No. 70.—The Tinker and his Wife
Once there was a tinker and his wife, and they got into a bit of very good country for yernin’ a few shillings quick. And in this country there wasn’t very little lodgings. ‘Well, my wench,’ he said to his wife, ‘I think we’ll go and take that little empty house, and keep a little beer. Well, my wench, I’ll order for a barrel of beer.’ He has this barrel of beer in the house. ‘Now, my wench, you make the biggest penny out of it as ever you can, and I’ll go off for another week’s walk.’
In the course of one day a packman come by. He says, ‘It’s gettin’ very warm, missus, isn’t it?’
‘No, indeed,’ she says, ‘it’s very cold weather.’
‘I’ve got a very big load, and it makes me sweat, and I think it’s warm.’
‘I sell beer here,’ she says.
He says, ‘Well, God bless you, put me a drop for this penny.’ [[264]]
It was one of the old big pennies, and was the biggest penny she ever saw there. She brought him all the barrel for it. So she takes the penny and drops it in the basin on the mantel-shelf. He was there three days drinking till he emptied the barrel of beer. The husband comes home at the end of the week.
‘Well, my wench, how did you get on?’
‘Well, Jack, I did very well. I sold every drop of beer.’