"So do I, maister," again burst in the tinker, very much to the annoyance of the tailor, who wanted to come to the end of his "say," without interruption—"so do I; only, you know there's no harm in talking about these things, now and then. And, besides, maister, you know, the world never will be any better, if we all shut our eyes, and say we see no wrong in it."
"Right, very right," replied Tim, a little bit put out of the path he had intended to take, but still resolved to make direct for his point, if he could; "I don't deny that: but how long will it be before the world is bettered, even if we keep our eyes open, and tell aloud of all the wrong we know in it? You and I are not the first who have discovered the world to be wrong, depend on't. Tinkers and tailors," continued Tim, smiling as he proceeded, "have been found in many countries, as far as my little book-larning informs me, who have imagined they could repair the rents in the world; but, in too many cases, these fellows were the very greatest practisers upon the helplessness of their weaker brethren. As for the few who have been in earnest, they have usually been silenced, in one way or other, by those whose interest it was to keep up the wrong in the world. That the world never will be better," concluded Tim, "I will not undertake to say; but the day, I fear, is so far distant, my good friend, that you and I will neither of us be likely to live to see it. Don't take it amiss; but I can't help thinking so."
The tinker was ready with an answer; but two customers of Tim's here came in, and the travelling tinker, thinking that it would be both ill-mannered and wearisome to the tailor for him to stay, and attempt to renew the conversation, wished Tim "Good day," and prepared to set out again on his journey. Tim extended his hand, and returned the tinker's friendly gripe in a way that told the traveller his few strong hints would be thought of on another day.
With all Tim Swallow-whistle's shrewdness, he was perfectly free from craft. The thoughts created in his mind by this conversation with the travelling tinker naturally found their way, now and then, into his exchanges of opinion with his customers. Prim the Puritan was not slow in learning this: in fact, his evil nature had plotted Tim's destruction from the moment that he overheard the conversation between Tim and the tinker. Spies were sent to draw the tailor out; and, eventually, poor Tim was set down in the day-book of every influential man in Horncastle as a "dangerous and seditious fellow." From that day, poor Tim Swallow-whistle's business began to decline. The trial was a bitter one to Tim; for his aged grandmother sank to the grave, beholding the clouds of adversity gather around her grandchild's dwelling; but, in the serenity of death, steadfastly directed her weeping descendant to trust in uprightness, and it would be his comfort. Then his mother sickened and died,—yielding, after a hard struggle, to the Last Enemy, but expiring with an exultant smile, after assuring her child that her own greatest consolation was that she had been dutiful to her mother, and she was confident he would yet see bright days as the reward of his spotless filial piety.
In vain Tim asked for parochial relief in the hour of his sore straitness, when his wife's health failed with the labour of waiting upon her sick relatives, and when Tim's earnings dwindled to a starving pittance by reason of his being compelled to wait upon those around him that could not help themselves. Prim held the purse-strings of the parish tight. Tim fasted often when his neighbours fed, and fed well: but he never despaired. "Every dog has his day," he still thought, but refrained from saying much, and still battled with thoughts that would have unmanned him.
Tim was repeating to himself his old adage one afternoon, about six months after his mother's death, when the clergyman of the parish entered his cottage, and, to Tim's indescribable surprise, desired Tim to take the measure of him for a new suit! Now the fact was, that the clergyman was, necessarily, more than once in Tim's dwelling during the successive illnesses of his grandmother and mother; and, although prejudiced against the tailor, from the reports circulated to his detriment, yet he was too sensible a man not to use his opportunities of scrutinising Tim's real character, and too much a gentleman, in the best sense of the word, to permit a poor but worthy man to suffer if his own help could avail to relieve him. The clergyman saw that Tim wore his heart too much on the outside of his waistcoat to be a rogue; and the clergyman determined to help Tim by his patronage and his "good word."
The prejudices against Tim, however, were not dispelled all at once, though many began to look upon him with new eyes when they heard that the town-parson had actually given him orders for a new suit. The climax of the poor tailor's sorrows was now, however, gone by; and the future was preparing for him its triumphs and joys. One event gave him some trouble; but what kind of trouble? Ah! it was of that kind which is most truly troublous to a heart which has struggled to train itself into correctness. The termination of Prim's two years of overseership arrived, and the parish vestry would not pass his accounts, having discovered him to be guilty of an immense embezzlement! Tim had real trouble with his own heart throughout the whole of the day on which he first learnt this fact. Exultation over his old enemy was the feeling that strove to be uppermost; but Tim virtuously kept it down.
Succeeding years displayed a striking contrast in the lives of Tim Swallow-whistle and Prim the Puritan. The houses which the cheating overseer had recently bought with the fruits of his fraud were sold to raise law-expenses; even his aunt's freehold went to the hammer for the same purpose: and Prim only escaped a prison by some technical flaw in the wording of the proceedings taken out against him. He was ruined, however, and became comparatively a beggar, while his character sank for life. Tim's honesty and industry, on the other hand, raised him daily in the estimation of his neighbours. Competence, amounting, at length, well-nigh to wealth, beamed upon him, and, ere his grey hairs went down to the grave, he lived to leave a crown-piece, often, at the door of the ragged and wretched man who was once his envious persecutor and the oppressive overseer.—Tim Swallow-whistle preserved, even to his dying day, that nobility of heart which forbade him to triumph over a fallen enemy; but he would often repeat, half mechanically, to himself, when passing from the poverty-stricken door of Prim the Puritan, "Every dog has his day."