Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/145

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THE SWINEHERDS.
139

had he laid his hand upon his heart, and said this to himself. The sun burnt hotly, and therefore he had turned the woolly side of his sheepskin outwards; his silver white hair hung around his characteristic brown countenance. He had got a new piece of linen, a shirt, and he was now preparing it for wear, according to his own fashion, which was this: he rubbed the fat of a piece of bacon into it; by this means it would keep clean so much the longer, and he could turn it first on one side and then on the other.

His grandson, a healthy-looking lad, whose long black hair was smoothed with the same kind of pomatum which the old man used to his shirt, stood just by, leaning on a staff. A long leathern bag hung on his shoulder. He also was a swineherd, and this very evening was going on board a vessel, which, towed by the steamboat Eros, was taking a freight of pigs to the imperial city of Vienna.

“You will be there in five days,” said the old man. “When I was a young fellow, like you, it used to take six weeks for the journey. Step by step we went on through marshy roads, through forests, and over rocks. The