Chapter Three
The walk to Stymouth was a long one, in spite of going by the fields. But the footpath ran downhill all the way, and Robinson was merry. He sang his little song, for joy of the fine morning, and he chuckled “Wee, wee, wee!” Larks were singing, too, high overhead.
And higher still – high up against blue sky, the great white gulls sailed in wide circles. Their hoarse cries came softened back to earth from a great way up above.
Important rooks and lively jackdaws strutted about the meadows amongst the daisies and buttercups. Lambs skipped and baa’ed; the sheep looked round at Robinson.
“Mind yourself in Stymouth, little pig,” said a motherly ewe.
Robinson trotted on until he was out of breath and very hot. He had crossed five big fields, and ever so many stiles; stiles with steps; ladder stiles; stiles of wooden posts; some of them were very awkward with a heavy basket. The farm of Piggery Porcombe was no longer in sight when he looked back. In the distance before him, beyond the farmlands and cliffs – never any nearer – the dark blue sea rose like a wall.
Robinson sat down to rest beside a hedge in a sheltered sunny spot. Yellow pussy willow catkins were in flower above his head; there were primroses in hundreds on the bank, and a warm smell of moss and grass and steaming moist red earth.
“If I eat my dinner now, I will not have to carry it. Wee, wee, wee!” said Robinson.
The walk had made him so hungry he would have liked to eat an egg as well as the jam sandwiches; but he had been too well brought up.
“It would spoil the two dozen,” said Robinson.
He picked a bunch of primroses and tied them up with a bit of darning wool that Aunt Dorcas had given him for a pattern.
“I will sell them in the market for my very own self, and buy sweeties with my pennies. How many pennies have I got?” said Robinson, feeling in his pocket. “One from Aunt Dorcas, and one from Aunt Porcas, and one for my primroses for my very own self – oh, wee, wee, wee! There is somebody trotting along the road! I shall be late for market!”
Robinson jumped up and pushed his basket through a very narrow stile, where the footpath crossed into the public road. He saw a man on horseback. Old Mr. Pepperil came up, riding a chestnut horse with white legs. His two tall greyhounds ran before him; they looked through the bars of the gates into every field that they passed. They came bounding up to Robinson, very large and friendly; they licked his face and asked what he had got in that basket. Mr. Pepperil called them.
“Here, Pirate! Here, Postboy! Come here, sir!” He did not wish to be answerable for the eggs.
The road had been recently covered with sharp new flints. Mr. Pepperil walked the chestnut horse on the grass edge, and talked to Robinson. He was a jolly old gentleman, very affable, with a red face and white whiskers. All the green fields and red ploughland between Stymouth and Piggery Porcombe belonged to him.
“Hullo, hullo! And where are you off to, little pig Robinson?”
“Please, Mr. Pepperil, sir, I’m going to market. Wee, wee, wee!” said Robinson.
“What, all by yourself? Where are Miss Dorcas and Miss Porcas? Not ill, I trust?”
Robinson explained about the narrow stiles.
“Dear, dear! Too fat, too fat? So you are going all alone? Why don’t your aunts keep a dog to run errands?”
Robinson answered all Mr. Pepperil’s questions very sensibly and prettily. He showed much intelligence, and quite a good knowledge of vegetables, for one so young. He trotted along almost under the horse, looking up at its shiny chestnut coat, and the broad white girth, and Mr Pepperil’s gaiters and brown leather boots. Mr. Pepperil was pleased with Robinson; he gave him another penny. At the end of the flints, he gathered up the reins and touched the horse with his heel.
“Well, good day, little pig. Kind regards to the aunts. Mind yourself in Stymouth.” He whistled for his dogs, and trotted away.
Robinson continued to walk along the road. He passed by an orchard where seven thin dirty pigs were grubbing. They had no silver rings in their noses! He crossed Styford bridge without stopping to look over the parapet at the little fishes, swimming head up stream, balanced in the sluggish current; or the white ducks that dabbled amongst floating masses of water-crowsfoot. At Styford Mill he called to leave a message from Aunt Dorcas to the Miller about meal; the Miller’s wife gave him an apple.
At the house beyond the mill, there is a big dog that barks; but the big dog Gypsy only smiled and wagged his tail at Robinson. Several carts and gigs overtook him. First, two old farmers who screwed themselves round to stare at Robinson. They had two geese, a sack of potatoes, and some cabbages, sitting on the back seat of their gig. Then an old woman passed in a donkey cart with seven hens, and long pink bundles of rhubarb that had been grown in straw under apple barrels. Then with a rattle and a jingle of cans came Robinson’s cousin, little Tom Pigg, driving a strawberry roan pony, in a milk float.
He might have offered Robinson a lift, only he happened to be going in the opposite direction; in fact, the strawberry roan pony was running away home.
“This little pig went to market!” shouted little Tom Pigg gaily, as he rattled out of sight in a cloud of dust, leaving Robinson standing in the road.
Robinson walked on along the road, and presently he came to another stile in the opposite hedge, where the footpath followed the fields again. Robinson got his basket through the stile. For the first time he felt some apprehension. In this field there were cows; big sleek Devon cattle, dark red like their native soil. The leader of the herd was a vicious old cow, with brass balls screwed on to the tips of her horns. She stared disagreeably at Robinson. He sidled across the meadow and got out through the farther stile as quickly as he could. Here the new trodden footpath followed round the edge of a crop of young green wheat. Someone let off a gun with a bang that made Robinson jump and cracked one of Aunt Dorcas’s eggs in the basket.
A cloud of rooks and jackdaws rose cawing and scolding from the wheat. Other sounds mingled with their cries; noises of the town of Stymouth that began to come in sight through the elm trees that bordered the fields; distant noises from the station; whistling of an engine; the bump of trucks shunting; noise of workshops; the hum of a distant town; the hooter of a steamer entering the harbour. High overhead came the hoarse cry of the gulls, and the squabbling cawing of rooks, old and young, in their rookery up in the elm trees.
Robinson left the fields for the last time and joined a stream of country people on foot and in carts, all going to Stymouth Market.
Chapter Four
Stymouth is a pretty little town, situated at the mouth of the river Pigsty, whose sluggish waters slide gently into a bay sheltered by high red headlands. The town itself seems to be sliding downhill in a basin of hills, all slipping seaward into Stymouth harbour, which is dammed back by quays and the outer breakwater.
