The pedlar assented, well pleased, and lowered the pack from his shoulders, and set down the basket from his hand, next seating himself in a chair without the ceremonial of asking, and in all the gladsome confidence of welcome.
"Thank you, thank you, dame," he said, and smacked his lips with pleasurable anticipation, as he took the horn of smiling beer and the piece of bread and cheese from the dame's hand.
"You're welcome, Jonah," replied the dame, heartily. "Have you walked far to-day? and what luck have you had?"
"I've come twenty miles, and have never taken handsel yet, dame," answered Jonah, in a melancholy tone.
"So, poor heart!" said Dorothy, very pitifully; "I must buy a trifling dozen of needles of thee, however, before thou goest. I fear times are hard, Jonah: I hear many and grievous complaints."
"Times are harder than ever I knew them to be, dame, I assure you," rejoined Jonah; "and they that have a little money seem most determined to hold it fast. Sore murmurings are made about this by poor folk: but I don't wonder at it, myself," concluded the worldly pedlar, "for, in such sore times as these, there's no knowing what a body may come to want: and, as the old saying goes, you know, dame, 'Charity begins at home!'"—and Jonah buried his nose in the ale-horn, thinking he had said something so wisely conclusive that it could not be contradicted.
"They say it was a parson who first used that saying," observed Dorothy, glancing from her wheel, very keenly, towards the pedlar; "but, for my part, Jonah, I am very far from thinking it such a saying as a parson ought to use."
"Say you, dame?" said Jonah, opening his eyes very wide.
"Did charity begin at home with their master?" said Dorothy, by way of explanation.
"Ah, dame!" said the pedlar, quickly discerning Dorothy's meaning, "I fear but few parsons think of imitating their master now-a-days!"