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Tom Tiddler’s Ground
by
The Hermit looked at him irresolutely, and retired to his soot and cinders and lay down, and got up again and came to the bars, and again looked at him irresolutely, and finally said with sharpness: “I don’t like tobacco.”
“I don’t like dirt,” rejoined Mr. Traveller; “tobacco is an excellent disinfectant. We shall both be the better for my pipe. It is my intention to sit here through this summer day, until that blessed summer sun sinks low in the west, and to show you what a poor creature you are, through the lips of every chance wayfarer who may come in at your gate.”
“What do you mean?” inquired the Hermit, with a furious air.
“I mean that yonder is your gate, and there are you, and here am I; I mean that I know it to be a moral impossibility that any person can stray in at that gate from any point of the compass, with any sort of experience, gained at first hand, or derived from another, that can confute me and justify you.”
“You are an arrogant and boastful hero,” said the Hermit. “You think yourself profoundly wise.”
“Bah!” returned Mr. Traveller, quietly smoking. “There is little wisdom in knowing that every man must be up and doing, and that all mankind are made dependent on one another.”
“You have companions outside,” said the Hermit. “I am not to be imposed upon by your assumed confidence in the people who may enter.”
“A depraved distrust,” returned the visitor, compassionately raising his eyebrows, “of course belongs to your state, I can’t help that.”
“Do you mean to tell me you have no confederates?”
“I mean to tell you nothing but what I have told you. What I have told you is, that it is a moral impossibility that any son or daughter of Adam can stand on this ground that I put my foot on, or on any ground that mortal treads, and gainsay the healthy tenure on which we hold our existence.”
“Which is,” sneered the Hermit, “according to you–“
“Which is,” returned the other, “according to Eternal Providence, that we must arise and wash our faces and do our gregarious work and act and re-act on one another, leaving only the idiot and the palsied to sit blinking in the corner. Come!” apostrophising the gate. “Open Sesame! Show his eyes and grieve his heart! I don’t care who comes, for I know what must come of it!”
With that, he faced round a little on his billet of wood towards the gate; and Mr. Mopes, the Hermit, after two or three ridiculous bounces of indecision at his bed and back again, submitted to what he could not help himself against, and coiled himself on his window- ledge, holding to his bars and looking out rather anxiously.
CHAPTER VI. PICKING UP MISS KIMMEENS {1}
The day was by this time waning, when the gate again opened, and, with the brilliant golden light that streamed from the declining sun and touched the very bars of the sooty creature’s den, there passed in a little child; a little girl with beautiful bright hair. She wore a plain straw hat, had a door-key in her hand, and tripped towards Mr. Traveller as if she were pleased to see him and were going to repose some childish confidence in him, when she caught sight of the figure behind the bars, and started back in terror.
“Don’t be alarmed, darling!” said Mr. Traveller, taking her by the hand.
“Oh, but I don’t like it!” urged the shrinking child; “it’s dreadful.”
“Well! I don’t like it either,” said Mr. Traveller.
“Who has put it there?” asked the little girl. “Does it bite?”
“No,–only barks. But can’t you make up your mind to see it, my dear?” For she was covering her eyes.
“O no no no!” returned the child. “I cannot bear to look at it!”