Away I scudded, taking my way across the Little Russel, past the stone fort, with its one pop-gun on top, which is supposed to dominate the channel, standing as it does on a rocky islet midway between Guernsey and Herm.  If a modern warship meant business, the bellicose gunners of this little inkpot-looking fort would have what the French call a mauvais quart d’heure.  Arrived home about seven I had all the day before me.  One of our poets says,

     “The only way to lengthen our days,
     Is to take a piece off of the night, my boys!”

This I used frequently to do, but always took care to take my piece off the night, so as to prefix the day instead of making it a kind of baccanalian appendix.  I have sometimes had my day twenty hours long, from two in the morning till ten at night; but with this I used afterwards to take an antidote in the shape of ten or eleven hours’ sleep.  On such occasions I always gave my animals a double allowance of food, and if they were improvident enough to consume it, as if it were carnival time, or a period of some great feast, that was their look out, and after their feast came a fast, which at worst only gave them an increased appetite, and did them no real harm.

Speaking of appetite and eating, I must describe my first pig-killing.  I felt that I required pork, and the more I thought of it the more I was convinced that I must have it, although a murder had to be committed before I could have it either roast, boiled, or fried.  Very well, what easier!  There were the two pigs, each about one hundred and forty pounds weight; all I had to do was to kill one.  Of course I would set about it at once; but upon reflection I became aware that some courage was required, and that I was totally ignorant of the work before me.  However, I sharpened a long knife and went and had a look at the pigs, and the more I looked the less I liked my task; so much so, that after half an hour I decided that I would have tinned mutton for dinner—­the pork would be too fresh, and perhaps it might be a dull day to-morrow, and I should want something to do!  So the pig received a respite.  Next morning when I awoke and considered how and when I should kill the pig, I made the resolve that come what might “that day the pig should die.”

After breakfast I again sharpened the knife, as if it had become blunt again in the night, and got up a razor edge on the weapon, and once more proceeded to the stye.  I selected my victim, and got one of my legs over the wall of the enclosure; but then my heart failed me, it seemed as if I was about to slay an old friend; indeed, they were old friends, those two piggies, and I had had many a chat with them, in fact, could almost understand their language of grunts.