Eternal gratitude—a long, thin word:

When meant, oftenest left unheard:

When light on the tongue, light in the purse too;

Of curious metallurgy: when coined true

It glitters not, is neither large nor small:

More worth than rubies—less, times, than a ball.

Not gift, nor willed: yet through its wide range

Buys what it buys exact, and leaves no change.

Old Gurney had it, won on a hot day

With ale, from glib-voiced Gipsy by the way.

He held it lightly: for ’twas a rum start

To find a hedgeling who had still a heart:

So put it down for twist of a beggar’s tongue ...

He had not felt the heat: how the dust stung

A face June-roasted: he saw not the look

Aslant the gift-mug; how the hand shook ...

Yet the words filled his head, and he grew merry

And whistled from the Boar to Wrye-brook ferry,

And chaffed with Ferryman when the hawser creaked,

Or slipping bilge showed where the planks leaked;

—Lent hand himself, till doubly hard the barge

Butted its nose in mud of the farther marge.

When Gurney leapt to shore, he found—dismay!

He had no tuppence—(Tuppence was to pay

To sulky Ferryman).—‘Naught have I,’ says he,

‘Naught but the gratitude of Tammas Lee

Given one hour.’—Sulky Charon grinned:

‘Done,’ said he, ‘done: I take it—all of it, mind.’

‘Done,’ cries Jan Gurney. Down the road he went,

But by the ford left all his merriment.

This is the tale of midday chaffering:

How Charon took, and Gurney lost the thing:

How Ferryman gave it for his youngest daughter

To a tall lad who saved her out of the water—

(Being old and mean, had none of his own to give,

So passed on Tammas’, glad to see her live):

How the young farmer paid his quarter’s rent

With that one coin, when all else was spent,

And how Squire kept it for some goldless debt ...

For aught I know, it wanders current yet.

But Tammas was no angel in disguise:

He stole Squire’s chickens—often: he told lies,

Robbed Charon’s garden, burnt young Farmer’s ricks

And played the village many lousy tricks.

No children sniffled, and no dog cried,

When full of oaths and smells, he died.