"Of course you shan't do it," said Jude. "I'll do it, since it must
be done."
He went out to the sty, shovelled away the snow for the space of a
couple of yards or more, and placed the stool in front, with the
knives and ropes at hand. A robin peered down at the preparations
from the nearest tree, and, not liking the sinister look of the
scene, flew away, though hungry. By this time Arabella had joined
her husband, and Jude, rope in hand, got into the sty, and noosed the
affrighted animal, who, beginning with a squeak of surprise, rose to
repeated cries of rage. Arabella opened the sty-door, and together
they hoisted the victim on to the stool, legs upward, and while Jude
held him Arabella bound him down, looping the cord over his legs to
keep him from struggling.
The animal's note changed its quality. It was not now rage, but the
cry of despair; long-drawn, slow and hopeless.
"Upon my soul I would sooner have gone without the pig than have had
this to do!" said Jude. "A creature I have fed with my own hands."
"Don't be such a tender-hearted fool! There's the sticking-knife--
the one with the point. Now whatever you do, don't stick un too
deep."
"I'll stick him effectually, so as to make short work of it. That's
the chief thing."
"You must not!" she cried. "The meat must be well bled, and to do
that he must die slow. We shall lose a shilling a score if the meat
is red and bloody! Just touch the vein, that's all. I was brought
up to it, and I know. Every good butcher keeps un bleeding long.
He ought to be eight or ten minutes dying, at least."
"He shall not be half a minute if I can help it, however the meat may
look," said Jude determinedly. Scraping the bristles from the pig's
upturned throat, as he had seen the butchers do, he slit the fat;
then plunged in the knife with all his might.
"'Od damn it all!" she cried, "that ever I should say it! You've
over-stuck un! And I telling you all the time--"
"Do be quiet, Arabella, and have a little pity on the creature!"
"Hold up the pail to catch the blood, and don't talk!"
However unworkmanlike the deed, it had been mercifully done. The
blood flowed out in a torrent instead of in the trickling stream she
had desired. The dying animal's cry assumed its third and final
tone, the shriek of agony; his glazing eyes riveting themselves on
Arabella with the eloquently keen reproach of a creature recognizing
at last the treachery of those who had seemed his only friends.