There stood the attenuated form of poor old Blackbird, looking huge and almost spectral in the dim light, but proclaiming its identity by a low whinny.
"Rabbit me!" exclaimed Tom, "if that there wold carcase ain't found his way here again!"
But Mrs. Bold's arms were round the creature's neck, and she was fairly hugging him.
"Well done!" she cried ecstatically, "well done! Ye did well to come to I, Blackbird. I'll stand by ye, never fear! I'll not have ye drove away again."
Blackbird stood gazing at her with his sunken eyes, his loose nether lip dropping, his poor old bent knees bowed so that they seemed scarcely able to sustain his weight; the rusty skin, which had once been of so glossy a sable, was scratched and torn in many places.
"He must have found his way out through the hedge. Well, to think of his coming here, Missis!"
"He knowed he come to the right place," said Mrs. Bold, with flashing eyes. "Turn that there new horse out o' the stall and put Blackbird back, and give en a feed o' earn, and shake down a bit o' fresh straw. 'Tis what ye couldn't put up wi', could ye, Blackbird?" she continued, addressing the horse, "to find a stranger in your place! Ye come to tell I all about it, didn't ye?"
When the farmer came down half-an-hour later, his wife emerged from the shed in the neighbourhood of the pig-styes, where she had been ministering to the wants of two motherless little pigs. One small porker, indeed, was still tucked away under her arm as she advanced to meet her husband, and she was brandishing the teapot, from which she had been feeding it, in her disengaged hand.
"Joseph," she said, planting herself opposite to him, and speaking with alarming solemnity, "we've a-been wed now farty year come Lady Day. Have I bin a good wife to 'ee, or have I not?"
"Why, in course," Joseph was beginning, when he suddenly broke off. "What's the new colt standing in the cart-shed for?"
"Never you mind the new colt--attend to I! Have I been a good wife to 'ee, or have I not?"
"In course ye have--no man need ax for a better. But why--"
"Haven't I worked early and late, and toiled and moiled, and never took a bit o' pleasure, and never axed 'ee to lay out no money for I? Bain't I a-bringin' up these 'ere pigs by hand for 'ee, Joseph Bold? And a deal of worry they be. 'Twasn't in the marriage contract, I think, as I should bottle-feed sucking-pigs--was it now, Joseph? I d' 'low parson never thought o' axin' me if I were willin' to do that, but I've a-done it for your sake."