, going here and there as I did
before. Well, young man, it was yesterday that I and mine set ourselves
down in a lane, about five miles from here, and lighted our fire, and had
our dinner, and after dinner I sat down to mend three kettles and a
frying pan which the people in the neighbourhood had given me to
mend--for, as I told you before, I have a good connection, owing to my
honesty. Well, as I sat there hard at work, happy as the day's long, and
thinking of anything but what was to happen, who should come up but this
Black Jack, this king of the tinkers, rattling along in his cart, with
his wife, that they call Grey Moll, by his side--for the villain has got
a wife, and a maid-servant too; the last I never saw, but they that has,
says that she is as big as a house, and young, and well to look at, which
can't be all said of Moll, who, though she's big enough in all
conscience, is neither young nor handsome. Well, no sooner does he see
me and mine, than, giving the reins to Grey Moll, he springs out of his
cart, and comes straight at me; not a word did he say, but on he comes
straight at me like a wild bull. I am a quiet man, young fellow, but I
saw now that quietness would be of no use, so I sprang up upon my legs,
and being bred upon the roads, and able to fight a little, I squared as
he came running in upon me, and had a round or two with him. Lord bless
you, young man, it was like a fly fighting with an elephant--one of those
big beasts the show-folks carry about. I had not a chance with the
fellow, he knocked me here, he knocked me there, knocked me into the
hedge, and knocked me out again. I was at my last shifts, and my poor
wife saw it. Now my poor wife, though she is as gentle as a pigeon, has
yet a spirit of her own, and though she wasn't bred upon the roads, can
scratch a little; so when she saw me at my last shifts, she flew at the
villain--she couldn't bear to see her partner murdered--and scratched the
villain's face. Lord bless you, young man, she had better have been
quiet: Grey Moll no sooner saw what she was about, than springing out of
the cart, where she had sat all along perfectly quiet, save a little
whooping and screeching to encourage her blade:--Grey Moll, I say (my
flesh creeps when I think of it--for I am a kind husband, and love my
poor wife)--

_Myself_. Take another draught of the ale; you look frightened, and it
will do you good. Stout liquor makes stout heart, as the man says