And never wakes the toothless Hound,
Or stops the gnawing Mouse.
XXIII.
There was a drummer marching along the high-road—forward march!—left, right!—tramp, tramp, tramp!—for the fighting was done, and he was coming home from the wars. By and by he came to a great wide stream of water, and there sat an old man as gnarled and as bent as the hoops in a cooper shop. “Are you going to cross the water?” said he.
“Yes,” says the drummer, “I am going to do that if my legs hold out to carry me.”
“And will you not help a poor body across?” says the old man.
Now, the drummer was as good-natured a lad as ever stood on two legs. “If the young never gave a lift to the old,” says he to himself, “the wide world would not be worth while living in.” So he took off his shoes and stockings, and then he bent his back and took the old man on it, and away he started through the water—splash!
But this was no common old man whom the drummer was carrying, and he was not long finding that out, for the farther he went in the water the heavier grew his load—like work put off until to-morrow—so that, when he was half-way across, his legs shook under him and the sweat stood on his forehead like a string of beads in the shop-window. But by and by he reached the other shore, and the old man jumped down from his back.