As for Bonny himself, the shadows did him strong injustice, such as he was wont to take from all the world, and make light of. The shadows showed him a ragged figure, flapping and flickering here and there, and random in his outlines. But the true glow of the sunset, full upon his face, presented quite another Bonny. No more to be charged as a vagabond than the earth and the sun himself were; but a little boy who loved his home, such as it was, and knew it, and knew little else. Dirty, perhaps, just here and there, after the long dry weather--but if he had been ugly, could he have brought home all that dripping? To the little fellow himself as yet the question of costume was more important than that of comeliness. And his dress afforded him many sources of pride and self-satisfaction. For his breeches were possessed of inexhaustible vitality, as well as bold and original colour, having been adapted for him by the wife of his great patron, Bottler the pigman, from a pair of Bottler’s leggings, made of his own pigskin. The skin had belonged, in the first place, to a very remarkable boar, a thorough Calydonian hog, who escaped from a farm-yard, and lived for months a wild life in St. Leonard’s Forest. Here he scared all the neighbourhood, until at last Bottler was invoked to arise like Meleager, and to bring his pig-knife. Bottler met him in single combat, slew him before he had time to grunt, and claiming him as the spoils of war, pickled his hams at his leisure. Then he tanned the hide which was so thick that it never would do for cracklings, and made himself leggings as everlasting as the fame of his exploit. With these was Bonny now endued over most of his nether moiety. Shoes and stockings he scorned, of course, but his little shanks were clean and red, while his shoulders and chest were lost in the splendour of a coachman’s crimson waistcoat. At least they were generally so concealed when he set forth in the morning, for he picked up plenty of pins, and showed some genius in arranging them; but after a hard day’s work, as now, air and light would always reassert their right of entrance. Still, there remained enough of the mingled charm of blush and plush to recall in soft domestic bosoms bygone scenes, for ever past--but oh, so sweet among the trays! To judge him, however, without the fallacy of romantic tenderness--the breadth of his mouth, and the turn of his nose, might go a little way against him. Still, he had such a manner of showing bright white teeth in a jocund grin, and of making his frizzly hair stand up, and his sharp blue eyes express amazement, at the proper moment; moreover, his pair of cheeks was such (after coming off the downs), and his laugh so dreadfully infectious, and he had such tales to tell--that several lofty butlers were persuaded to consider him.