Isel's business was heavy enough. She wanted a pig, half an ox, twenty ells of dark blue cloth, a cloak for herself and capes for her daughters, thirty pairs of slippers--a very moderate allowance for three women, for slippers were laid in by the dozen pairs in common--fifty cheeses (an equally moderate reckoning) [Note 1], a load of flour, another of oatmeal, two quarters of cabbage for salting, six bushels of beans, five hundred herrings, a barrel of ale, two woollen rugs for bedclothes, a wooden coffer, and a hundred nails. She had already bought and salted two sheep from Martin, so mutton was not needed. "Now, Agnes, what do you want?" she asked. Agnes, who was following with another basket, replied that she wanted some stuff for a dress, some flannel for Rudolph, and a few pairs of shoes. Shoes must have worn only a very short time, considering the enormous quantity of them usually bought at once. "And you, Ermine?" "Nothing but a hood, Mother Isel." "You're easily satisfied. Well, I'll go first after my pig." They turned into the Butcher's Row, where in a minute they could scarcely hear each other speak. The whole air seemed vocal with grunts, lowing, and bleating, and, the poulterers' booths lying close behind, crowing and cackling also. "How much for a good bacon pig?" screamed Isel to a fat butcher, who was polishing a knife upon a wooden block. "Hertford kids? I have none." "Bacon pig!" screamed Isel a little louder. "Oh! Well, look you, there's a nice one--twenty pence; there's a rare fine one--twenty-two; there's a--" "Bless thee, man! dost thou think I'm made of money?" "Shouldn't wonder if you'd a pot laid by somewhere," said the butcher with a knowing wink. He was an old acquaintance. "Well, I haven't, then: and what's more, I've plenty to do with the few marks I have. Come now, I'll give you sixteen pence for that biggest fellow." The butcher intimated, half in a shout and half by pantomime, that he could not think of such a thing. "Well, eighteen, then." The butcher shook his head. "Nineteen! Now, that's as high as I'll go." "Not that one," shouted the butcher; "I'll take nineteen for the other." Isel had to execute a gymnastic feat before she could answer, to save herself from the horns of an inquisitive cow which was being driven up the row; while a fat pig on the other side was driving Flemild nearly out of the row altogether. "Well! I'll agree to that," said Isel, when she had settled with the cow.