d bathe," said Anne. "It's so hot." The
opportunity had passed.

CHAPTER V.

Mr. Wimbush had taken them to see the sights of the Home Farm, and now
they were standing, all six of them--Henry Wimbush, Mr. Scogan, Denis,
Gombauld, Anne, and Mary--by the low wall of the piggery, looking into
one of the styes.

"This is a good sow," said Henry Wimbush. "She had a litter of fourteen.

"Fourteen?" Mary echoed incredulously. She turned astonished blue eyes
towards Mr. Wimbush, then let them fall onto the seething mass of elan
vital that fermented in the sty.

An immense sow reposed on her side in the middle of the pen. Her round,
black belly, fringed with a double line of dugs, presented itself to the
assault of an army of small, brownish-black swine. With a frantic greed
they tugged at their mother's flank. The old sow stirred sometimes
uneasily or uttered a little grunt of pain. One small pig, the runt,
the weakling of the litter, had been unable to secure a place at the
banquet. Squealing shrilly, he ran backwards and forwards, trying to
push in among his stronger brothers or even to climb over their tight
little black backs towards the maternal reservoir.

"There ARE fourteen," said Mary. "You're quite right. I counted. It's
extraordinary."

"The sow next door," Mr. Wimbush went on, "has done very badly. She only
had five in her litter. I shall give her another chance. If she does no
better next time, I shall fat her up and kill her. There's the boar,"
he pointed towards a farther sty. "Fine old beast, isn't he? But he's
getting past his prime. He'll have to go too."

"How cruel!" Anne exclaimed.

"But how practical, how eminently realistic!" said Mr. Scogan. "In this
farm we have a model of sound paternal government. Make them breed,
make them work, and when they're past working or breeding or begetting,
slaughter them."

"Farming seems to be mostly indecency and cruelty," said Anne.

With the ferrule of his walking-stick Denis began to scratch the boar's
long bristly back. The animal moved a little so as to bring himself
within easier range of the instrument that evoked in him such delicious
sensations; then he stood stock still, softly grunting his contentment.
The mud of years flaked off his sides in a grey powdery scurf.

"What a pleasure it is," said Denis, "to do somebody a kindness. I
believe I enjoy scratching this pig quite as much as he enjoys being
scratched. If only one could always be kind