Here Bladud hired himself out to a farmer named Smith, as a swineherd.  But Fate, as he expressed it in the vernacular, was “ferninst him.”  Leprosy is a contagious disease, within certain degrees of consanguinity, and by riding his pigs afield he communicated it to them; so that in a few weeks, barring the fact that they were hogs, they were no better off than he.  Mr. Smith was an irritable old gentleman, so choleric he made his bondsmen tremble—­though he was now abroad upon his own recognizances.  Dreading his wrath, Bladud quitted his employ, without giving the usual week’s notice, but so far conforming to custom in other respects as to take his master’s pigs along with him.

We find him next at a place called Swainswick—­or Swineswig—­a mile or two to the north-east of Bath, which, as yet, had no existence, its site being occupied by a smooth level reach of white sand, or a stormy pool of black water, travellers of the time disagree which.  At Swainswick Bladud found his level; throwing aside all such nonsense as kingly ambition, and the amenities of civilized society—­utterly ignoring the deceitful pleasures of common sense—­he contented his simple soul with composing bouts rimes for Lady Miller, at Batheaston Villa; that one upon a buttered muffin, falsely ascribed by Walpole to the Duchess of Northumberland, was really constructed by Bladud.

A brief glance at the local history of the period cannot but prove instructive.  Ralph Allen was then residing at Sham Castle, where Pope accused him of doing good like a thief in the night and blushing to find it unpopular.  Fielding was painfully evolving “Tom Jones” from an inner consciousness that might have been improved by soap and any water but that of Bath.  Bishop Warburton had just shot the Count Du Barre in a duel with Lord Chesterfield; and Beau Nash was disputing with Dr. Johnson, at the Pelican Inn, Walcot, upon a question of lexicographical etiquette.  It is necessary to learn these things in order the better to appreciate the interest of what follows.

During all this time Bladud never permitted his mind to permanently desert his calling; he found family matters a congenial study, and he thought of his swine a good deal, off and on.  One day while baiting them amongst the hills, he observed a cloud of steam ascending from the valley below.  Having always believed steam a modern invention, this ancient was surprised, and when his measly charge set up a wild squeal, rushing down a steep place into the aspiring vapour, his astonishment ripened into dismay.  As soon as he conveniently could Bladud followed, and there he heard the saw—­I mean he saw the herd wallowing and floundering multitudinously in a hot spring, and punctuating the silence of nature with grunts of quiet satisfaction, as the leprosy left them and clave to the waters—­to which it cleaves yet.  It is not probable the pigs went in there for a medicinal purpose; how could they know?  Any butcher will tell you that a pig, after being assassinated, is invariably boiled to loosen the hair.  By long usage the custom of getting into hot water has become a habit which the living pig inherits from the dead pork. (See Herbert Spencer on “Heredity.”)