CHAPTER VI.
The tinker was a stout, swarthy fellow, jovial and musical withal, for he
was singing a stave as he flourished his staff, and at the end of each
refrain down came the staff on the quarters of the donkey. The tinker
went behind and sang, the donkey went before and was thwacked.
"Yours is a droll country," quoth Dr. Riccabocca; "in mine, it is not the
ass that walks first in the procession that gets the blows."
The parson jumped from the stile, and looking over the hedge that divided
the field from the road--"Gently, gently," said he; "the sound of the
stick spoils the singing! Oh, Mr. Sprott, Mr. Sprott! a good man is
merciful to his beast."
The donkey seemed to recognize the voice of its friend, for it stopped
short, pricked one ear wistfully, and looked up. The tinker touched his
hat, and looked up too. "Lord bless your reverence! he does not mind
it,--he likes it. I vould not hurt thee; would I, Neddy?"
The donkey shook his head and shivered; perhaps a fly had settled on the
sore, which the chestnut leaves no longer protected.
"I am sure you did not mean to hurt him, Sprott," said the parson, more
politely I fear than honestly,--for he had seen enough of that cross-
grained thing called the human heart, even in the little world of a
country parish, to know that it requires management and coaxing and
flattering, to interfere successfully between a man and his own donkey,--
"I am sure you did not mean to hurt him; but he has already got a sore on
his shoulder as big as my hand, poor thing!"
"Lord love 'un! yes; that was done a playing with the manger the day I
gave 'un oats!" said the tinker.
Dr. Riccabocca adjusted his spectacles, and surveyed the ass. The ass
pricked up his other ear, and surveyed Dr. Riccabocca. In that mutual
survey of physical qualifications, each being regarded according to the
average symmetry of its species, it may be doubted whether the advantage
was on the side of the philosopher.
The parson had a great notion of the wisdom of his friend in all matters
not purely ecclesiastical.
"Say a good word for the donkey!" whispered he.
"Sir," said the doctor, addressing Mr. Sprott, with a respectful
salutation, "there's a great kettle at my house--the Casino--which wants
soldering: can you recommend me a tinker?"
"Why, that's all in my line," said Sprott; "and there ben't a tinker in
the county that I vould recommend like myself, thof I say it."
"You jest, good sir," said the doctor, smiling pleasantly. "A man who
can't mend a hole in his own donkey can never demean himself by patching
up my great kettle."
"Lord, sir!" said the tinker, archly, "if I had known that poor Neddy had
had two sitch friends in court, I'd have seen he vas a gintleman, and
treated him as sitch."
"/Corpo di Bacco!/" quoth the doctor, "though that jest's not new, I
think the tinker comes very well out of it."
"True; but the donkey!" said the parson; "I've a great mind to buy it."
"Permit me to tell you an anecdote in point," said Dr. Riccabocca.
"Well?" said the parson, interrogatively.
"Once on a time," pursued Riccabocca, "the Emperor Adrian, going to the
public baths, saw an old soldier, who had served under him, rubbing his
back against the marble wall. The emperor, who was a wise, and therefore
a curious, inquisitive man, sent for the soldier, and asked him why he
resorted to that sort of friction. 'Because,' answered the veteran, 'I
am too poor to have slaves to rub me down.' The emperor was touched, and
gave him slaves and money. The next day, when Adrian went to the baths,
all the old men in the city were to be seen rubbing themselves against
the marble as hard as they could. The emperor sent for them, and asked
them the same question which he had put to the soldier; the cunning old
rogues, of course, made the same answer. 'Friends,' said Adrian, 'since
there are so many of you, you will just rub one another!' Mr. Dale, if
you don't want to have all the donkeys in the county with holes in their
shoulders, you had better not buy the tinker's!"
"It is the hardest thing in the world to do the least bit of good,"
groaned the parson, as he broke a twig off the hedge nervously, snapped
it in two, and flung away the fragments: one of them hit the donkey on
the nose. If the ass could have spoken Latin he would have said, "/Et
tu, Brute!/" As it was, he hung down his ears, and walked on.
"Gee hup," said the tinker, and he followed the ass. Then stopping, he
looked over his shoulder, and seeing that the parson's eyes were gazing
mournfully on his /protege/, "Never fear, your reverence," cried the
tinker, kindly, "I'll not spite 'un."
