The outskirts of the town are untidy, as is frequently the case with seaports. A straggling suburb on the western approach is inhabited principally by goats, and persons who deal in old iron, rags, tarred rope, and fishing nets. There are rope walks, and washing that flaps on waggling lines above banks of stony shingle, littered with seaweed, whelk shells and dead crabs – very different from Aunt Porcas’s clothes lines over the clean green grass.

And there are marine stores that sell spy-glasses, and sou’westers, and onions; and there are smells; and curious high sheds, shaped like sentry boxes, where they hang up herring nets to dry; and loud talking inside dirty houses. It seemed a likely place to meet a pantechnicon. Robinson kept in the middle of the road. Somebody in a public-house shouted at him through the window, “Come in, fat pig!” Robinson took to his heels.

The town of Stymouth itself is clean, pleasant, picturesque, and well-behaved (always excepting the harbour); but it is extremely steep downhill. If Robinson had started one of Aunt Dorcas’s eggs rolling at the top of High Street, it would have rolled all the way down to the bottom; only it would have got broken certainly against a doorstep, or underfoot. There were crowds in the streets, as it was market day.

Indeed, it was difficult to walk about without being pushed off the pavement; every old woman that Robinson met seemed to have a basket as big as his own. In the roadway were fish barrows, apple barrows, stalls with crockery and hardware, cocks and hens riding in pony carts, donkeys with panniers, and farmers with wagon-loads of hay.

Also there was a constant string of coal carts coming up from the docks. To a country-bred pig, the noise was confusing and fearful.

Robinson kept his head very creditably until he got into Fore Street, where a drover’s dog was trying to turn three bullocks into a yard, assisted by Stumpy and half the other dogs of the town. Robinson and two other little pigs with baskets of asparagus bolted down an alley and hid in a doorway until the noise of bellowing and barking had passed.

When Robinson took courage to come out again into Fore Street, he decided to follow close behind the tail of a donkey who was carrying panniers piled high with spring broccoli. There was no difficulty in guessing which road led to market.

But after all these delays it was not surprising that the church clock struck eleven.

Although it had been open since ten, there were still plenty of customers buying, and wanting to buy, in the market hall. It was a large, airy, light, cheerful, covered-in place, with glass in the roof. It was crowded, but safe and pleasant, compared with the jostling and racket outside in the cobble-paved streets; at all events there was no risk of being run over. There was a loud hum of voices; market folk cried their wares; customers elbowed and pushed round the stalls. Dairy produce, vegetables, fish, and shell fish were displayed upon the flat boards on trestles.

Robinson had found a standing place at one end of a stall where Nanny Nettigoat was selling periwinkles.

“Winkle, winkle! Wink, wink, wink! Maa, maa-a!” bleated Nanny.

Winkles were the only thing that she offered for sale, so she felt no jealousy of Robinson’s eggs and primroses. She knew nothing about his cauliflowers; he had the sense to keep them in the basket under the table. He stood on an empty box, quite proud and bold behind the trestle table, singing:

“Eggs, new laid! Fresh new-laid eggs! Who’ll come and buy my eggs and daffodillies?”

“I will, sure,” said a large brown dog with a stumpy tail, “I’ll buy a dozen. My Miss Rose has sent me to market on purpose to buy eggs and butter.”

“I am so sorry, I have no butter, Mr. Stumpy; but I have beautiful cauliflowers,” said Robinson, lifting up the basket, after a cautious glance round at Nanny Nettigoat, who might have tried to nibble them. She was busy measuring periwinkles in a pewter mug for a duck customer in a tam-o’-shanter cap. “They are lovely brown eggs, except one that got cracked; I think that white pussy cat at the opposite stall is selling butter – they are beautiful cauliflowers.”

“I’ll buy a cauliflower, lovey, bless his little turned-up nose; did he grow them in his own garden?” said old Betsy, bustling up; her rheumatism was better; she had left Susan to keep house. “No, lovey, I don’t want any eggs; I keep hens myself. A cauliflower and a bunch of daffodils for a bow-pot, please,” said Betsy.

“Wee, wee, wee!” replied Robinson.

“Here, Mrs. Perkins, come here! Look at this little pig stuck up at a stall all by himself!”

“Well, I don’t know!” exclaimed Mrs. Perkins, pushing through the crowd, followed by two little girls. “Well, I never! Are they quite new laid, sonny? Won’t go off pop and spoil my Sunday dress like the eggs Mrs. Wyandotte took first prize with at five flower shows, till they popped and spoiled the judge’s black silk dress? Not duck eggs, stained with coffee? That’s another trick of flower shows! New laid, guaranteed? Only you say one is cracked? Now I call that real honest; it’s no worse for frying. I’ll have the dozen eggs and a cauliflower, please. Look, Sarah Polly! Look at his silver nose-ring.”

Sarah Polly and her little girl friend went into fits of giggling, so that Robinson blushed. He was so confused that he did not notice a lady who wanted to buy his last cauliflower, till she touched him. There was nothing else left to sell, but a bunch of primroses. After more giggling and some whispering the two little girls came back, and bought the primroses. They gave him a peppermint, as well as the penny, which Robinson accepted; but without enthusiasm and with a preoccupied manner.

The trouble was that no sooner had he parted with the bunch of primroses than he realised that he had also sold Aunt Dorcas’s pattern of darning wool. He wondered if he ought to ask for it back; but Mrs. Perkins and Sarah Polly and her little girl friend had disappeared.

Robinson, having sold everything, came out of the market hall, sucking the peppermint. There were still numbers of people coming in. As Robinson came out upon the steps his basket got caught in the shawl of an elderly sheep, who was pushing her way up. While Robinson was disentangling it, Stumpy came out. He had finished his marketing. His basket was full of heavy purchases. A responsible, trustworthy, obliging dog was Stumpy, glad to do a kindness to anybody.

When Robinson asked him the way to Mr. Mumby’s, Stumpy said: “I am going home by Broad Street. Come with me, and I will show you.”

“Wee, wee, wee! Oh, thank you, Stumpy!” said Robinson.

Chapter Five



Old Mr. Mumby was a deaf old man in spectacles, who kept a general store. He sold almost anything you can imagine, except ham – a circumstance much approved by Aunt Dorcas. It was the only general store in Stymouth where you would not find displayed upon the counter a large dish, containing strings of thin, pale-coloured, repulsively uncooked sausages, and rolled bacon hanging from the ceiling.

“What pleasure,” said Aunt Dorcas feelingly – “what possible pleasure can there be in entering a shop where you knock your head against a ham? A ham that may have belonged to a dear second cousin?”