feeling, which inclined Tressilian favourably to the poor artisan, of whom before he was inclined to judge very harshly. But nothing can so soon attract the unfortunate, as real or seeming sympathy with their sorrows.
“I think,” proceeded Tressilian, after a minute’s silence, “thou wert in those days a jovial fellow, who could keep a company merry by song, and tale, and rebeck, as well as by thy juggling tricks—why do I find thee a laborious handicraftsman, plying thy trade in so melancholy a dwelling, and under such extraordinary circumstances?”
“My story is not long,” said the artist; “but your honour had better sit while you listen to it.” So saying, he approached to the fire a three-footed stool, and took another himself, while Dickie Sludge, or Flibbertigibbet, as he called the boy, drew a cricket to the smith’s feet, and looked up in his face with features which, as illuminated by the glow of the forge, seemed convulsed with intense curiosity— “Thou too,” said the smith to him, “shalt learn, as thou well deservest at my hand, the brief history of my life, and, in troth, it were as well tell it thee as leave thee to ferret it out, since Nature never packed a shrewder wit into a more ungainly casket.—Well, sir, if my poor story may pleasure you, it is at your command:—But will you not taste a stoup of liquor? I promise you that even in this poor cell I have some in store.”
“Speak not of it,” said Tressilian, “but go on with thy story, for my leisure is brief.”
“You shall have no cause to rue the delay,” said
