Chapter 5

TINKER TIM.

"'And there were giants on the earth in those days,'" quoth Dan, eyeing the mighty bulk of his visitor. "Can you box, my friend?"

"Try me," said Tinker Tim, putting up his fists.

Here was a polite reception to give a guest. It is not the custom in civilized society for the host to invite the stranger within his gates to a bout of fisticuffs. But this was not polite society, and Dan had retrograded to primevalism. In the days of old, when fighting was hand to hand, and not conducted at long range, men usually commenced their friendships by thrashing one another. Robin Hood is an excellent example of this. In Merry Sherwood he beat the stranger, or the stranger beat him, either with fists or at quarter-staff, and afterwards the combatants fraternized. Each wished to see if the other was a man, before admitting him to his friendship. Dan was of this way of thinking, and eyed his opponent like a fighting-cock.

If there was one thing he loved, it was a bout with the gloves, and Tim was apparently of the same mind. They were quite amicable, and disposed to be friendly with each other, but the friendship had to be cemented with blows and blood. The scent of battle--of friendly battle, to couple incongruous terms--was in the air. Dan was of goodly stature, and ready with his fists. He prided himself on his long reach of arm and quickness of eye. In the parts from which he came, few men cared to stand up to him, for he had been victorious times without number. His victories were so many and so easy that he longed to meet a dogged foe who could hold his own; therefore his mouth watered when he saw the thews and fists of his guest. They were eloquent of a prolonged battle, and Dan promised himself a happy morning.

Tim was a son of Anak, six and a half feet high, and big in proportion. Not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his bones; nothing but tanned hide and swelling muscle. His face was burnt brown by the sun and reddened by the wind; and he wore a bushy black beard, which was slightly streaked with grey. His bold black eyes looked defiance, while the gold rings which adorned his ears added to his already barbaric appearance. A swarthy malcontent he seemed at first sight, a cut-throat of the Spanish main, a piratical desperado; yet, on a closer inspection, his good-humoured smile did away with such bloodthirsty appearances. He, too, counted his victories by the score, and sighed, like Alexander, for fresh worlds or men to conquer. Dan could not have given him a better welcome than that invitation to battle, and his eye sparkled with pleasure at the prospect. Each saw that the other was a man, and wished to decide which was the better. A fit of Berserk fury was on them both.

"Come on, rye," said Tim, eager for the fray. "I'll fight you for a fi'-pun note."

"I cannot wager so large an amount," replied Dan, gravely. "I am a poor man."

Tim glanced at the caravan, and laughed hoarsely. He had his own opinion on the matter, or else had taken his cue from Mother Jericho. However, he was too bent on fighting to argue, and his face grew impatient as he poised himself lightly in an attitude of defence with scientifically placed fists.

"Ain't you goin' to put 'em up?" said he, sharply.

"Not without the gloves, friend. I've no notion of letting those sledge-hammer fists of yours spoil my beauty."

"Ho! Women like to see men mashed a bit. Them's the kind they love best."

"That may be! Women are all hero-worshippers. All the same, I wish my face to remain as it is. A broken nose may be heroic, but it isn't pleasing to the eye."

And with such speech he disappeared into the caravan, whence he emerged with the boxing-gloves. Throwing a pair of these to Tim, he put on his own, and in a minute or so the two men were warily circling round one another. Peter was the only spectator of this famous fight, and he encouraged the combatants with sharp barks when the blows fell unusually thick.

"Here is Lavengro again," thought Dan, aiming a blow at the jaw of his opponent. "I have dropped across the Flaming Tinman."

And Lavengro alone could have fully described that Homeric contest. There was no hesitancy or half-heartedness about it. They pounded one another whenever they got the chance, and sent the blows straight from the shoulder. Thrice was Dan toppled over like a ninepin, and twice did Tim measure his length on the grassy sward. If one had the greater weight, the other had the quicker eye. Tim's leg-of-mutton fists did terrific damage when they got home on Dan's body, but for the most part they descended innocuously, so dexterously did the latter guard. At first they smiled, but soon their blood warmed and their faces set. Strength and agility were fairly matched, so that though the battle raged for close on an hour, each managed to hold his own. Dan could make no impression on the elephantine frame of Tim, and the tinker grew weary of trying to hit a flash of lightning in the person of the vagrant. It was as pretty a sight as a man might see in a day's walk, but so equal were both boxers that the contest seemed likely to last till sunset. The account of such a combat should roll off the tongue in blank verse or leaping hexameter, and be chanted by some noble minstrel. Nothing meaner can suffice! It is impossible to play an oratorio on a penny whistle.

At length, when Dan had a bleeding nose and Tim a swelling eye, they threw down their gloves by mutual consent and declared it a drawn battle. On such result they shook hands like the manly pair they were, and Tim vented his emotion in a mighty oath which here need only be paraphrased.

"By the ghost of Black Ben the Bruiser," said he, clapping his friendly antagonist on the shoulder, "you're a man, you are! None other shall have her, I swear."

"Have whom?" asked Dan, bathing his crimsoned nose in the bucket.

"Never you mind, rye," replied Tim, ambiguously; "that's neither here nor there. It might be Mother Jericho, for all you know."

Not particularly attentive to this speech, Dan went on splashing up the ice-cold water; and Tim, with his black beard clutched in one begrimed hand, sat looking steadily at him. The vagrant seemed to find favour in his eyes, for during his scrutiny he grunted once or twice as though satisfied. It was evidently something more than personal prowess that recommended Dan to the gipsy giant. What it was must remain locked up in Tim's brain for the present.

"Why didn't Mother Jericho come with you, Tim?"

"She's got the rheumatism, rye, and sits in her tent squeaking like a trapped rabbit. 'Twas she who told me to look ye up."

"Wanted to know the result of her prophecy, I suppose?"

"Ay, ay! She told your fortune, did she? A good un for charming brass out of pockets, she is. Maybe she promised ye a wench, lad?"

"That she did. Two wenches! I met one this morning."

"Did ye, now? And where, my brave rye?"

"'Joy comes up through the Gates of Dawn,'" hummed Dan, wiping his face.

This mystical utterance was of course unintelligible to Tim, who looked up as though about to demand an explanation; but on second thoughts he threw himself down for a rest. He was not so young as he had been, and the violent exercise of the last sixty minutes had told slightly on his iron frame.

"That was a good un, rye," said he, referring to the combat; "but you're too much of the eel for me. It ain't at sixty years that a man should mash round after a slippery chap like you."

"Are you sixty years of age?" exclaimed Dan; and as Tim nodded, he continued, "Well, you don't look it, my man."

"Open air and exercise, plain fare and daily change," replied Tim, glibly running off his lists of arts for circumventing the enemy Time; "but I'm beginning to get on, brother. There's a hole as I'll fall into afore long. Yet there's work to be done and wrongs to be righted afore I am tripped up. When all's square, I'll tumble into Mother Earth's arms with the rest."

Engaged in getting victuals from the caravan, Dan did not at once comment on this mournful speech. When he did speak, his remark was more practical than sympathetic.

"No doubt you're hungry after that tussle, Tim."

"Ay, and thirsty. What have you to drink?"

"Bottled beer. Here! don't spoil your dinner by smoking."

Tim rapped the ashes out of his pipe, and with an assenting grin restored it to his pocket. Then he fell to caressing Peter.

"A fine leetle dawg, squire!"

"Pedigree dog! Kennel Club," replied Dan, curtly.

"Ho, ho!" laughed the tinker, hoarsely, "and you call yourself a crocus! My Sam! You're a gentleman, you are--a great gentleman."

"Pish! Do I look like a great gentleman in these rags?"

"Ay, that you do, and burn him who says nay," replied Tim, emphatically. Whereat Dan laughed in a somewhat embarrassed fashion, and by way of changing the subject, intimated that the meal was ready.

A meal he called it--by Vesta, goddess of the spit, it was a lordly banquet to which they sat down. Cold beef and pickles, bottled beer and cheese, with a plentiful supply of fresh bread. Can you ask anything better than to eat such victuals in the open air on a warm summer day, with voices of bird and bee, and sigh of wind, and roar of ocean, around? To feed in an airless dining-room were less conducive to appetite.

The pair ate as they had fought, with a will, and the fragments of the feast would scarcely have filled one basket, let alone a dozen. Tim did most of the talking, and Dan could not help noticing that his speech was much more refined than was his appearance. This incongruity he touched on during the progress of the meal.

"Where did you learn to speak so Well, Tim?"

"Do I speak well, rye?" demanded the tinker, with marked surprise. "Well, ye see, I'm a Romany, I am, and we generally speak better than the lower orders of your natives. We have our own tongue, you know--the black language--and speak that among ourselves. But I've been among the Gorgios, rye, in my time, and maybe have picked up their way of talking."

"Were you always a tinker?"

"Ay! And my father and grandfather before me! We Romany follow the trades of our ancestors, and have our pride, though you Gentiles think us beasts of the field. But never mind my chatter, rye! I don't ask to know your business, so let mine be."

After the fight, in which he had proved himself capable of holding his own, Dan could afford to let this reproof pass without the imputation of cowardice, so merely laughed at Tim's asperity, and lighted his pipe. The tinker, restored to good humour by this silent acquiescence, did the same, and the pair were soon puffing amicably together. There is no peacemaker like tobacco.

"Who is t' doctor's lass, Tim?" asked Dan, suddenly.

"Ho, ho! Have you run her to earth, rye? Isn't she a beauty?--eyes like stars, and hair like midnight!"

"You know her, then?"

"Every one for ten miles round knows her. She's out on the moors from dawn till sunset. A born Romany she is, though coming of Gorgio stock. And where did you clap eyes on her, rye?"

"Coming up through the Gates of Dawn at sunrise."

"Ay! Been swimming, I guess!"

"Can she swim?"

"Like an otter. And ride, and shoot, and fish, and tramp her thirty miles a day."

"Quite a Diana!"

"I don't know about no Diana," retorted Tim, gruffly; "but she's a clipper, and no mistake. Her fist is as ready as her tongue."

"Borrow's Isopel in the flesh!" thought Dan, who listened eagerly to this account of his unknown nymph. "And what is the name of this Amazon?" he asked aloud.

"Meg Merle. She's the daughter of Dr. Merle, who lives in Farbis village. An old fool he is, who sleeps and dreams and shuts his eyes to her beauty."

"She is beautiful," said Dan, reflectively; "very--very beautiful!"

Tim looked at him suspiciously and frowned. An unpleasant thought had just crossed his mind.

"She's as good as she's beautiful, rye," he growled, "and can look after herself, I reckon. I shouldn't like to be the man who put an insult on her. I'd smash him," added the tinker, bringing down his huge fist with terrific force--"I'd smash him!"

"Is that meant for me?" asked Dan, sharply, noting the suspicious look in the eyes of his guest.

"Them as the cap fits can wear it, rye! You're a gentleman, though you don't choose to call yourself one, and gentlemen think country girls fine game; so----"

"That's quite sufficient, my friend," cried the vagrant. "I know what you are about to say. Don't bellow out your warning. Gentleman or no gentleman, she has no need to fear me."

Tim eyed him narrowly, and then, rolling over, gripped Dan's hand in his own huge paw. It was his way of apologizing for his unjust suspicions.

"I trust ye! I trust ye! A man who can use his mauleys like you ain't a cur to play tricks on women. If I've offended you----"

"You haven't offended me, friend. Say no more about it."

So speaking, he rose abruptly and walked to the other side of the dell. Though he denied being angry, he was in reality rather indignant at Tim's imputation of libertinism. No man likes to be thought a scoundrel, and Dan did not like it. Yet he saw that the warning was dictated in a friendly spirit, so his wrath evaporated by the time he returned to the fire. At once he began to speak on a different subject, and Tim, seeing he was annoyed, gladly fell in with his humour.

"I must come over to your camp, Tim. Where is it?"

"Down yonder on the edge of the moor. We'll make ye as welcome as the dawn."

"I'll come over, if only to find out why Mother Jericho coupled my name with that of this girl."

"It wasn't Mother Jericho, but Fate," said Tim, with great simplicity. "If it be as she's to be your wife, there's no way out of it."

"Pish! I'll never set eyes on her again, Tim. I leave this place to-morrow."

"Not if Mother Jericho read your hand truly."

There was no combating this obstinacy, as Tim was evidently a firm believer in palmistry. As a gipsy, he could not in reason be otherwise. Dan did not attempt to argue the matter, and after a few more words they parted, as Tim had business on hand.

"I'm off tinkering to a village ten miles from here, rye," said he; "but don't 'ee forget to come to our camp when it suits you. I'll be proud to put on the gloves with you again." And with this pugilistic invitation he parted from his late antagonist.

Dan remained lying where he was, and bearing in mind Tim's warning, made up his mind to baffle Mother Jericho's forecast if possible. But Fate proved too strong for him. Before the week was out, he met again with her whom he ironically christened the "Diana of Farbis."