Robin’s first thought was to run away, but he knew that four legs are better than two for getting over the ground, and felt that the drove would attack him more fiercely if they saw that he was afraid.

His next idea was to climb ’up into the fork of one of the big trees, but he knew that there was not time.  So he obeyed his third notion, which was to jump to where a big piece of dead wood lay, pick it up, and hit the foremost pig across the nose with it.

That blow did wonders; it made the black pig which received it utter a dismal squeal, and its companions stop and stand barking and snapping all around him.  But the blow broke the piece of dead wood in two, and the fierce little animals were coming on again, when a voice cried: 

“Hi! you! knocking our tigs about!” And a rough boy about a couple of years older than Robin rushed into the middle of the herd, kicking first at one and then at another, banging them with a long hooked stick he held, and making them run squealing in all directions.  “What are you knocking our tigs about for?” cried the boy sharply, as he stared hard at the strange visitor to the forest, his eyes looking greedily at the little fellow’s purple and white jerkin and his cap with a little white feather in it.

“They were coming to bite me,” said Robin quickly, while it struck him as funny that the boy should knock the pigs about himself.

“What are you doing here?” said the boy.

Robin told of his misfortune, and finished by saying: 

“I’m so hungry, and I want to go home.  Where can I get some breakfast?”

“Dunno,” said the boy.  “Have some of these?”

He took a handful of acorns from a dirty satchel, and held them out, Robin catching at them eagerly, putting one between his white teeth, and biting it, but only to make a face full of disgust.

“It’s bitter,” he said.  “It’s not good to eat.”

“Makes our tigs fat,” said the boy; “look at ’em.”

“But I’m not a pig,” said Robin.  “I want some bread and milk.  Where can I get some?”

The boy shook his head.

“Where do you live?” asked Robin.

“Along o’ master.”

“Where’s that?”

The boy shook his head and stared at the cap and feather, one of his hands opening and shutting.

“Will you show me the way home, then?”

The boy shook his head again, and now stared at the velvet jerkin, then at his own garb, which consisted of a piece of sack with slits in it for his head and arms to come through, and a strip of cow-skin for a belt to hold it in.

“I could show you where to get something,” he said at last.

“Well, show me,” cried Robin.

“You give me that jacket and cap, then,” cried the boy, in a husky, low voice.

“Give you my clothes?” said Robin, wonderingly.  “I can’t do that.”

“Then I shall take ’em?” said the boy, in a husky growl.