Suddenly she betook herself to her heels,—­for the animal looked at her, and stopped eating:  that was enough to drive Miss Lucinda off the field.  And now, quite desperate, she rushed through the house and out of the front-door, actually in search of a man!  Just down the street she saw one.  Had she been composed, she might have noticed the threadbare cleanliness of his dress, the odd cap that crowned his iron-gray locks, and the peculiar manner of his walk; for our little old maid had stumbled upon no less a person than Monsieur Jean Leclerc, the dancing-master of Dalton.  Not that this accomplishment was much in vogue in the embryo city; but still there were a few who liked to fit themselves for firemen’s balls and sleighing-party frolics, and quite a large class of children were learning betimes such graces as children in New England receive more easily than their elders.  Monsieur Leclerc had just enough scholars to keep his coat threadbare and restrict him to necessities; but he lived, and was independent.  All this Miss Lucinda was ignorant of; she only saw a man, and, with the instinct of the sex in trouble or danger, she appealed to him at once.

“Oh, Sir! won’t you step in and help me?  My pig has got out, and I can’t catch him, and he is ruining my garden!”

“Madame, I shall!” replied the Frenchman, bowing low, and assuming the first position.

So Monsieur Leclerc followed Miss Manners, and supplied himself with a mop that was hanging in the shed as his best weapon.  Dire was the battle between the pig and the Frenchman.  They skipped past each other and back again as if they were practising for a cotillon.  Piggy had four legs, which gave him a certain advantage; but the Frenchman had most brain, and in the long run brain gets the better of legs.  A weary dance they led each other, but after a while the pet was hemmed in a corner, and Miss Lucinda had run for a rope to tie him, when, just as she returned, the beast made a desperate charge, upset his opponent, and giving a leap in the wrong direction, to his manifest astonishment, landed in his own sty!  Miss Lucinda’s courage rose; she forgot her prostrate friend in need, and, running to the pen, caught up hammer and nail-box on her way, and, with unusual energy, nailed up the bars stronger than ever, and then bethought herself to thank the stranger.  But there he lay quite still and pale.

“Dear me!” said Miss Manners, “I hope you haven’t hurt yourself, Sir?”

“I have fear that I am hurt, Madame,” said he, trying to smile.  “I cannot to move but it pains me.”

“Where is it?  Is it your leg or your arm?  Try and move one at a time,” said Miss Lucinda, promptly.

The left leg was helpless, it could not answer to the effort, and the stranger lay back on the ground pale with the pain.  Miss Lucinda took her lavender-bottle out of her pocket and softly bathed his head and face; then she took off her sack and folded it up under his head, and put the lavender beside him.  She was good at an emergency, and she showed it.