Yet I could not help admiring the assumption of the
scamp, who knew this fact as well as myself. But I said, "I can give
you work for a day or two;" and, bidding him gather up his sick wife's
apparel, led the way across the downs to my cottage. At first I think
the offer took him by surprise, and gave him some consternation, but he
presently recovered his spirits, and almost instantly his speech. "Ah,
worruk, is it? God be praised! it's meself that's ready and willin'.
'Though maybe me hand is spoilt wid brickmakin'."

I assured him that the work I would give him would require no delicate
manipulation, and so we fared on over the sleepy downs. But I could not
help noticing that, although an invalid, I was a much better pedestrian
than my companion, frequently leaving him behind, and that even as a
"tramp," he was etymologically an impostor. He had a way of lingering
beside the fences we had to climb over, as if to continue more
confidentially the history of his misfortunes and troubles, which he
was delivering to me during our homeward walk, and I noticed that he
could seldom resist the invitation of a mossy boulder or a tussock of
salt grass. "Ye see, sur," he would say, suddenly sitting down, "it's
along uv me misfortunes beginnin' in Milwaukee that--" and it was not
until I was out of hearing that he would languidly gather his traps
again and saunter after me. When I reached my own garden gate he
leaned for a moment over it, with both of his powerful arms extended
downward, and said, "Ah, but it's a blessin' that Sunday comes to give
rest fur the wake and the weary, and them as walks sivinteen miles to
get it." Of course I took the hint. There was evidently no work to be
had from my friend, the Tramp, that day. Yet his countenance
brightened as he saw the limited extent of my domain, and observed that
the garden, so called, was only a flower-bed about twenty-five by ten.
As he had doubtless before this been utilized, to the extent of his
capacity, in digging, he had probably expected that kind of work; and I
daresay I discomfitted him by pointing him to an almost leveled stone
wall, about twenty feet long, with the remark that his work would be
the rebuilding of that stone wall, with stone brought from the
neighboring slopes. In a few moments he was comfortably provided for in
the kitchen, where the cook, a woman of his own nativity, apparently,
"chaffed" him with a raillery that was to me quite unintelligib