Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 10,116 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith.

Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 10,116 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith.

‘Hog’s my feed,’ said Andrew Hedger.  The gastric springs of eloquence moved him to discourse, and he unburdened himself between succulent pauses.  ’They’ve killed him early.  He ‘s fat; and he might ha’ been fatter.  But he’s fat.  They’ve got their Christmas ready, that they have.  Lord! you should see the chitterlings, and—­the sausages hung up to and along the beams.  That’s a crown for any dwellin’!  They runs ’em round the top of the room—­it’s like a May-day wreath in old times.  Home-fed hog!  They’ve a treat in store, they have.  And snap your fingers at the world for many a long day.  And the hams!  They cure their own hams at that house.  Old style!  That’s what I say of a hog.  He’s good from end to end, and beats a Christian hollow.  Everybody knows it and owns it.’

Redworth was getting tired.  In sympathy with current conversation, he said a word for the railways:  they would certainly make the flesh of swine cheaper, bring a heap of hams into the market.  But Andrew Hedger remarked with contempt that he had not much opinion of foreign hams:  nobody, knew what they fed on.  Hog, he said, would feed on anything, where there was no choice they had wonderful stomachs for food.  Only, when they had a choice, they left the worst for last, and home-fed filled them with stuff to make good meat and fat ‘what we calls prime bacon.’  As it is not right to damp a native enthusiasm, Redworth let him dilate on his theme, and mused on his boast to eat hog a solid hour, which roused some distant classic recollection:—­an odd jumble.

They crossed the wooden bridge of a flooded stream.

‘Now ye have it,’ said the hog-worshipper; ’that may be the house, I reckon.’

A dark mass of building, with the moon behind it, shining in spires through a mound of firs, met Redworth’s gaze.  The windows all were blind, no smoke rose from the chimneys.  He noted the dusky square of green, and the finger-post signalling the centre of the four roads.  Andrew Hedger repeated that it was The Crossways house, ne’er a doubt.  Redworth paid him his expected fee, whereupon Andrew, shouldering off, wished him a hearty good night, and forthwith departed at high pedestrian pace, manifestly to have a concluding look at the beloved anatomy.

There stood the house.  Absolutely empty! thought Redworth.  The sound of the gate-bell he rang was like an echo to him.  The gate was unlocked.  He felt a return of his queer churchyard sensation when walking up the garden-path, in the shadow of the house.  Here she was born:  here her father died:  and this was the station of her dreams, as a girl at school near London and in Paris.  Her heart was here.  He looked at the windows facing the Downs with dead eyes.  The vivid idea of her was a phantom presence, and cold, assuring him that the bodily Diana was absent.  Had Lady Dunstane guessed rightly, he might perhaps have been of service!

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Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.