“Come!” cried Tom, “I see that you had better get off the stile, and let me pursue my way home. Make room for me, if you please.”
“Don’t think it!” said Jonas, spreading out his legs. “Not till I choose. And I don’t choose now. What! You’re afraid of my making you split upon some of your babbling just now, are you, Sneak?”
“I am not afraid of many things, I hope,” said Tom; “and certainly not of anything that you will do. I am not a talebearer, and I despise all meanness. You quite mistake me. Ah!” cried Tom, indignantly. “Is this manly from one in your position to one in mine? Please to make room for me to pass. The less I say, the better.”
“The less you say!” retorted Jonas, dangling his legs the more, and taking no heed of this request. “You say very little, don’t you? Ecod, I should like to know what goes on between you and a vagabond member of my family. There’s very little in that too, I dare say!”
“I know no vagabond member of your family,” cried Tom, stoutly.
“You do!” said Jonas.
“I don’t,” said Tom. “Your uncle’s namesake, if you mean him, is no vagabond. Any comparison between you and him”—Tom snapped his fingers at him, for he was rising fast in wrath—“is immeasurably to your disadvantage.”
“Oh indeed!” sneered Jonas. “And what do you think of his deary, his beggarly leavings, eh, Mister Pinch?”
“I don’t mean to say another word, or stay here another instant,” replied Tom.
“As I told you before, you’re a liar,” said Jonas, coolly. “You’ll stay here till I give you leave to go. Now, keep where you are, will you?”
He flourished his stick over Tom’s head; but in a moment it was spinning harmlessly in the air, and Jonas himself lay sprawling in the ditch. In the momentary struggle for the stick, Tom had brought it into violent contact with his opponent’s forehead; and the blood welled out profusely from a deep cut on the temple. Tom was first apprised of this by seeing that he pressed his handkerchief to the wounded part, and staggered as he rose, being stunned.
“Are you hurt?” said Tom. “I am very sorry. Lean on me for a moment. You can do that without forgiving me, if you still bear me malice. But I don’t know why; for I never offended you before we met on this spot.”
He made him no answer; not appearing at first to understand him, or even to know that he was hurt, though he several times took his handkerchief from the cut to look vacantly at the blood upon it. After one of these examinations, he looked at Tom, and then there was an expression in his features, which showed that he understood what had taken place, and would remember it.
Nothing more passed between them as they went home. Jonas kept a little in advance, and Tom Pinch sadly followed, thinking of the grief which the knowledge of this quarrel must occasion his excellent benefactor. When Jonas knocked at the door, Tom’s heart beat high; higher when Miss Mercy answered it, and seeing her wounded lover, shrieked aloud; higher, when he followed them into the family parlour; higher than at any other time, when Jonas spoke.
“Don’t make a noise about it,” he said. “It’s nothing worth mentioning. I didn’t know the road; the night’s very dark; and just as I came up with Mr. Pinch”—he turned his face towards Tom, but not his eyes—“I ran against a tree. It’s only skin deep.”
“Cold water, Merry, my child!” cried Mr. Pecksniff. “Brown paper! Scissors! A piece of old linen! Charity, my dear, make a bandage. Bless me, Mr. Jonas!”
“Oh, bother your nonsense,” returned the gracious son-in-law elect. “Be of some use if you can. If you can’t, get out!”
Miss Charity, though called upon to lend her aid, sat upright in one corner, with a smile upon her face, and didn’t move a finger. Though Mercy laved the wound herself; and Mr. Pecksniff held the patient’s head between his two hands, as if without that assistance it must inevitably come in half; and Tom Pinch, in his guilty agitation, shook a bottle of Dutch Drops until they were nothing but English Froth, and in his other hand sustained a formidable carving-knife, really intended to reduce the swelling, but apparently designed for the ruthless infliction of another wound as soon as that was dressed; Charity rendered not the least assistance, nor uttered a word. But when Mr. Jonas’s head was bound up, and he had gone to bed, and everybody else had retired, and the house was quiet, Mr. Pinch, as he sat mournfully on his bedstead, ruminating, heard a gentle tap at his door; and opening it, saw her, to his great astonishment, standing before him with her finger on her lip.
“Mr. Pinch,” she whispered. “Dear Mr. Pinch! Tell me the truth! You did that? There was some quarrel between you, and you struck him? I am sure of it!”
It was the first time she had ever spoken kindly to Tom, in all the many years they had passed together. He was stupefied with amazement.
“Was it so, or not?” she eagerly demanded.
“I was very much provoked,” said Tom.
“Then it was?” cried Charity, with sparkling eyes.
“Ye‑yes. We had a struggle for the path,” said Tom. “But I didn’t mean to hurt
