, young gentlemen,' said a woman; 'she's a regular
obstinate, once she sets in for it.'

'Ah!' said the man, 'I've seen pigs druv, and I've seen iron bent double.
She's harder 'n both, once she takes 't into her head.'

'By jingo, she's pig-iron!' cried Temple, and sighed, 'Oh, dear old
Heriot!'

I flung myself beside him to talk of our lost friend.

A great commotion stirred the boys. They shrieked at beholding their
goose vanish in a pot for stewing. They wanted roast-goose, they
exclaimed, not boiled; who cared for boiled goose! But the woman asked
them how it was possible to roast a goose on the top of wood-flames,
where there was nothing to hang it by, and nothing would come of it
except smoked bones!

The boys groaned in consternation, and Saddlebank sowed discontent by
grumbling, 'Now you see what your jolly new acquaintances have done for
you.'

So we played at catch with the Dutch cheese, and afterwards bowled it for
long-stopping, when, to the disgust of Saddlebank and others, down ran
the black-haired girl and caught the ball clean at wicket-distance. As
soon as she had done it she was ashamed, and slunk away.

The boys called out, 'Now, then, pig-iron!'

One fellow enraged me by throwing an apple that hit her in the back. We
exchanged half-a-dozen blows, whereupon he consented to apologize, and
roared, 'Hulloa, pig-iron, sorry if I hurt you.'

Temple urged me to insist on the rascal's going on his knees for flinging
at a girl.

'Why,' said Chaunter, 'you were the first to call her pig-iron.'

Temple declared he was a blackguard if he said that. I made the girl take
a piece of toffy.

'Aha!' Saddlebank grumbled, 'this comes of the precious company you would
keep in spite of my caution.'

The man told us to go it, for he liked to observe young gentlemen
enjoying themselves. Temple tossed him a pint bottle of beer, with an
injunction to him to shut his trap.

'Now, you talk my mother tongue,' said the man; 'you're what goes by the
name of a learned gentleman. Thank ye, sir. You'll be a counsellor some
day.'

'I won't get off thieves, I can tell you,' said Temple. He was the son of
a barrister.

'Nor you won't help cook their gooses for them, may be,' said the man.
'Well, kindness is kindness, all over the world.'

The women stormed at him to command him not to anger the young gentlemen,
for Saddlebank was swearing awfully in an undertone. He answered them
that he was the mildest lamb aflo