Pearls Before Swine

UNDER the pensive Irish moon swayed a tattered blackthorn tree; under the blackthorn tree an old white sow sprawled among her eager, parti-collored litter.

But the placid pigs were not alone, deserted to the mercy of the first lightfingered wanderer who should pass that way. Nor were the young ones left to the heedless tramplings of their heavyfooted parent. A guard was set upon them; but the guard was asleep. Outside the pen two little figures lay, wrapped in the thin, impressionable dreams of childhood. The girl’s long, unkempt hair was spread upon the grass like a shadow; the wind blew, and the shadow seemed to move. Bridgie sat up, blinking her black-fringed eyelashes as a black moth moves its wings.

‘Michael! For shame!’

She kneaded the boy’s back with two worrying fists.

He sat up too, and rubbed his crisp hair and his eyes.

‘A Sidhe could take away the little pigs, and we not know it.’

She knelt by the sty and peered in.

‘They’re there,’ she reported.

Sullen grunts and happy squeals proclaimed them safe. Michael stood up and stretched his slim body toward the moon; Bridgie saw his tense arms upraised against its quiet disc.

‘Is th’ ould one lying on any?’ she asked. ‘Granny’d be annoyed if one should be crushed, and we sleeping.’

The boy leaned over the edge of the sty, waving his bare feet in the air and poking each little pig in turn. The squealing increased to the excited pitch of an auction sale.

‘They’re all alive. Th’ ould one is in the corner and the little ones sucking. Are n’t they the comical things!’

Bridgie joined him. They see-sawed back and forth on hardy little stomachs. The white sow lay on her side, serene and somnolent. The little ones were lined up in action; only an even row of wriggling tails was visible to the children.

‘Do ye know, Michael,’ panted Bridgie, ‘there’s one of thim pigs that maddens me. It does be always causing trouble among the others. It’s that black one, the only black one in the whole lot.’

‘Why does he madden ye? He’s an innocent pig enough.’

‘He’s so black — and so gay. — Oh, ye divil!’

‘What is it?’

‘He has me heart destroyed entirely with jumping and squealing the whole night through. Not two times but forty I ’ve thought he was under the feet of th’ ould one.’

‘He’s no worse than the rest.’

‘But he is, Michael.’ Bridgie stamped one tough little bare foot. ‘How would you know whether he was or he was n’t, and you lying on the ground like a lump. Sure, it’s only now I went to sleep. I’ve been watching all the night the way th’ ould one would n’t lie on any.’

Michael yawned and stretched again.

‘I seen a Sidhe,’ announced Bridgie in a whisper.

She looked like a Sidhe herself, standing there with her bare legs, her wild, dark hair, and elfish, moonlight-colored face.

‘Bridgie Farley, mind what ye say. That makes twice ye ’ve said ye seen a Sidhe. Ye remember what Father O’Shaughnessy said.’

‘What did he say?’ asked Bridgie, swaying her lithe body back and forth in assumed nonchalance.

‘That every life ye’d tell would trace a black finger-print on yere heart. They’ll all be known one day. And besides — what did it do?'

‘It — sang.’

‘And what did it sing, Bridgie?’ Michael leaned against the pen and looked at her out of round eyes, halffascinated, half-accusing.

‘I could n’t be sure that it sang, Michael. It might have been the wind passing through the thorn tree.’

‘But if it had sung, what would it be singing?’ He leaned closer, enthralled.

‘If it had sung, Michael — and mind, I don’t say it did sing and I don’t say it did n’t sing. But if it did, it would be “The Black King of Tara.” ’

‘Sing it you, Bridgie.’

Bridgie sang from curving, childish lips, from nothing deeper. But it sounded like the sob of a broken spirit.

The last note died out among the unkempt trees.

‘Is there any more?’ Michael’s voice was hushed.

‘There is not, dearie. How could there be more? Or if there is more, I don’t know it.’

A food-riot ensued among the little pigs, accompanied by a series of disgusted grunts from the source of supply.

‘That’s that black divil again, Michael. I’m sure of that.’ Bridgie rose up as lightly as a water-reed. ‘Ah,’ she exclaimed, peering in upon the greedy family group, ‘if I could reach him, I’d smack him!’

With a superhuman effort she once more threw her body on the shaky fence, and leaning far over administered a deft but very forceful punishment. ‘Now, will ye be good!’

There was a sharp squeal and a pathetic little huddled heap of what had once been a pig.

‘Mind, Bridgie! Ye’ve hurted him!’

Bridgie straightened up with a white, scared face.

‘Is it dead he is?’

‘He looks dead, Bridgie, and he acts dead. That’s sure.’

‘What will Granny say, Michael?’ sobbed the wilted Bridgie. Then she raised a proud, black head. ‘I don’t care what she says. But I feel bad for the pig, a little thing as full of life as a bird.’

‘Perhaps he’s only sleeping.’

‘I don’t think a pig would be such a sudden sleeper, Michael. It could n’t be a natural sleep, after a smack like that.’ She paused, and rubbed her bare, round arm across her eyes. ‘Perhaps it was th’ould one did it after all,’ she added as an afterthought.

‘Oh, it was n’t th’ ould one.’

‘How do you know it was n’t? It’s night; sure, you can’t see everything plain.’

‘I thought I seen ye hit it.’

‘Ye thought! Thinking’s an easy thing.’

‘But Bridgie —’

‘Are ye sure, Michael?’ asked Bridgie, with a quaver in her voice. ‘Granny’ll beat me.’

‘I thought I was sure.’

‘But ye’re not sure.’ Bridgie paused, and went on slowly, ‘And I’m not sure. And look at th’ould one itself—sniffing it and feeling it with its nose. It’s clear the mother thinks it was herself done it.’

‘What’s the matter, Bridgie?’ faltered Michael in a daze. ‘What difference does it make what the mother would be thinking?’

‘All the difference in the world, Michael. Because the little one thought it was the mother done it.’

‘What if it did?’ asked Michael blankly.

‘But, Michael, if you think it, and I think it, and th’ ould one thinks it, and if the little one itself thought the mother did it —’

‘What then? I don’t see, Bridgie.’

‘But if we all think the pig done it, who is there thinks I done it?’

‘I do,’ was the dogged reply.

‘But ye said ye were n’t sure.’

‘Did I?’

‘Ye did. And if ye were n’t quite sure, Michael, I should think the three of us would be enough to make ye sure.’

‘What three?’ queried Michael, now thoroughly bewildered.

‘Why, the two pigs and myself.’

Michael put his hand to his head in confusion. Bridgie looked into the pen with sad and dreamy eyes.

‘That’s a terrible thing, Michael. A pig to kill its own child, and it the only black one in it and the liveliest of all.’

‘And did she?’ The boy steadied himself against the side of the pen.

‘She did. Don’t ye see her grieving for it now?’

Michael turned away, and scratched his baffled head. Bridgie continued to gaze into the scene of the disaster, — at the inert body of the little victim. When she looked up, tears were in her eyes.

‘Michael,’ she said reproachfully, ‘ye should n’t let on to a pig that she did a thing she did n’t do. Not even to comfort me, Michael. That pig feels very bad,’

‘But she did do it,’ stammered Michael with a note of pleading in his voice.

‘She did not then. You know it, Michael, and I know it. Never mind,’ she murmured to the bereaved, ‘never mind him, ould mother. Ye did n’t do it at all.’ The tears began to flow unchecked. ‘I did it; but it was an accident, dearie, and I’m sorry I did. And Granny can beat me if she likes.’

Michael put both hands to his little tumbled head, and turned away in deep perplexity. Bridgie gave a cry and clutched his arm.

‘It stirred, Michael! Did ye see it? It’s up now and walking away and th’ ould one nipping its ear. Did ye ever see the like, Michael? It was only stunned it was. Is n’t th’ ould sow pleased! And are n’t you pleased, Michael, that it is n’t dead!’

‘I am,’ admitted Michael dully, ‘pleased enough.’

‘So am I,’ chanted Bridgie, dancing about like a fire-fly. ‘And I’m glad, too, that I did n’t deceive th’ ould mother. It would be a low thing to deceive a Pig.'

Michael shook his young head in bewilderment.

‘I was sleepy enough, Bridgie,’ he muttered, ‘before ye wakened me. But ye’re making me twice as bad, talking about things I don’t understand at all.’

Bridgie watched the little black pig with happy, incredulous eyes.

‘I wash the Sidhe would come again,’ said Michael wistfully. ‘I never seen as much as one. What did it look like, Bridgie?’

Bridgie smiled.

‘It was a little thing, sure, no bigger than a thimble. It had a red cap on it and two gold shoes with curly toes. It had on a coat, too, as green as an apple, and its little breeks were as blue as Granny’s eyes.’

‘Did it have a high voice, Bridgie? It must have been a light singer, and it so little.’ Michael was bashful in contributing.

‘It did not, then,’ said Bridgie, annoyed at the interference. ‘But it sang in a big voice as deep as an organ. It sang as deep as Padric Fallon sings when the whiskey’s in his head.’

‘But, Bridgie! It could n’t, and it such a mite.’

‘Tell it you, then, if you seen it and heard it.’

Michael was silenced, but as nearly incredulous as he had ever been of Bridgie. His sister stooped and gathered up an acorn. Taking out the kernel, she blew into its crisp, brown cup, and gave a pensive sigh.

‘When I seen that Sidhe, Michael,’ she said slowly, ‘the wind was blowing through the trees and stirring them bushes beyont the pen. It might be — mind, I don’t say for sure it was and I don’t say for sure it was n’t — that it was the leaves moving I saw, and it looked like a Sidhe. That might be it, Michael.’

‘Oh, I guess ye seen it.’

‘Not many people has seen a Sidhe,’ murmured Bridgie. ‘It would n’t be likely I to see one twace.’

‘If it came to any one, it would come to you.’

‘Why so?’ asked Bridgie, flattered.

She sat down and leaned her back against the thorn tree, holding out the acorn-cup as if to catch the moonlight. Michael stood rigidly before her, and rubbed a knuckle in his eye.

‘Because ye can make a story out of it and sing as good as any Sidhe.’

He crumpled up in a sleepy little bundle at her feet and thumped his tousled head into her lap.

‘Let me go to sleep again, Bridgie.’

‘Do,’ said Bridgie with scorn. ‘Much good y’ are as a watcher! I’ll sit here meself and watch for two. I can see all through the crack in the fence.’

Her voice grew drowsy, and her eyes drooped. She half smiled at Michael’s curving mouth and quiet limbs, swayed a little, then a little more. An audacious cloud blotted out the moon. When it reappeared, Bridgie’s head lay once more upon the grass, and both were fast asleep. And if there was any Sidhe at all in Ireland that night it would be a slow old party to miss the breezy pair under the blackthorn tree.