Tuppenny? a very good name,” said the sheep.

At this moment a bunch of lambs galloped across the meadow with such a rush that they nearly overran the bank into the water. Their mothers were quite angry. “A perfect plague they are! But never-the-less we would be sad without the little dears! Now lie down and be quiet, or you will get into the same scrape as Daisy and Double!” But the lambs only raced away faster. Xarifa had been awakened by the disturbance. “Who were Daisy and Double? We love hearing stories, Tibbie Woolstockit; do tell us!”