CHAPTER VII--PICKING UP THE TINKER
It was now sunset. The Hermit had betaken himself to his bed of
cinders half an hour ago, and lying on it in his blanket and skewer
with his back to the window, took not the smallest heed of the
appeal addressed to him.
All that had been said for the last two hours, had been said to a
tinkling accompaniment performed by the Tinker, who had got to work
upon some villager's pot or kettle, and was working briskly outside.
This music still continuing, seemed to put it into Mr. Traveller's
mind to have another word or two with the Tinker. So, holding Miss
Kimmeens (with whom he was now on the most friendly terms) by the
hand, he went out at the gate to where the Tinker was seated at his
work on the patch of grass on the opposite side of the road, with
his wallet of tools open before him, and his little fire smoking.
"I am glad to see you employed," said Mr. Traveller.
"I am glad to BE employed," returned the Tinker, looking up as he
put the finishing touches to his job. "But why are you glad?"
I thought you were a lazy fellow when I saw you this morning."
"I was only disgusted," said the Tinker.
"Do you mean with the fine weather?"
"With the fine weather?" repeated the Tinker, staring.
"You told me you were not particular as to weather, and I thought--"
"Ha, ha! How should such as me get on, if we WAS particular as to
weather? We must take it as it comes, and make the best of it.
There's something good in all weathers. If it don't happen to be
good for my work to-day, it's good for some other man's to-day, and
will come round to me to-morrow. We must all live."
"Pray shake hands," said Mr. Traveller.
"Take care, sir," was the Tinker's caution, as he reached up his
hand in surprise; "the black comes off."
"I am glad of it," said Mr. Traveller. "I have been for several
hours among other black that does not come off."
"You are speaking of Tom in there?"
"Yes."
"Well now," said the Tinker, blowing the dust off his job: which
was finished. "Ain't it enough to disgust a pig, if he could give
his mind to it?"
"If he could give his mind to it," returned the other, smiling, "the
probability is that he wouldn't be a pig."
"There you clench the nail," returned the Tinker. "Then what's to
be said for Tom?"
"Truly, very little."
"Truly nothing you mean, sir," said the Tinker, as he put away his
tools.
"A better answer, and (I freely acknowledge) my meaning. I infer
that he was the cause of your disgust?"
"Why, look'ee here, sir," said the Tinker, rising to his feet, and
wiping his face on the corner of his black apron energetically; "I
leave you to judge!--I ask you!--Last night I has a job that needs
to be done in the night, and I works all night. Well, there's
nothing in that. But this morning I comes along this road here,
looking for a sunny and soft spot to sleep in, and I sees this
desolation and ruination. I've lived myself in desolation and
ruination; I knows many a fellow-creetur that's forced to live life
long in desolation and ruination; and I sits me down and takes pity
on it, as I casts my eyes about. Then comes up the long-winded one
as I told you of, from that gate, and spins himself out like a
silkworm concerning the Donkey (if my Donkey at home will excuse me)
as has made it all--made it of his own choice! And tells me, if you
please, of his likewise choosing to go ragged and naked, and grimy--
maskerading, mountebanking, in what is the real hard lot of
thousands and thousands! Why, then I say it's a unbearable and
nonsensical piece of inconsistency, and I'm disgusted. I'm ashamed
and disgusted!"
"I wish you would come and look at him," said Mr. Traveller,
clapping the Tinker on the shoulder.
"Not I, sir," he rejoined. "I ain't a going to flatter him up by
looking at him!"
"But he is asleep."
"Are you sure he is asleep?" asked the Tinker, with an unwilling
air, as he shouldered his wallet.
"Sure."
"Then I'll look at him for a quarter of a minute," said the Tinker,
"since you so much wish it; but not a moment longer."
They all three went back across the road; and, through the barred
window, by the dying glow of the sunset coming in at the gate--which
the child held open for its admission--he could be pretty clearly
discerned lying on his bed.
"You see him?" asked Mr. Traveller.
"Yes," returned the Tinker, "and he's worse than I thought him."
Mr. Traveller then whispered in few words what he had done since
morning; and asked the Tinker what he thought of that?
"I think," returned the Tinker, as he turned from the window, "that
you've wasted a day on him."
"I think so too; though not, I hope, upon myself. Do you happen to
be going anywhere near the Peal of Bells?"
"That's my direct way, sir," said the Tinker.
"I invite you to supper there. And as I learn from this young lady
that she goes some three-quarters of a mile in the same direction,
we will drop her on the road, and we will spare time to keep her
company at her garden gate until her own Bella comes home."
So, Mr. Traveller, and the child, and the Tinker, went along very
amicably in the sweet-scented evening; and the moral with which the
Tinker dismissed the subject was, that he said in his trade that
metal that rotted for want of use, had better be left to rot, and
couldn't rot too soon, considering how much true metal rotted from
over-use and hard service.
Footnotes:
{1} Dickens didn't write chapters 2 to 5 and they are omitted in
this edition.
