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.