Transcribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall “Christmas Stories”edition , email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
“And why Tom Tiddler’s ground?” said the Traveller.
“Because he scatters halfpence to Tramps and such-like,”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 butregarding the halfpence as gold and silver, and turning the ownershipof the property a bit round your finger, and there you have the nameof the children’s game complete. And it’s appropriatetoo,” said the Landlord, with his favourite action of stoopinga little, to look across the table out of window at vacancy, under thewindow-blind which was half drawn down. “Leastwise it hasbeen so considered by many gentlemen which have partook of chops andtea in the present humble parlour.”
The Traveller was partaking of chops and tea in the present humbleparlour, and the Landlord’s shot was fired obliquely at him.
“And you call him a Hermit?” said the Traveller.
“They call him such,” returned the Landlord, evadingpersonal responsibility; “he is in general so considered.”
“What is a Hermit?” asked the Traveller.
“What is it?” repeated the Landlord, drawing his handacross his chin.
“Yes, what is it?”
The Landlord stooped again, to get a more comprehensive view of vacancyunder the window-blind, and—with an asphyxiated appearance onhim as one unaccustomed to definition—made no answer.
“I’ll tell you what I suppose it to be,” said theTraveller. “An abominably dirty thing.”
“Mr. Mopes is dirty, it cannot be denied,” said the Landlord.
“Intolerably conceited.”
“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 humanmature,” said the Traveller; “and for the sake of GOD’Sworking world and its wholesomeness, both moral and physical, I wouldput 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. “Thereain’t a doubt but what he has got landed property.”
“How far may it be to this said Tom Tiddler’s ground?”asked the Traveller.
“Put it at five mile,” returned the Landlord.
“Well! When I have done my breakfast,” said theTraveller, “I’ll go there. I came over here this morning,to find it out and see it.”
“Many does,” observed the Landlord.
The conversation passed, in the Midsummer weather of no remote yearof grace, down among the pleasant dales and trout-streams of a greenEnglish county. No matter what county. Enough that you mayhunt there, shoot there, fish there, traverse long grass-grown Romanroads there, open ancient barrows there, see many a square mile of richlycultivated 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 ofthe Peal of Bells village alehouse, with the dew and dust of an earlywalk upon his shoes—an early walk by road and meadow and coppice,that had sprinkled him bountifully with little blades of grass, andscraps of new hay, and with leaves both young and old, and with othersuch fragrant tokens of the freshness and wealth of summer. Thewindow through which the landlord had concentrated his gaze upon vacan