I looked round for the twig, for I felt sure that he was going to use the clay for pellets to sling at me, but there was no stick visible. As I came to the doorway he just glanced over his shoulder; and then, seeing who it was, he shuffled round a little more and went on. "What are you doing, Shock?" I asked. He made no reply, but rapidly pinched off pieces of the clay and roughly formed them into the head, body, legs, and arms of a human being, which he set up against the wall, and then with a hoarse laugh knocked into a shapeless mass with one punch of his clay-coated fist. "He meant that for me," I said to myself; and I was going to turn away when I caught sight of something lying in the shadow beneath the little old four-paned window. It was something I had never seen before except in pictures; and I was so interested that I stepped in and was about to pick up the object, but Shock snatched it away. "Where did you get it?" I said eagerly. He did not answer for a few moments, and then said gruffly, "Fields." "It's a hedgehog, isn't it?" I said. "Here, let me look." He slowly laid the little prickly animal down on the earthen floor and pushed it towards me--a concession of civility that was wonderful for Shock; and I eagerly examined the curious little creature, pricking my fingers a good deal in the efforts to get a good look at the little black-faced animal with its pointed snout. "What are you going to do with it?" I said. Shock looked up at me in a curious half-cunning way, as he beat out his clay into a broad sheet; and then, as if about to make a pudding, he made the hedgehog into a long ball, laid it on the clay, and covered it up, rolling it over and over till there was nothing visible but a clay ball. "What a baby you are, Shock, playing at making mud puddings!" I said. He did not reply, only smiled in a half-pitying way, took an old broomstick that he used for a poker, and scraping the ashes of the fire aside rolled the clay pig-pudding into the middle of the fire, and then covered it over with the burning ashes, and piled on some bits of wood and dry cabbage-stumps, making up a good fire, which he set himself to watch. It was a wet day, and there was nothing particular to do in the garden; so I stood looking at Shock's cookery for a time, and then grew tired and was coming away when for a wonder he spoke. "Be done soon," he said. Just then I heard my name called, and running through the rain I found that Old Brownsmith wanted me for a while about some entries that he could not find in the book, and which he thought had not been made. I was able, however, to show him that the entries had been made; and as soon as I was at liberty I ran down the garden again to see how the cookery was going on.