TOM TIDDLER''S GROUND
CHAPTER I--PICKING UP SOOT AND CINDERS
"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 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 window-blind which was half drawn
down. "Leastwise it has been so considered by many gentlemen which
have partook of chops and tea in the present humble parlour."
The Traveller was partaking of chops and tea in the present humble
parlour, 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, evading personal
responsibility; "he is in general so considered."
"What IS a Hermit?" asked the Traveller.
"What is it?" repeated the Landlord, drawing his hand across his
chin.
"Yes, what is it?"
The Landlord stooped again, to get a more comprehensive view of
vacancy under the window-blind, and--with an asphyxiated appearance
on him as one unaccustomed to definition--made no answer.
"I''ll tell you what I suppose it to be," said the Traveller. "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 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. "There ain''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 the Traveller, "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 year
of grace, down among the pleasant dales and trout-streams of a green
English county. No matter what county. Enough that you may hunt
there, shoot there, fish there, traverse long grass-grown 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 shoes--an 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 window-shutters (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 door-plate and three
stories stood among them as conspicuous and different as the doctor
himself in his broadcloth, among the smock-frocks of his patients.
The village residences seemed to have gone to law with a similar
absence of consideration, for a score of weak little lath-andplaster cabins clung in confusion about the Attorney''s red-brick
house, which, with glaring door-steps and a most terrific scraper,
seemed to serve all manner of ejectments upon them. They were as
various as labourers--high-shouldered, wry-necked, one-eyed, goggleeyed, squinting, bow-legged, knock-knee''d, rheumatic, crazy. Some
of the small tradesmen''s houses, such as the crockery-shop and the
harness-maker, 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 into manure,
and become a part proprietor in turnips or mangold-wurzel.
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 hermitage of Mr. Mopes the hermit.
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 country-side--far 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 farm-house 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 home-brewed 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 five-and-twenty and sixty, and as having been a
hermit seven years, twelve, twenty, thirty,--though twenty, on the
whole, appeared the favourite term.
"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 by-road, which the genius of Mopes had
laid waste ...
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