- Sandboys, who had a theory of his own about pig-driving, and who
was afraid that if the animal once got away from him in the hills, he would carry with him the family's only chance of fresh meat for weeks to come—made up his mind to keep a safe hold of him, and so, twisted the string which he had attached to the porker's leg two or three turns round his own wrist.
Scarcely had Elcy petitioned her brother for the gentle treatment of her pet "piggy," than, crack! Jobby, who held the whip at the gate, while his father adjusted the reins, sent a flanker on the animal's hind-quarters. Away went "piggy," and we regret to say, away went the innocent Sandboys, not after, but with him—and precisely in the opposite direction to what he had intended. "Cwoley," the dog, who had been dancing round the pig at the gate, no sooner saw the animal start off at score, than entering into the spirit of the scene, he gave full chase, yelping, and jumping, and snapping at him, so that the terrified porker fetched sharp round upon Sandboys, and bolted straight up the mountain side.
Now, to the stranger it should be made known, that climbing the fells of Cumberland is no slight task—even when the traveller is allowed to pick his steps; but, with a pig to lead, no choice but to follow, and a dog behind to urge the porker on, the operation becomes one of considerable hardship, if not peril. Moreover, the mountain over which Mr. Sandboys' pig had chosen to make his course, was called "the Moss," or "Morass," from its peculiar swampy character. Up went the pig, through bracken, and furze, and holly-bush, and up by the stunted oaks, and short-cut stumps, and straight on, up through the larches, over the rugged clump above Hassness; and up went Mr. Sandboys, over and through every one of the same obstacles, making a fresh rent in his trousers at every "whin-bush"—scratched, torn, panting, slipping, and—if we must confess it—swearing; now tumbling, now up again, but still holding on to the pig, or the pig holding on to him, for grim death.
But if it were difficult to ascend a Cumberland fell with a pig in front, how much more trying the descent! No sooner had "Cwoley" turned the pig at the top, than Sandboys, as he looked down the precipitous mountain up which his porker had dragged him, "saw his work before him." It required but a slight momentum to start him; then, away they all three went together—in racing technology you might have covered them with a sheet"—the dog barking, and the pig squeaking, and dragging Mr. Sandboys down the hill at a rate that promised to bring him to the bottom with more celerity than safety. Unfortunately, too, the pig took his course towards the beck formed by the torrent at the "Goat's Gills;" and no sooner did it reach the ravine, than, worried by the dog, it precipitated itself and Mr. Sandboys right down into the foaming, but luckily not very deep, waters.
But, if it were not deep, the bottom of the beck was at least stony; and there, on his back, without breath to cry out, lay the wretched Sandboys, a victim to his theory, his coat skirtless, his pantaloons torn to shreds, and the waters curling white about him, with the
