The day after the big fair White Beauty and Sir Brumble were both given an extra treat in their respective troughs - big chunks of apples and pears. Argyll thought they both needed and deserved something special after their long, uncomfortable journey.
Argyll also put the rosettes from the show on top of each pig's sty. Sir Brumble got up on his hind legs and ate the two he had as soon as Argyll turned his back on him.
Sir Brumble thought that they tasted alright, but his real reason for eating them was that he wanted to get rid of them. He found a rosette too unmanly a decoration for a boar's sty. Bows were for sows and piglets.
And he hoped that next time Argyll would put the rosettes directly into his trough. It would save them both a lot of trouble.
...
When Alice woke up next morning Mummy was gone. So were all the lovely pigs in their sweet little boxes. Had it all been just a dream?
Perhaps it was a dream, because Alice had been moved from one place to another, just like in a dream. One moment she was at the pig fair in Mummy's arms, the next she was waking up in her cot at home. Perhaps it had all started with her sleeping in her cot, then she had dreamt about going by car and eating in a restaurant and looking at pigs and being with Mummy. Then she had woken up again.
Alice didn't mind if the pigs were just a dream. She didn't even mind if those funny little green things called peas that she had eaten were a dream. But Mummy had to be real. If she wasn't real several days had gone by without Alice seeing her Mummy.
Alice wanted Mummy to come that day, but she never did. But in the afternoon something else happened, something almost as nice. Granny came to play with Alice.
...
Since Sir Brumble had eaten his rosettes White Beauty was the only pig at Locksley who had a pig-of-the-year-rosette on the wall above her sty that year.
She was happy about her rosette, and had no intention whatsoever to eat it. She thought it made her sty look both cosy and beautiful and sophisticated.
The first few days she could hardly take her eyes from it. Then she was slowly getting accustomed to having it there. But even later in the year, when she was lying on her side, feeding her new litter of piglets milk from her teats, she used to look up admiringly at the rosette from time to time.
She had managed to give her eleven little ones the most beautiful home to grow up in in all of Locksley. She couldn't help feeling proud about that.
If she had known that the rosette implied that she was the best Large White sow in the country that year, she would have been still more proud of herself.
...
Jane Argyll had managed for many days to keep the secret Lisa had told her about little Alice Drewe. Jane really wanted to tell her mother, not only because she was her mother but also because her mother was the one to tell Jane what she had heard about Sir Anthony and Lady Edith and their scandalous wedding.
Jane had it on the tip of her tongue a couple of times while she was talking to her mother about other things when they were preparing food or doing other chores together. But then she remembered that she had promised Lisa to keep quiet about it. Lisa was her best friend, and she didn't want to lose her. It was difficult enough to move into a new county and a new school for a girl who was as old as Jane had been when her Daddy got this new job.
What made it easier to keep the secret was that she met Lisa every day at school, so she was able to talk about it to someone. During the breaks they would often sneak away into a corner and giggle and whisper about the tall, kind Baronet and the beautiful Lady and the secret child. Jane had been visiting Lisa a couple of times, and played with little Alice. Like everyone else she thought Alice was a wonderful little baby.
Jane thought this story was exactly like a fairy tale - the little princess growing up unknown to all in the swineherd's cottage. Well, Alice wasn't really a princess, of course, but almost so, since she was the daugther of a highborn Lady and a Baronet. And Lisa's father was definitely a swineherd, just like Jane's own father was. The girls had both been taunted for that often enough at school by children who thought themselves superior just because their fathers had cleaner jobs.
Maybe it was the fact that their fathers did the same thing that had made Jane and Lisa friends to begin with.
...
Argyll had told White Beauty on the fair that she was soon going to see Sir Brumble again. Now, when she was back in her sty, she was thinking about what had happened the first time she was with him.
It was such a long time ago, before she had her nine little piglets. Those were her first piglets, and her first and second time with a boar.
The first time she had been led by Argyll to the breeding pen, she didn't know at all what was going to happen to her. She had been so young and innocent, barely more than a gilt. But she had had a strange feeling during the last few days, something very different from her usual tranquil mood. It was a restlessness and a longing, a kind of both anxious and happy anticipation that she had never felt before.
And she hadn't been able to keep herself from casting long glances towards the boars' sties a bit farther away...
...
The day after the Pig-of-the-year fair, Edith didn't have time to visit Alice. She had to write down her impressions from the fair while they were still fresh. When Cora saw that Edith was busy writing she decided to use this opportunity to go and see her granddaughter.
Cora was growing more and more tired of sneaking out like that behind Edith's back. Hadn't she always told her daughters to be honest and tell the truth? And now she was behaving like this herself!
So on her way to visit Alice that day she suddenly decided that it was time to talk to Edith about her daughter. Cora didn't want to hide her knowledge any longer.
...
It had been a pleasant surprise to White Beauty that there was already a pig in the breeding pen when she got there that first time. And not any pig, but a boar. And not any boar, but the big handsome Sir Brumble, whom she had hardly dared to look at before, feeling so insignificant compared to him.
She had never thought Sir Brumble would ever notice her at all, she knew how many sows he had, although she had no idea yet what that expression actually meant. But now he was moving around her grunting friendly, and nudging her lightly with his snout.
She grunted herself, happy about his attentions, but not really daring to nudge him back. Now that she had got him on her own she was eager to please him. She so wanted him to be satisfied with her.
With soft pushes he finally managed to make her understand that he wanted to have her standing in front of him.
When she stood there wondering what would happen next she instinctively put her hind legs out to steady herself and hunched her back a little. She didn't know exactly why she did it, it just seemed the natural thing to do with a boar behind her. Almost immediately she felt him moving up on top of her.
She shivered with excitement as he climbed onto her back.
It was all so wonderful - his head against her upper back, his breast against the rest of her back and his forelegs down along her sides moving back and forth a couple of times before they settled, holding her in a soft embrace. His hind legs were still on the ground, she supposed, otherwise he would probably have crushed her. He was heavy enough as it was, but it was a delicious weight to carry. She felt so proud and strong and grown up, being able to hold him up like that.
Then she felt him inside. She let out a grunting sigh of surprise but also of delight. She was so close to him now. She was sure two pigs could never be closer than the two of them were right now.
He was standing like that for a long, long time, moving very slightly, filling her up.
Then he got down again. He gave her snout a couple of friendly puffs with his own snout and then Argyll took her out of that pen again.
She was soaring with happiness on her way back to her sty.
Now she had really grown up. Now she knew what it was grown up pigs did to each other. Now she knew why there were sows and boars.
...
White Beauty didn't know if she would ever be allowed to do those things again. But already the next day she was led to the breeding pen again for a similar encounter with Sir Brumble. This time was even better, since she knew what was going to happen and could be a little more confident and less shy.
But after that she wasn't allowed to see him again, although she was hoping for it every day during the next week or so as she remembered the soft feeling of his skin against her own and the thrill of his weight on her back.
He had made her feel that she was a wonderful sow.
Afterwards she got other things to think about. She started to have a strange feeling in her stomach which she later understood was her piglets starting to grow there. Then she gave birth to them and after that she was busy teat-feeding all nine of them. She also had to take care of them in other ways, teaching them the ways of pigs.
She suspected early on that what Sir Brumble had done to her had something to do with it all, and when the piglets were born the same way he had entered, she was certain of it. Some way or other he had planted them inside her.
And some of her piglets really took after their father.
...
When Argyll came to see Sir Brumble that evening he wasn't upset when he saw that Sir Brumble had eaten his rosettes. He only laughed.
"Trying to make it nice for you is like casting pearls before swine", he said.
Sir Brumble didn't know what pearls were, but he hoped they were something good to eat.
"I checked on White Beauty just before I came here. It seems like she will be ready for you tomorrow", Argyll added.
If Argyll was saying what Sir Brumble thought he was saying... then tomorrow would be a wonderful day. He loved all sows, but he had had White Beauty's smell in his nose during their long trip on the lorry... and - after all - he was only a boar. It was perfectly natural that he should think in a certain direction concerning her after having her so close but still unattainable for such a long time.
But now he had to catch up on his sleep. He wanted to be in good shape tomorrow, not to disappoint the young sow.
AN: Thank you for reading! And thank you for your kind and interesting reviews! I do appreciate every one of them!
...
I thought it was upon time to let White Beauty tell her version of the relationship between her and Sir Brumble. I'm sure he would feel very happy about her feelings. Or - more likely - it would only be what he would have expected.
I have done some strange research for this story, not all of which I want to put into it. But the facts in White Beauty's account of what happens when pigs mate, are actually rather accurate. At least as far as I understand it.
Even if I have perhaps made her thoughts on the occasion a little more human than a pig really is. But, who knows?