A FIRST STAGE BY SEA. 505 



headed him for the barge, and scorning their attempts to hold 

 his slender cnrly tail. Piggy, being neither a beer-drinker nor 

 a smoker of black cavendish, was in excellent wind. It was 

 otherwise with his assailants, who, moreover, lavished all their 

 spare breath in unbridled anathema. At length he had them 

 done to a turn, and might, I imagine, have sauntered back to 

 the island without further hindrance on their part, but that 

 help came from an unexpected quarter. The O'Brien was 

 pounced upon by a new and irresistible foe. The shepherd, 

 who had recently crossed with his sheep and his dog, and had 

 since watched the contest with close interest, could stand it no 

 longer. Suddenly he, too, took action. Jumping from his seat 

 he ejaculated, " Let's see what my old dog '11 do ! " and ran 

 down to the combatants. In a moment the scene was changed. 

 The wave of his hand acted like the stick in the nursery fable 

 of the old woman, her pig, and the stile. The collie went for 

 the pig, and pinned him fast by the ear, in spite of his squeals 

 and contortions. The drovers and their new ally were thus able 

 to seize piggy by the heels, and, carrying him in some such 

 fashion as the police adopt towards a fighting drunkard, to bear 

 him helpless into the barge. 



Meantime the afternoon was waning, and we were no farther 

 forward in our journey than at midday. But now the ancient 

 mariner turned his head, and gave permission for our watery 

 pilgrimage to begin. That a spirited, shore-going horse would 

 thus readily consent to take the water, was a matter we had 

 long ago made up our minds to discredit. But there was 

 nothing for it but to try or else to sell the whole turn-out 

 where it stood, to be applied hereafter to purposes of island 

 excursion and suchlike. The old salt declared, in tones and 

 words of such honeyed politeness, that a suggestion of largesse 

 fairly stuck to them, " Bless you, sir, if it hadn't 'a been for 

 them blamed pigs you might ha' been aboard ever so long by 

 now ! " " Them blamed pigs " were doomed to be the scape- 

 goats of our voyage. When anything went wrong, it was " them 

 blamed pigs." Even when they lay quiet, they curled them- 

 selves one atop of another in a solid mass, whose weight pressed 



