"It's a hedgehog, isn't it?" I said. "Here, let me look." He slowly
laid the little prickly animal down on the earthen floor and pushed it
towards me--a concession of civility that was wonderful for Shock; and I
eagerly examined the curious little creature, pricking my fingers a good
deal in the efforts to get a good look at the little black-faced animal
with its pointed snout.
"What are you going to do with it?" I said.
Shock looked up at me in a curious half-cunning way, as he beat out his
clay into a broad sheet; and then, as if about to make a pudding, he
made the hedgehog into a long ball, laid it on the clay, and covered it
up, rolling it over and over till there was nothing visible but a clay
ball.
"What a baby you are, Shock, playing at making mud puddings!" I said.
He did not reply, only smiled in a half-pitying way, took an old
broomstick that he used for a poker, and scraping the ashes of the fire
aside rolled the clay pig-pudding into the middle of the fire, and then
covered it over with the burning ashes, and piled on some bits of wood
and dry cabbage-stumps, making up a good fire, which he set himself to
watch.
It was a wet day, and there was nothing particular to do in the garden;
so I stood looking at Shock's cookery for a time, and then grew tired
and was coming away when for a wonder he spoke.
"Be done soon," he said.
Just then I heard my name called, and running through the rain I found
that Old Brownsmith wanted me for a while about some entries that he
could not find in the book, and which he thought had not been made.
I was able, however, to show him that the entries had been made; and as
soon as I was at liberty I ran down the garden again to see how the
cookery was going on.
As I reached the door the little shed was all of a glow, for Shock was
raking the fire aside, but, apparently not satisfied, he raked it all
back again, and for the next half hour he amused himself piling up
scraps of wood and refuse to make the fire burn, ending at last by
raking all away, leaving the lump of clay baked hard and red.
I had been standing by the door watching him all the time; and now he
just turned his head and looked at me over his shoulder as he rose and
took a little old battered tin plate from where it stuck beneath the
rough thatch, giving it a rub on the tail of his jacket.
"Like hedgehog?" he said grimly.
"No," I cried with a look of disgust.
"You ain't tasted it," he said, growing wonderfully conversational as he
took a hand-bill from a nail where it hung.
Then, kneeling down before the fire, he gave the hard clay ball a sharp
blow with the hand-bill, making it crack right across and fall open,
showing the little animal steaming hot and evidently done, the bristly
skin adhering to the clay shell that had just been broken, so that there
was no difficulty in turning it out upon the tin plate, the shell in two
halves being cast upon the fire, where the interior began to burn.
It seemed very horrible!
It seemed very nice!
I thought in opposite directions in the following moments, and all the
time my nose was being assailed by a very savoury odour, for the cookery
smelt very good.
"You won't have none--will you?" said Shock, without looking at me.
"No," I said shortly; "it isn't good to eat. You might as well eat
rats."
"I like rats," he replied, coolly taking out his knife from one pocket,
a piece of bread from the other; and to my horror he rapidly ate up the
hedgehog, throwing the bones on the fire as he picked them, and ending
by rubbing the tin plate over with a bit of old gardener's apron which
he took from the wall.
"Well," I said sarcastically, "was it nice?"
"Bewfle!" he said, giving his lips a smack and then sighing.
"Did you say you eat rats?" I continued.
"Yes."
"And mice too?"
"No; there ain't nuffin' on 'em--they're all bones."
"Do you eat anything else?"
"Snails."
"Yes, I've seen you eat the nasty slimy things."
"They ain't nasty slimy things; they're good."
"Do you eat anything else?"
"Birds."
"What?" I said.
"Birds--blackbirds, and thrushes, and sparrers, and starlings. Ketches
'em in traps like I do the rats."
"But do you really eat rats?"
"Yes--them as comes after the apples in the loft and after the corn.
They are good."
"But don't you get enough to eat at home?" I asked him.
"Home!--what, here?"
"No, I mean your home."
"What, where I sleeps? Sometimes."
"But you're not obliged to eat these things. Does Mr Brownsmith know?"
"Oh! yes, he knows. I like 'em. I eat frogs once. Ain't fish good? I
ketch 'em in the medders."
"Where you saved me when I was drowning?" I said hastily.
Shock turned his face away from me and knelt there, throwing scraps of
wood, cinder, and dirt into the fire, with his head bent down; and
though I tried in all kinds of ways to get him to speak again, not a
single word would he say.