Tom-tom

“ Do poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes—There I could have him now—and there!—and there!—and here again!—and there!—Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind—Tom's a cold!—who gives anything to poor Tom! ”

“ The giant met Tom like a lion, as though he would have swallowed him up at a mouthful.
“Sirrah,” said he, “who gave you authority to come this way? Do you not know I make all stand in fear of my sight, and you, like an impudent rogue, must come and fling my gates open at your pleasure? How dare you presume to do this? Are you so careless of your life? I will make thee an example for all rogues under the sun. Dost thou not care what thou dost? Do you see how many heads hang upon yonder tree that have offended my law? Thy head shall hang higher than all the rest for an example!” ”

“ Fancy, Tom, that your skull may come under the chisel, And turn out a filter for water to drizzle! Or imagine the rubicund nose of our uncle, In some fair lady's brooch, blazing forth a carbuncle! Though learning is grand, and one labours to win it, There perhaps lurks a something distressing, Tom, in it. Thus, whate'er our good character while our life lasted, When turned into rocks, may we not, Tom, be blasted? ”

“ His forgetting all else brought him inevitably to Tom. He was warm and alive with Tom. He felt that in Tom’s friendship more than in all else—more than in his work downtown or the slow reading of good books—he was growing up. He glowed with Tom as one might smile at the accomplishment before one’s eyes of a good prophecy.
All his life he had known that he was destined to become a man. An ecstasy, this, of wonderment and terror which ran, in a kaleidoscope of color, back to his childhood and to the time when his little arms had clasped his mother’s knees. Some day he would grow up and be a man. ”

“ These words of an ancient volume, got up principally by "ignorant and unlearned men," have, through all time, kept up, somehow, a strange sort of power over the minds of poor, simple fellows, like Tom. They stir up the soul from its depths, and rouse, as with trumpet call, courage, energy, and enthusiasm, where before was only the blackness of despair. ”

“ Ah! many's the time and oft;
But mirth is turn'd to melancholy,
For Tom is gone aloft.
Yet shall poor Tom find pleasant weather,
When He who all commands,
Shall give, to call life's crew together,
The word to pipe all hands. ”

“ That tom-tom is the most beautiful instrument of music of which any man can conceive; that is the kind of music they have in heaven; an angel sitting upon the edge of a fleecy cloud, golden in the setting sun, playing upon that tom-tom, became so enraptured, so entranced with her own music, that in a kind of ecstasy she dropped it—that is how we obtained it ”

“ Tom was a brown faced, black-eyed, keen-looking, wide-awake, gossiping little woman, of four feet high, with a tongue that could, and did, say sharp things sometimes; but with a heart so warm and large that it is a wonder how it ever found room in so small a body. ”

“ I looked at the little body of him, at the innocence of the eyes and mouth, all untouched by the world—so pure and yet crying out in pain because he had taken so long on the quest.... His eighth year brought Tom into regular boyhood. The young brain, always before silently giving way to intuition, began to speak for itself. This stage is as important perhaps, but not so beautiful as when the hushedness and glowing of the Unseen touches a child. Here we turned from Tom, and the things that creep into the heart of almost every boy of the same age, crept into Tom's heart. ”

“ So, with a smile upon thy face, thou passest gently to another measure; to a quicker and more joyful one; and little feet are used to dance about thee at the sound; and bright young eyes to glance up into thine. And there is one slight creature, Tom—her child; not Ruth's—whom thine eyes follow in the romp and dance: who, wondering sometimes to see thee look so thoughtful, runs to climb up on thy knee, and put her cheek to thine: who loves thee, Tom, above the rest, if that can be: and falling sick once, chose thee for her nurse: and never knew impatience, Tom, when Thou wert by her side. ”

“ And now Tom was right away into the heather, over just such a moor as those in which you have been bred, except that there were rocks and stones lying about everywhere, and that, instead of the moor growing flat as he went upwards, it grew more and more broken and hilly, but not so rough but that little Tom could jog along well enough, and find time, too, to stare about at the strange place, which was like a new world to him. ”

“ A thousand times a day rough voices blessed her, and smiles of unwonted softness stole over hard faces, as she passed; and when she tripped fearlessly over dangerous places, rough, sooty hands were stretched involuntarily out to save her, and smooth her path.
Tom, who had the soft, impressible nature of his kindly race, ever yearning toward the simple and childlike, watched the little creature with daily increasing interest. ”

“ It was an entrancing figure which I saw, in a cloak all glory; with a face—a face which would haunt the dreams of a happier man than I. It was a late hour for so enchanting a vision to pay a first call upon a single gentleman, but, when I learned that this was the sister of the ingenuous Tom, I understood; I understood still more when the lady's tongue was once set wagging, for sometimes even charming visions do have tongues. Dear Tom had told his tale on his own lines. ”

“ As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight!—
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.
And by came an angel, who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins, and set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.
Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind:
And the angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,
He’d have God for his father, and never want joy. ”

“ And coming from a garden, Tom, bestrewn with flowers by children’s hands, thy sister, little Ruth, as light of foot and heart as in old days, sits down beside thee. From the Present, and the Past, with which she is so tenderly entwined in all thy thoughts, thy strain soars onward to the Future. As it resounds within thee and without, the noble music, rolling round ye both, shuts out the grosser prospect of an earthly parting, and uplifts ye both to Heaven! ”

“ A shaded stretch of road tempted us at length to urge the Tommies to their own wild trot, and to its vagaries we and the hold-alls rose and fell, bumped and joggled with what grace we might. Roadside heaps of stones, that had till now been merely matter for composed inquiry to the Tommies, became at this pace fraught with all supernatural powers and malign intents, and we cannoned violently and often, as Tom swerved, wild-eyed, from one of these objects of terror, or as Tommy, the ignoble, turned with incredible swiftness and endeavoured to flee home to the chemist. ”

“ May sudden justice overtake And snap the froward pen, That old and palsied poets shake Against the minds of men. Blasphemers trusting to hold caught In far-flung webs of ink, The utmost ends of human thought Till nothing's left to think. But may the gift of heavenly peace And glory for all time Keep the boy Tom who tending geese First made the nursery rhyme. By the brookside one August day, Using the sun for clock, Tom whiled the languid hours away Beside his scattering flock. Carving with a sharp pointed stone On a broad slab of slate The famous lives of Jumping Joan, Dan Fox and Greedy Kate. ”

“ All the longing for love of a fellow on the edge of twenty, but for him made shamefaced by his fat, found voice in that joyousness.
Tom had not supposed that in the whole round of the universe there was such expression for his nameless ecstasies. It was not Guy whom he heard, nor [Pg 374] the piano; it was the morning stars singing together; it was the sons of God shouting for joy; it was all the larks and all the thrushes and all the nightingales that in all the ages had ever trilled to the sun and moon. ”

“ Tom! Oh, Mr. Tom! I knew you would come! Cousin Deborah, it's Mr. Tom!' and she flew into his arms, and clung with an ecstasy of joy, unknowing the why or how, but with a sense that light had shone, and that her troubles were over. ”

“ In our own boyish experience we knew one, poor Tom, which grew up under our care to maturity, and, unrestrained by any artificial means, flew away and returned again as inclination impelled it—recognising and answering our voice even when flying high in air above. ”

“ Now appeared Joe Harper, as airily clad and elaborately armed as Tom. Tom called:
ROBIN HOOD AND HIS FOE. "Hold! Who comes here into Sherwood Forest without my pass?"
"Guy of Guisborne wants no man's pass. Who art thou that—that—"
"Dares to hold such language," said Tom, prompting—for they talked "by the book," from memory. ”

“ As it was, he stood in the cold water up to his shoulders, clinging still to the rope, holding the teapot with one hand, and wildly vociferating to his admiring audience whose heads hung over the well-curb, and their faces, as seen in this position by Tom, looked like those of grinning fiends.
“What made you let go?” roared Tom, and his voice sounded hollow and unnatural as it resounded from the depths of his cool and shady retreat.
“Oh, Tom, have you got it? Have you really? Ain’t it cold? Are you hurt? Were you scared? Is the teapot broken?” ”

“ At this I winced and tried to draw back from Tom, but he held me fast, while his rare smile broke all over his face as he went on:
“I thought I’d like to know just how you did look, and so wrote for your photograph, which, when it came, astonished me, it was so young and pretty and girlish; not in the least old maidish, as I feared it might be——”
281“Tom, Tom—are you crazy?” I cried, wrenching my hands from his. “I’m not pretty; I’m not girlish; I’m not young; and I am an old maid of thirty-two.” ”

“ When Tom, who knew the high soul, the resolute nature, and the grand audacity of his old friend, found him stammering and faltering, pouring out thanks and blessings, and stopping in the midst of broken words to reproach himself bitterly for the blind and credulous folly which had precipitated them all into danger, he was too much moved to answer. ”

“ Tom had often caught glimpses of this little girl,—for she was one of those busy, tripping creatures, that can be no more contained in one place than a sunbeam or a summer breeze,—nor was she one that, once seen, could be easily forgotten. ”

“ And seeing the giant beginning to weary and fail in his blows, Tom thought best to make hay whilst the sun shone, and, laying on as fast as though he had been mad, he brought the giant to the ground. In vain were the giant's roars and prayers and promises to yield himself and be Tom's servant. Tom laid at him till he was dead, and then, cutting off his head, he went into the cave, and found a great store of silver and gold, which made his heart to leap. So he loaded his cart, and after delivering his beer at Wisbeach, he came home and told his master what had befallen him. ”

“ I took up a book the other day when I was feeling rather listless and inclined to remain at home, and I had not read two verses of a hymn upon which my eyes fell before I laid it down, put on my bonnet and went out to visit my scholars. Isn’t there some work for you, Tom, among all those people? ”

“ The King, Queen, and nobles all strove to catch the butterfly. At length poor Tom slipped from his seat, and fell into a sweet dish called white-pot, where he was found, almost drowned. The Queen vowed he should be punished, and he was secured once more in a mouse-trap, when the cat, seeing something stir, and supposing it to be a mouse, patted the trap about till she broke it and set Tom at liberty. ”

“ Slowly I managed to make out what the letter said, for it was a letter, Tom, meant especially for me, simply because I had been, by chance, the one to stop and speak to the child.
"Listen now, Tom, and I'll read you what is written here on the paper, just as I managed to translate it. And be ready to hold your breath, too, because there's something of a real thrill connected with it."
"Shoot!" was all Tom said in reply. ”

“ TOM, MYTHIC AND MATERIAL.
"All Toms are alike," quoth the elegant Pelham; and if we were asked to define the leading idea of him, we should describe a downright honest John Bull, essentially manly, but withal a bit—perhaps a large bit—of a dullard. His masculinity is unquestionable. A male cat, as every body knows, is a Tom-cat; a romping boy-like girl is a Tom-boy, or a Tom-rig; a large nob-headed pin is a Tom-pin; and in many provincial dialects the great toe is, par excellence, the Tom-toe. ”

“ Then the crowd of shadows around Tom looked at him with their mournful eyes, and a whispering question ran through the fantastic throng,—
“Which will he choose?—which will he choose?”
“I will choose the honest life,” cried Tom loudly. “Yes, I will give back the purse to the poet.”
At this the shadows around seemed to rejoice, and he could see beautiful faces smiling at him from amid the crowd. The shadow multitude broke in a wild dance of joy, keeping time to some aerial music which Tom could not hear ”

“ That which the giant called a twig was as thick as some mill-posts are, but Tom was not daunted for his big and threatening speech, for he perfectly saw there was no way except one, which was to kill or be killed. So the giant made at Tom with such a vehement force that he made Tom’s wheel crack again, and Tom lent the giant as good, for he took him such a weighty blow on the side of his head, that he made the giant reel again. ”

“ Well, they all came towards me, eight of them carrying the coffin, and the biggest cat of all walking in front for all the world like—but look at our Tom, how he's looking at me. You'd think he knew all I was saying."
"Go on, go on," said his wife; "never mind Old Tom." ”

“ Tom o' the Roads had ridden his last ride, and was now alone in the night. From where he was, a man might see the white recumbent sheep and the black outline of the lonely downs, and the grey line of the farther and lonelier downs beyond them; or in hollows far below him, out of the pitiless wind, he might see the grey smoke of hamlets arising from black valleys. But all alike was black to the eyes of Tom, and all the sounds were silence in his ears; only his soul struggled to slip from the iron chains and to pass southwards into Paradise. ”