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Tom Tiddler's Ground.......................................................................................................................................1

"Because he scatters halfpence to Tramps and suchlike," returned the Landlord, "and of course they pick 'em

up. And this being done on his own land (which it IS his own land, you observe, and were his family's before

him), why it is but regarding the halfpence as gold and silver, and turning the ownership of the property a bit

round your finger, and there you have the name of the children's game complete. And it's appropriate too,"

said the Landlord, with his favourite action of stooping a little, to look across the table out of window at

vacancy, under the windowblind which was half drawn down. "Leastwise it has been so considered by many

The Traveller was partaking of chops and tea in the present humble parlour, and the Landlord's shot was fired

"They call him such," returned the Landlord, evading personal responsibility; "he is in general so

The Landlord stooped again, to get a more comprehensive view of vacancy under the windowblind,

andwith an asphyxiated appearance on him as one unaccustomed to definitionmade no answer.

"I'll tell you what I suppose it to be," said the Traveller. "An abominably dirty thing."

"Mr. Mopes is vain of the life he leads, some do say," replied the Landlord, as another concession.

"A slothful, unsavoury, nasty reversal of the laws of human mature," said the Traveller; "and for the sake of

GOD'S working world and its wholesomeness, both moral and physical, I would put the thing on the

treadmill (if I had my way) wherever I found it; whether on a pillar, or in a hole; whether on Tom Tiddler's

ground, or the Pope of Rome's ground, or a Hindoo fakeer's ground, or any other ground."

"I don't know about putting Mr. Mopes on the treadmill," said the Landlord, shaking his head very seriously.

"Well! When I have done my breakfast," said the Traveller, "I'll go there. I came over here this morning, to

The conversation passed, in the Midsummer weather of no remote year of grace, down among the pleasant

dales and troutstreams of a green English county. No matter what county. Enough that you may hunt there,

shoot there, fish there, traverse long grassgrown Roman roads there, open ancient barrows there, see many a

square mile of richly cultivated land there, and hold Arcadian talk with a bold peasantry, their country's pride,

who will tell you (if you want to know) how pastoral housekeeping is done on nine shillings a week.

Mr. Traveller sat at his breakfast in the little sanded parlour of the Peal of Bells village alehouse, with the

dew and dust of an early walk upon his shoesan early walk by road and meadow and coppice, that had

sprinkled him bountifully with little blades of grass, and scraps of new hay, and with leaves both young and

old, and with other such fragrant tokens of the freshness and wealth of summer. The window through which

the landlord had concentrated his gaze upon vacancy was shaded, because the morning sun was hot and

bright on the village street. The village street was like most other village streets: wide for its height, silent for

its size, and drowsy in the dullest degree. The quietest little dwellings with the largest of windowshutters (to

shut up Nothing as carefully as if it were the Mint, or the Bank of England) had called in the Doctor's house

so suddenly, that his brass doorplate and three stories stood among them as conspicuous and different as the

doctor himself in his broadcloth, among the smockfrocks of his patients. The village residences seemed to

have gone to law with a similar absence of consideration, for a score of weak little lathand plaster cabins

clung in confusion about the Attorney's redbrick house, which, with glaring doorsteps and a most terrific

scraper, seemed to serve all manner of ejectments upon them. They were as various as

labourershighshouldered, wrynecked, oneeyed, goggle eyed, squinting, bowlegged, knockknee'd,

rheumatic, crazy. Some of the small tradesmen's houses, such as the crockeryshop and the harnessmaker,

had a Cyclops window in the middle of the gable, within an inch or two of its apex, suggesting that some

forlorn rural Prentice must wriggle himself into that apartment horizontally, when he retired to rest, after the

manner of the worm. So bountiful in its abundance was the surrounding country, and so lean and scant the

village, that one might have thought the village had sown and planted everything it once possessed, to

convert the same into crops. This would account for the bareness of the little shops, the bareness of the few

boards and trestles designed for market purposes in a corner of the street, the bareness of the obsolete Inn and

Inn Yard, with the ominous inscription "Excise Office" not yet faded out from the gateway, as indicating the

very last thing that poverty could get rid of. This would also account for the determined abandonment of the

village by one stray dog, fast lessening in the perspective where the white posts and the pond were, and

would explain his conduct on the hypothesis that he was going (through the act of suicide) to convert himself

Mr. Traveller having finished his breakfast and paid his moderate score, walked out to the threshold of the

Peal of Bells, and, thence directed by the pointing finger of his host, betook himself towards the ruined

For, Mr. Mopes, by suffering everything about him to go to ruin, and by dressing himself in a blanket and

skewer, and by steeping himself in soot and grease and other nastiness, had acquired great renown in all that

countrysidefar greater renown than he could ever have won for himself, if his career had been that of any

ordinary Christian, or decent Hottentot. He had even blanketed and skewered and sooted and greased himself,

into the London papers. And it was curious to find, as Mr. Traveller found by stopping for a new direction at

this farmhouse or at that cottage as he went along, with how much accuracy the morbid Mopes had counted

on the weakness of his neighbours to embellish him. A mist of homebrewed marvel and romance

surrounded Mopes, in which (as in all fogs) the real proportions of the real object were extravagantly

heightened. He had murdered his beautiful beloved in a fit of jealousy and was doing penance; he had made a

vow under the influence of grief; he had made a vow under the influence of a fatal accident; he had made a

vow under the influence of religion; he had made a vow under the influence of drink; he had made a vow

under the influence of disappointment; he had never made any vow, but "had got led into it" by the

possession of a mighty and most awful secret; he was enormously rich, he was stupendously charitable, he

was profoundly learned, he saw spectres, he knew and could do all kinds of wonders. Some said he went out

every night, and was met by terrified wayfarers stalking along dark roads, others said he never went out,

some knew his penance to be nearly expired, others had positive information that his seclusion was not a

penance at all, and would never expire but with himself. Even, as to the easy facts of how old he was, or how

long he had held verminous occupation of his blanket and skewer, no consistent information was to be got,

from those who must know if they would. He was represented as being all the ages between fiveandtwenty

and sixty, and as having been a hermit seven years, twelve, twenty, thirty,though twenty, on the whole,

"Well, well!" said Mr. Traveller. "At any rate, let us see what a real live Hermit looks like."

So, Mr. Traveller went on, and on, and on, until he came to Tom Tiddler's Ground.

It was a nook in a rustic byroad, which the genius of Mopes had laid waste as completely, as if he had been

born an Emperor and a Conqueror. Its centre object was a dwellinghouse, sufficiently substantial, all the

windowglass of which had been long ago abolished by the surprising genius of Mopes, and all the windows

of which were barred across with roughsplit logs of trees nailed over them on the outside. A rickyard,

hiphigh in vegetable rankness and ruin, contained outbuildings from which the thatch had lightly fluttered

away, on all the winds of all the seasons of the year, and from which the planks and beams had heavily

dropped and rotted. The frosts and damps of winter, and the heats of summer, had warped what wreck

remained, so that not a post or a board retained the position it was meant to hold, but everything was twisted

from its purpose, like its owner, and degraded and debased. In this homestead of the sluggard, behind the

ruined hedge, and sinking away among the ruined grass and the nettles, were the last perishing fragments of

certain ricks: which had gradually mildewed and collapsed, until they looked like mounds of rotten

honeycomb, or dirty sponge. Tom Tiddler's ground could even show its ruined water; for, there was a slimy

pond into which a tree or two had fallenone soppy trunk and branches lay across it thenwhich in its

accumulation of stagnant weed, and in its black decomposition, and in all its foulness and filth, was almost

comforting, regarded as the only water that could have reflected the shameful place without seeming polluted

Mr. Traveller looked all around him on Tom Tiddler's ground, and his glance at last encountered a dusky

Tinker lying among the weeds and rank grass, in the shade of the dwellinghouse. A rough walking staff lay

on the ground by his side, and his head rested on a small wallet. He met Mr. Traveller's eye without lifting up

his head, merely depressing his chin a little (for he was lying on his back) to get a better view of him.

Mr. Traveller had walked up to where he lay, and was looking down at him. "This is a curious place," said

"Ay, I suppose so!" returned the Tinker. "Tom Tiddler's ground, they call this."

"Never saw it afore today," said the Tinker, with another yawn, "and don't care if I never see it again. There

was a man here just now, told me what it was called. If you want to see Tom himself, you must go in at that

gate." He faintly indicated with his chin a little mean ruin of a wooden gate at the side of the house.

"He does not live in the house, then?" said Mr. Traveller, casting his eyes upon the house anew.

"The man said," returned the Tinker, rather irritably,"him as was here just now, 'this what you're a laying

on, mate, is Tom Tiddler's ground. And if you want to see Tom,' he says, 'you must go in at that gate.' The

"Though, perhaps," exclaimed the Tinker, so struck by the brightness of his own idea, that it had the electric

effect upon him of causing him to lift up his head an inch or so, "perhaps he was a liar! He told some rum

'unshim as was here just now, did about this place of Tom's. He sayshim as was here just now'When

Tom shut up the house, mate, to go to rack, the beds was left, all made, like as if somebody was agoing to

sleep in every bed. And if you was to walk through the bedrooms now, you'd see the ragged mouldy

bedclothes a heaving and a heaving like seas. And a heaving and a heaving with what?' he says. 'Why, with

"You'd have been welcome to see him instead of me seeing him," growled the Tinker; "for he was a

Not without a sense of injury in the remembrance, the Tinker gloomily closed his eyes. Mr. Traveller,

deeming the Tinker a shortwinded one, from whom no further breath of information was to be derived,

Swung upon its rusty hinges, it admitted him into a yard in which there was nothing to be seen but an

outhouse attached to the ruined building, with a barred window in it. As there were traces of many recent

footsteps under this window, and as it was a low window, and unglazed, Mr. Traveller made bold to peep

within the bars. And there to be sure he had a real live Hermit before him, and could judge how the real dead

He was lying on a bank of soot and cinders, on the floor, in front of a rusty fireplace. There was nothing else

in the dark little kitchen, or scullery, or whatever his den had been originally used as, but a table with a litter

of old bottles on it. A rat made a clatter among these bottles, jumped down, and ran over the real live Hermit

on his way to his hole, or the man in HIS hole would not have been so easily discernible. Tickled in the face

by the rat's tail, the owner of Tom Tiddler's ground opened his eyes, saw Mr. Traveller, started up, and sprang

"Humph!" thought Mr. Traveller, retiring a pace or two from the bars. "A compound of Newgate, Bedlam, a

Debtors' Prison in the worst time, a chimneysweep, a mudlark, and the Noble Savage! A nice old family, the

Mr. Traveller thought this, as he silently confronted the sooty object in the blanket and skewer (in sober truth

it wore nothing else), with the matted hair and the staring eyes. Further, Mr. Traveller thought, as the eye

surveyed him with a very obvious curiosity in ascertaining the effect they produced, "Vanity, vanity, vanity!

"What is your name, sir, and where do you come from?" asked Mr. Mopes the Hermitwith an air of

"I did. I heard of you, and I came to see you.I know you like to be seen." Mr. Traveller coolly threw the

last words in, as a matter of course, to forestall an affectation of resentment or objection that he saw rising

"So," said the Hermit, after a momentary silence, unclasping the bars by which he had previously held, and

seating himself behind them on the ledge of the window, with his bare legs and feet crouched up, "you know

Mr. Traveller looked about him for something to sit on, and, observing a billet of wood in a corner, brought it

Each looked at the other, and each appeared to take some pains to get the measure of the other.

"Then you have come to ask me why I lead this life," said the Hermit, frowning in a stormy manner. "I never

"Certainly you will not be asked that by me," said Mr. Traveller, "for I have not the slightest desire to know."

The Hermit, who was plainly in the habit of overawing his visitors with the novelty of his filth and his

blanket and skewer, glared at his present visitor in some discomfiture and surprise: as if he had taken aim at

"Upon my life," said Mr. Traveller, "I was made to ask myself that very question only a few minutes

As he glanced towards the gate in saying it, the Hermit glanced in that direction likewise.

"Yes. He is lying on his back in the sunlight outside," said Mr, Traveller, as if he had been asked concerning

the man, "and he won't come in; for he saysand really very reasonably'What should I come in for? I can

"You are an insolent person. Go away from my premises. Go!" said the Hermit, in an imperious and angry

"Come, come!" returned Mr. Traveller, quite undisturbed. "This is a little too much. You are not going to call

yourself clean? Look at your legs. And as to these being your premises: they are in far too disgraceful a

The Hermit bounced down from his windowledge, and cast himself on his bed of soot and cinders.

"I am not going," said Mr. Traveller, glancing in after him; "you won't get rid of me in that way. You had

"I won't talk," said the Hermit, flouncing round to get his back towards the window.

"Then I will," said Mr. Traveller. "Why should you take it ill that I have no curiosity to know why you live

this highly absurd and highly indecent life? When I contemplate a man in a state of disease, surely there is no

After a short silence, the Hermit bounced up again, and came back to the barred window.

"How dare you come, sir, upon my promises" the Hermit was returning, when his visitor interrupted him.

"Really, you know, you must NOT talk about your premises. I cannot allow such a place as this to be

"How dare you," said the Hermit, shaking his bars, "come in at my gate, to taunt me with being in a diseased

"Why, Lord bless my soul," returned the other, very composedly, "you have not the face to say that you are in

a wholesome state? Do allow me again to call your attention to your legs. Scrape yourself anywherewith

anythingand then tell me you are in a wholesome state. The fact is, Mr. Mopes, that you are not only a

"What is a place in this obscene state of dilapidation but a Nuisance? What is a man in your obscene state of

dilapidation but a Nuisance? Then, as you very well know, you cannot do without an audience, and your

audience is a Nuisance. You attract all the disreputable vagabonds and prowlers within ten miles around, by

exhibiting yourself to them in that objectionable blanket, and by throwing copper money among them, and

giving them drink out of those very dirty jars and bottles that I see in there (their stomachs need be strong!);

and in short," said Mr. Traveller, summing up in a quietly and comfortably settled manner, "you are a

Nuisance, and this kennel is a Nuisance, and the audience that you cannot possibly dispense with is a

Nuisance, and the Nuisance is not merely a local Nuisance, because it is a general Nuisance to know that

"Now, I put it to you. Did I say you had not? And as to going away, didn't I say I am not going away? You

have made me forget where I was. I now remember that I was remarking on your conduct being a Nuisance.

Moreover, it is in the last and lowest degree inconsequent foolishness and weakness."

"I weak, you fool?" cried the Hermit, "I, who have held to my purpose, and my diet, and my only bed there,

"The more the years, the weaker you," returned Mr. Traveller. "Though the years are not so many as folks

say, and as you willingly take credit for. The crust upon your face is thick and dark, Mr. Mopes, but I can see

"One of us two must have a strong presumption against him of being one, whether or no. Either the clean and

decorously clad man, or the dirty and indecorously clad man. I don't say which."

"Why, you selfsufficient bear," said the Hermit, "not a day passes but I am justified in my purpose by the

conversations I hold here; not a day passes but I am shown, by everything I hear and see here, how right and

Mr. Traveller, lounging easily on his billet of wood, took out a pocket pipe and began to fill it. "Now, that a

man," he said, appealing to the summer sky as he did so, "that a maneven behind bars, in a blanket and

skewershould tell me that he can see, from day to day, any orders or conditions of men, women, or

children, who can by any possibility teach him that it is anything but the miserablest drivelling for a human

creature to quarrel with his social naturenot to go so far as to say, to renounce his common human

decency, for that is an extreme case; or who can teach him that he can in any wise separate himself from his

kind and the habits of his kind, without becoming a deteriorated spectacle calculated to give the Devil (and

perhaps the monkeys) pleasure,is something wonderful! I repeat," said Mr. Traveller, beginning to smoke,

"the unreasoning hardihood of it is something wonderfuleven in a man with the dirt upon him an inch or

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

"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

"You have companions outside," said the Hermit. "I am not to be imposed upon by your assumed confidence

"A depraved distrust," returned the visitor, compassionately raising his eyebrows, "of course belongs to your

"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

"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 react 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

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

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 doorkey 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.

"No,only barks. But can't you make up your mind to see it, my dear?" For she was covering her eyes.

Mr. Traveller turned his head towards his friend in there, as much as to ask him how he liked that instance of

his success, and then took the child out at the still open gate, and stood talking to her for some half an hour in

the mellow sunlight. At length he returned, encouraging her as she held his arm with both her hands; and

laying his protecting hand upon her head and smoothing her pretty hair, he addressed his friend behind the

Miss Pupford's establishment for six young ladies of tender years, is an establishment of a compact nature, an

establishment in miniature, quite a pocket establishment. Miss Pupford, Miss Pupford's assistant with the

Parisian accent, Miss Pupford's cook, and Miss Pupford's housemaid, complete what Miss Pupford calls the

Miss Pupford is one of the most amiable of her sex; it necessarily follows that she possesses a sweet temper,

and would own to the possession of a great deal of sentiment if she considered it quite reconcilable with her

duty to parents. Deeming it not in the bond, Miss Pupford keeps it as far out of sight as she canwhich (God

Miss Pupford's assistant with the Parisian accent, may be regarded as in some sort an inspired lady, for she

never conversed with a Parisian, and was never out of Englandexcept once in the pleasure boat Lively, in

the foreign waters that ebb and flow two miles off Margate at high water. Even under those geographically

favourable circumstances for the acquisition of the French language in its utmost politeness and purity, Miss

Pupford's assistant did not fully profit by the opportunity; for the pleasureboat, Lively, so strongly asserted

its title to its name on that occasion, that she was reduced to the condition of lying in the bottom of the boat

pickling in brineas if she were being salted down for the use of the Navyundergoing at the same time

When Miss Pupford and her assistant first foregathered, is not known to men, or pupils. But, it was long ago.

A belief would have established itself among pupils that the two once went to school together, were it not for

the difficulty and audacity of imagining Miss Pupford born without mittens, and without a front, and without

a bit of gold wire among her front teeth, and without little dabs of powder on her neat little face and nose.

Indeed, whenever Miss Pupford gives a little lecture on the mythology of the misguided heathens (always

carefully excluding Cupid from recognition), and tells how Minerva sprang, perfectly equipped, from the

brain of Jupiter, she is half supposed to hint, "So I myself came into the world, completely up in Pinnock,

Howbeit, Miss Pupford and Miss Pupford's assistant are old old friends. And it is thought by pupils that, after

pupils are gone to bed, they even call one another by their christian names in the quiet little parlour. For, once

upon a time on a thunderous afternoon, when Miss Pupford fainted away without notice, Miss Pupford's

assistant (never heard, before or since, to address her otherwise than as Miss Pupford) ran to her, crying out,

"My dearest Euphemia!" And Euphemia is Miss Pupford's christian name on the sampler (date picked out)

hanging up in the Collegehall, where the two peacocks, terrified to death by some German text that is

waddling downhill after them out of a cottage, are scuttling away to hide their profiles in two immense

Also, there is a notion latent among pupils, that Miss Pupford was once in love, and that the beloved object

still moves upon this ball. Also, that he is a public character, and a personage of vast consequence. Also, that

Miss Pupford's assistant knows all about it. For, sometimes of an afternoon when Miss Pupford has been

reading the paper through her little gold eyeglass (it is necessary to read it on the spot, as the boy calls for it,

with ill conditioned punctuality, in an hour), she has become agitated, and has said to her assistant "G!"

Then Miss Pupford's assistant has gone to Miss Pupford, and Miss Pupford has pointed out, with her

eyeglass, G in the paper, and then Miss Pupford's assistant has read about G, and has shown sympathy. So

stimulated has the pupil mind been in its time to curiosity on the subject of G, that once, under temporary

circumstances favourable to the bold sally, one fearless pupil did actually obtain possession of the paper, and

range all over it in search of G, who had been discovered therein by Miss Pupford not ten minutes before. But

no G could be identified, except one capital offender who had been executed in a state of great hardihood,

and it was not to be supposed that Miss Pupford could ever have loved HIM. Besides, he couldn't be always

On the whole, it is suspected by the pupilmind that G is a short chubby old gentleman, with little black

sealingwax boots up to his knees, whom a sharply observant pupil, Miss Linx, when she once went to

Tunbridge Wells with Miss Pupford for the holidays, reported on her return (privately and confidentially) to

have seen come capering up to Miss Pupford on the Promenade, and to have detected in the act of squeezing

Miss Pupford's hand, and to have heard pronounce the words, "Cruel Euphemia, ever thine!"or something

like that. Miss Linx hazarded a guess that he might be House of Commons, or Money Market, or Court

Circular, or Fashionable Movements; which would account for his getting into the paper so often. But, it was

fatally objected by the pupilmind, that none of those notabilities could possibly be spelt with a G.

There are other occasions, closely watched and perfectly comprehended by the pupilmind, when Miss

Pupford imparts with mystery to her assistant that there is special excitement in the morning paper. These

occasions are, when Miss Pupford finds an old pupil coming out under the head of Births, or Marriages.

Affectionate tears are invariably seen in Miss Pupford's meek little eyes when this is the case; and the

pupilmind, perceiving that its order has distinguished itselfthough the fact is never mentioned by Miss

Miss Pupford's assistant with the Parisian accent has a little more bone than Miss Pupford, but is of the same

trim orderly diminutive cast, and, from long contemplation, admiration, and imitation of Miss Pupford, has

grown like her. Being entirely devoted to Miss Pupford, and having a pretty talent for pencildrawing, she

once made a portrait of that lady: which was so instantly identified and hailed by the pupils, that it was done

on stone at five shillings. Surely the softest and milkiest stone that ever was quarried, received that likeness

of Miss Pupford! The lines of her placid little nose are so undecided in it that strangers to the work of art are

observed to be exceedingly perplexed as to where the nose goes to, and involuntarily feel their own noses in a

disconcerted manner. Miss Pupford being represented in a state of dejection at an open window, ruminating

over a bowl of gold fish, the pupilmind has settled that the bowl was presented by G, and that he wreathed

the bowl with flowers of soul, and that Miss Pupford is depicted as waiting for him on a memorable occasion

The approach of the last Midsummer holidays had a particular interest for the pupilmind, by reason of its

knowing that Miss Pupford was bidden, on the second day of those holidays, to the nuptials of a former pupil.

As it was impossible to conceal the factso extensive were the dressmaking preparationsMiss Pupford

openly announced it. But, she held it due to parents to make the announcement with an air of gentle

melancholy, as if marriage were (as indeed it exceptionally has been) rather a calamity. With an air of

softened resignation and pity, therefore, Miss Pupford went on with her preparations: and meanwhile no pupil

ever went up stairs, or came down, without peeping in at the door of Miss Pupford's bedroom (when Miss

Pupford wasn't there), and bringing back some surprising intelligence concerning the bonnet.

The extensive preparations being completed on the day before the holidays, an unanimous entreaty was

preferred to Miss Pupford by the pupilmindfinding expression through Miss Pupford's assistant that

she would deign to appear in all her splendour. Miss Pupford consenting, presented a lovely spectacle. And

although the oldest pupil was barely thirteen, every one of the six became in two minutes perfect in the shape,

Thus delightfully ushered in, the holidays began. Five of the six pupils kissed little Kitty Kimmeens twenty

times over (round total, one hundred times, for she was very popular), and so went home. Miss Kitty

Kimmeens remained behind, for her relations and friends were all in India, far away. A selfhelpful steady

So, the great marriageday came, and Miss Pupford, quite as much fluttered as any bride could be (G!

thought Miss Kitty Kimmeens), went away, splendid to behold, in the carriage that was sent for her. But not

Miss Pupford only went away; for Miss Pupford's assistant went away with her, on a dutiful visit to an aged

uncle though surely the venerable gentleman couldn't live in the gallery of the church where the marriage

was to be, thought Miss Kitty Kimmeensand yet Miss Pupford's assistant had let out that she was going

there. Where the cook was going, didn't appear, but she generally conveyed to Miss Kimmeens that she was

bound, rather against her will, on a pilgrimage to perform some pious office that rendered new ribbons

"So you see," said the housemaid, when they were all gone, "there's nobody left in the house but you and me,

"Nobody else," said Miss Kitty Kimmeens, shaking her curls a little sadly. "Nobody!"

"And you wouldn't like your Bella to go too; would you, Miss Kimmeens?" said the housemaid. (She being

"Your poor Bella is forced to stay with you, whether she likes it or not; ain't she, Miss Kimmeens?"

"Why, you're such a darling, Miss, that it would be unkind of your Bella to make objections. Yet my

brotherinlaw has been took unexpected bad by this morning's post. And your poor Bella is much attached

"Your poor Bella has her fears so, Miss Kimmeens," returned the housemaid, with her apron at her eyes. "It

was but his inside, it is true, but it might mount, and the doctor said that if it mounted he wouldn't answer."

Here the housemaid was so overcome that Kitty administered the only comfort she had ready: which was a

"If it hadn't been for disappointing Cook, dear Miss Kimmeens," said the housemaid, "your Bella would have

asked her to stay with you. For Cook is sweet company, Miss Kimmeens, much more so than your own poor

"Your Bella could wish to be so, Miss Kimmeens," returned the housemaid, "but she knows full well that it

With which despondent conviction, the housemaid drew a heavy sigh, and shook her head, and dropped it on

"If it had been anyways right to disappoint Cook," she pursued, in a contemplative and abstracted manner, "it

might have been so easy done! I could have got to my brotherinlaw's, and had the best part of the day

there, and got back, long before our ladies come home at night, and neither the one nor the other of them need

never have known it. Not that Miss Pupford would at all object, but that it might put her out, being

tenderhearted. Hows'ever, your own poor Bella, Miss Kimmeens," said the housemaid, rousing herself, "is

"If you would not mind leaving me, I should not mind being left. I am not afraid to stay in the house alone.

And you need not be uneasy on my account, for I would be very careful to do no harm."

"O! As to harm, you more than sweetest, if not a liberty," exclaimed the housemaid, in a rapture, "your Bella

could trust you anywhere, being so steady, and so answerable. The oldest head in this house (me and Cook

says), but for its bright hair, is Miss Kimmeens. But no, I will not leave you; for you would think your Bella

"Must I?" said the housemaid, rising, on the whole with alacrity. "What must be, must be, Miss Kimmeens.

Your own poor Bella acts according, though unwilling. But go or stay, your own poor Bella loves you, Miss

It was certainly go, and not stay, for within five minutes Miss Kimmeens's own poor Bellaso much

improved in point of spirits as to have grown almost sanguine on the subject of her brotherinlaw went

her way, in apparel that seemed to have been expressly prepared for some festive occasion. Such are the

When the house door closed with a bang and a shake, it seemed to Miss Kimmeens to be a very heavy house

door, shutting her up in a wilderness of a house. But, Miss Kimmeens being, as before stated, of a selfreliant

and methodical character, presently began to parcel out the long summerday before her.

And first she thought she would go all over the house, to make quite sure that nobody with a greatcoat on

and a carvingknife in it, had got under one of the beds or into one of the cupboards. Not that she had ever

before been troubled by the image of anybody armed with a greatcoat and a carvingknife, but that it

seemed to have been shaken into existence by the shake and the bang of the great street door, reverberating

through the solitary house. So, little Miss Kimmeens looked under the five empty beds of the five departed

pupils, and looked, under her own bed, and looked under Miss Pupford's bed, and looked under Miss

Pupford's assistants bed. And when she had done this, and was making the tour of the cupboards, the

disagreeable thought came into her young head, What a very alarming thing it would be to find somebody

with a mask on, like Guy Fawkes, hiding bolt upright in a corner and pretending not to be alive! However,

Miss Kimmeens having finished her inspection without making any such uncomfortable discovery, sat down

in her tidy little manner to needlework, and began stitching away at a great rate.

The silence all about her soon grew very oppressive, and the more so because of the odd inconsistency that

the more silent it was, the more noises there were. The noise of her own needle and thread as she stitched,

was infinitely louder in her ears than the stitching of all the six pupils, and of Miss Pupford, and of Miss

Pupford's assistant, all stitching away at once on a highly emulative afternoon. Then, the schoolroom clock

conducted itself in a way in which it had never conducted itself beforefell lame, somehow, and yet

persisted in running on as hard and as loud as it could: the consequence of which behaviour was, that it

staggered among the minutes in a state of the greatest confusion, and knocked them about in all directions

without appearing to get on with its regular work. Perhaps this alarmed the stairs; but be that as it might, they

began to creak in a most unusual manner, and then the furniture began to crack, and then poor little Miss

Kimmeens, not liking the furtive aspect of things in general, began to sing as she stitched. But, it was not her

own voice that she heardit was somebody else making believe to be Kitty, and singing excessively flat,

Byandby the stitching became so palpable a failure that Miss Kitty Kimmeens folded her work neatly, and

put it away in its box, and gave it up. Then the question arose about reading. But no; the book that was so

delightful when there was somebody she loved for her eyes to fall on when they rose from the page, had not

more heart in it than her own singing now. The book went to its shelf as the needlework had gone to its box,

and, since something MUST be done thought the child, "I'll go put my room to rights."

She shared her room with her dearest little friend among the other five pupils, and why then should she now

conceive a lurking dread of the little friend's bedstead? But she did. There was a stealthy air about its

innocent white curtains, and there were even dark hints of a dead girl lying under the coverlet. The great want

of human company, the great need of a human face, began now to express itself in the facility with which the

furniture put on strange exaggerated resemblances to human looks. A chair with a menacing frown was

horribly out of temper in a corner; a most vicious chest of drawers snarled at her from between the windows.

It was no relief to escape from those monsters to the lookingglass, for the reflection said, "What? Is that you

all alone there? How you stare!" And the background was all a great void stare as well.

The day dragged on, dragging Kitty with it very slowly by the hair of her head, until it was time to eat. There

were good provisions in the pantry, but their right flavour and relish had evaporated with the five pupils, and

Miss Pupford, and Miss Pupford's assistant, and the cook and housemaid. Where was the use of laying the

cloth symmetrically for one small guest, who had gone on ever since the morning growing smaller and

smaller, while the empty house had gone on swelling larger and larger? The very Grace came out wrong, for

who were "we" who were going to receive and be thankful? So, Miss Kimmeens was NOT thankful, and

found herself taking her dinner in very slovenly stylegobbling it up, in short, rather after the manner of the

But, this was by no means the worst of the change wrought out in the naturally loving and cheery little

creature as the solitary day wore on. She began to brood and be suspicious. She discovered that she was full

of wrongs and injuries. All the people she knew, got tainted by her lonely thoughts and turned bad.

It was all very well for Papa, a widower in India, to send her home to be educated, and to pay a handsome

round sum every year for her to Miss Pupford, and to write charming letters to his darling little daughter; but

what did he care for her being left by herself, when he was (as no doubt he always was) enjoying himself in

company from morning till night? Perhaps he only sent her here, after all, to get her out of the way. It looked

like itlooked like it today, that is, for she had never dreamed of such a thing before.

And this old pupil who was being married. It was unsupportably conceited and selfish in the old pupil to be

married. She was very vain, and very glad to show off; but it was highly probable that she wasn't pretty; and

even if she were pretty (which Miss Kimmeens now totally denied), she had no business to be married; and,

even if marriage were conceded, she had no business to ask Miss Pupford to her wedding. As to Miss

Pupford, she was too old to go to any wedding. She ought to know that. She had much better attend to her

business. She had thought she looked nice in the morning, but she didn't look nice. She was a stupid old

thing. G was another stupid old thing. Miss Pupford's assistant was another. They were all stupid old things

More than that: it began to be obvious that this was a plot. They had said to one another, "Never mind Kitty;

you get off, and I'll get off; and we'll leave Kitty to look after herself. Who cares for her?" To be sure they

were right in that question; for who DID care for her, a poor little lonely thing against whom they all planned

At all other times she was the pet of the whole house, and loved her five companions in return with a child's

tenderest and most ingenuous attachment; but now, the five companions put on ugly colours, and appeared

for the first time under a sullen cloud. There they were, all at their homes that day, being made much of,

being taken out, being spoilt and made disagreeable, and caring nothing for her. It was like their artful

selfishness always to tell her when they came back, under pretence of confidence and friendship, all those

details about where they had been, and what they had done and seen, and how often they had said, "O! If we

had only darling little Kitty here!" Here indeed! I dare say! When they came back after the holidays, they

were used to being received by Kitty, and to saying that coming to Kitty was like coming to another home.

Very well then, why did they go away? If the meant it, why did they go away? Let them answer that. But they

didn't mean it, and couldn't answer that, and they didn't tell the truth, and people who didn't tell the truth were

hateful. When they came back next time, they should be received in a new manner; they should be avoided

And there, the while she sat all alone revolving how ill she was used, and how much better she was than the

people who were not alone, the wedding breakfast was going on: no question of it! With a nasty great

bridecake, and with those ridiculous orangeflowers, and with that conceited bride, and that hideous

bridegroom, and those heartless bridesmaids, and Miss Pupford stuck up at the table! They thought they were

enjoying themselves, but it would come home to them one day to have thought so. They would all be dead in

a few years, let them enjoy themselves ever so much. It was a religious comfort to know that.

It was such a comfort to know it, that little Miss Kitty Kimmeens suddenly sprang from the chair in which

she had been musing in a corner, and cried out, "O those envious thoughts are not mine, O this wicked

creature isn't me! Help me, somebody! I go wrong, alone by my weak self! Help me, anybody!"

"Miss Kimmeens is not a professed philosopher, sir," said Mr. Traveller, presenting her at the barred

window, and smoothing her shining hair, "but I apprehend there was some tincture of philosophy in her

words, and in the prompt action with which she followed them. That action was, to emerge from her

unnatural solitude, and look abroad for wholesome sympathy, to bestow and to receive. Her footsteps strayed

to this gate, bringing her here by chance, as an apposite contrast to you. The child came out, sir. If you have

the wisdom to learn from a child (but I doubt it, for that requires more wisdom than one in your condition

would seem to possess), you cannot do better than imitate the child, and come out toofrom that very

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

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

"I am glad to BE employed," returned the Tinker, looking up as he put the finishing touches to his job. "But

"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

today, it's good for some other man's today, and will come round to me tomorrow. We must all live."

"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

"Well now," said the Tinker, blowing the dust off his job: which was finished. "Ain't it enough to disgust a

"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?"

"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 fellowcreetur 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 longwinded

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 allmade 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

"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!"

"Are you sure he is asleep?" asked the Tinker, with an unwilling air, as he shouldered his wallet.

"Then I'll look at him for a quarter of a minute," said the Tinker, "since you so much wish it; but not a

They all three went back across the road; and, through the barred window, by the dying glow of the sunset

coming in at the gatewhich the child held open for its admissionhe could be pretty clearly discerned

Mr. Traveller then whispered in few words what he had done since morning; and asked the Tinker what he

"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

"I invite you to supper there. And as I learn from this young lady that she goes some threequarters 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

So, Mr. Traveller, and the child, and the Tinker, went along very amicably in the sweetscented 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