Brownsmith's Boy Part 23

"Don't shy at you now! Well, I wonder at that," said Ike. "He's a wunner at shying. He can hit anything with a stone. I've seen him knock over a bird afore now, and when he gets off in the fields of an evening I've often knowed him bring back a rabbit."

"What does he do with it?"

"Do with it! Come, there's a good 'un. Cook it down in the shed, and eat it. He'd eat a'most anything. But don't you mind him. It don't matter whether he's pleased or whether he ain't. If he's too hard on you, hit him again, and don't be afraid."

In fact the more I saw of Shock, the more distant he grew; and though I tried to make friends with him by putting slices of bread and b.u.t.ter and bits of cold pudding in the shed down the garden that he used to like to make his home at meal-time and of an evening, he used to eat them, and we were as bad friends as ever.

One morning, when there was rather a bigger fire than usual down in the old tool-shed, I walked to the door, and found Shock on his knees apparently making a pudding of soft clay, which he was kneading and beating about on the end of the hearthstone.

I looked round for the twig, for I felt sure that he was going to use the clay for pellets to sling at me, but there was no stick visible.

As I came to the doorway he just glanced over his shoulder; and then, seeing who it was, he shuffled round a little more and went on.

"What are you doing, Shock?" I asked.

He made no reply, but rapidly pinched off pieces of the clay and roughly formed them into the head, body, legs, and arms of a human being, which he set up against the wall, and then with a hoa.r.s.e laugh knocked into a shapeless ma.s.s with one punch of his clay-coated fist.

"He meant that for me," I said to myself; and I was going to turn away when I caught sight of something lying in the shadow beneath the little old four-paned window.

It was something I had never seen before except in pictures; and I was so interested that I stepped in and was about to pick up the object, but Shock s.n.a.t.c.hed it away.

"Where did you get it?" I said eagerly.

He did not answer for a few moments, and then said gruffly, "Fields."

"It's a hedgehog, isn't it?" I said. "Here, let me look." He slowly laid the little p.r.i.c.kly 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, p.r.i.c.king 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 sc.r.a.ping 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 sh.e.l.l that had just been broken, so that there was no difficulty in turning it out upon the tin plate, the sh.e.l.l 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 a.s.sailed 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 ap.r.o.n 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."