Page:Vailima Letters - Stevenson, Colvin - 1894.djvu/51

VAILIMA LETTERS 25

supposed that Fanny has outwitted her; she grins behind broad planks in what was once the cook-house. She is a wild pig; far handsomer than any tame; and when she found the cook-house was too much for her methods of evasion, she lay down on the floor and refused food and drink for a whole Sunday. On Monday morning she relapsed, and now eats and drinks like a little man. I am reminded of an incident. Two Sundays ago, the sad word was brought that the sow was out again; this time she had carried another in her flight. Moors and I and Fanny were strolling up to the garden, and there by the waterside we saw the black sow, looking guilty. It seemed to me beyond words; but Fanny's cri du coeur was delicious: 'G-r-r!' she cried; 'nobody loves you!'

I would I could tell you the moving story of our cart and cart-horses; the latter are dapple-grey, about sixteen hands, and of enormous substance; the former was a kind of red and green shandrydan with a driving bench; plainly unfit to carry lumber or to face our road. (Remember that the last third of my road, about a mile, is all made out of a bridle-track by my boys — and my dollars.) It was supposed a white man had been found — an ex-German artilleryman — to drive this last; he proved incapable and drunken; the gallant Henry, who had never driven before, and knew nothing about horses — except the rats and weeds that flourish on the islands — volunteered ; Moors