The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, Volume 1

by Philip Hensher

  Not having enough of money to procure himself a night’s lodging at an inn, he went and bought a pennyworth of bread at a baker’s shop, that he might not be chargeable to any one; and, going down to the side of the river, he made a hearty supper on his roll, drinking a little pure water to it. It was here that John, to his infinite pleasure, first discovered a similarity between his vision and the existing scene. For, be it remembered, that, in one of his dreams, he went down to the side of the River Tweed to while away the time, and there discovered a hare sitting in her form. He now remembered having seen this very scene in his dream, which he now looked on, all in the same arrangement, and thenceforward felt a conviction, that this vision would not go for nothing. He then went into a narrow street that stretched to the eastward, as he described it, and went on till he heard the well-known sound of the jangling of weavers’ treadles. As the proverb goes, ‘Birds of a feather, flock ay thegither’; into that house John went, and asked the privilege of a bed, telling them, he himself was a poor weaver, who had come a long journey, in hopes to recover a large sum of money in the town, but not having as yet been successful, he had not wherewith to pay his night’s lodging at an inn. The honest people made him very welcome, for the people of that beautiful town, from the highest to the lowest, are noted for a spirit of benevolence. But they tried in vain to pry into his business, and to learn who the creditor was from whom he expected to recover the sum of money. John, on the other hand, was very inquisitive of his host about the old abbey – what sort of people the monks were – how they were dressed, and if they had much money – what they did with it on a sudden invasion by the English? and, in particular, Where he supposed to be exactly the middle space between the bridge and the abbey? The man answered all his queries civilly; and, though he sometimes suspected his guest of a little derangement in intellect, gave him what information he could on these abstruse points; manifesting all the while, however, a disposition rather to enter into a debate about some of the modern tenets of religion. This John avoided as much as possible; for, though John was an Antiburgher, he knew little more about the matter, save that his sect was right and all the rest of the world wrong, which was quite sufficient for him; but, finding that the Kelso weaver was not disposed so readily to admit this, he waved the engagement from time to time, and always introduced the more interesting and not less mysterious subject, of purses hidden in the earth.

  Next morning John was early astir, and busily engaged in search of the three-cornered stone; but still with the same success; and ever and anon his investigations brought him to the door of the low-roofed ancient house before mentioned, which he still surveyed with a wistful look, as if desirous to enter. The occupier of this old mansion was a cobler, a man stricken in years, who had a stall in the one end of it, while his wife and daughter kept a small fruit-shop in the other, and by these means earned a decent livelihood. This cobler, being a very industrious man, was at his work both late and early, and had noted all John’s motions the evening before, as well as that morning. Curious to know what were the stranger’s motives in prying so much about his door, he went out and accosted him, just as he was in the act of stooping to clean the dust away from the sides of a broad stone to see what shape it was. As he spoke, John turned round his head and looked at him; but he was so amazed at the figure he saw, that he could not articulate a syllable. ‘What’s the matter w’ye, friend?’ said the cobler; ‘or what is it you hae lost?’ John still could not speak a word; but there he stuck, with his one knee leaning on the ground, his muddy hands hanging at a distance from his body, like a man going to leap, his head turned round, and his mouth open, gaping on this apparition of a cobler. The latter, at once conceiving that he had addressed a maniac, stood and gazed at him in silence and pity. John was the first who broke silence, and certainly his address had not the effect of removing the cobler’s apprehensions. ‘The warld be a wastle us! friend, is this you?’ said John. ‘There’s nae doubt o’t ata’, man,’ returned the cobler; ‘this is me, as sure as that is you; but wha either you or me is, I fancy me or you disna very weel ken.’ ‘Honest man, do you no ken me?’ said John; ‘tell me honestly, did you never see my face afore?’ ‘Why,’ said the cobler, ‘I now think I have seen it before; but where, I do not recollect.’ ‘Was it in the night-time or the day-time that you saw me?’ said John. ‘Certainly, never in the night-time,’ returned the cobler. ‘Then I fancy I am wrang,’ said John; ‘I’m forgetting mysel’, an’ no thinkin what I’m speakin about; but I aux your pardon.’ ‘O there’s nae offence, honest friend,’ quoth the cobler; ‘no ae grain: it is only a sma’ mistake; you thought it was me, and I thought it was you, an’ it seems it turns out to be neither the one nor the other.’ The cobler’s wit was lost upon John, who again sunk into silence and gazed; for he saw that this ancient cobler was the very individual person that had appeared to him in his sleep, and told him of the treasure. And, still to approximate the vision closer to reality, the cobler wore a large three-cocked hat on his head. John was in utter consternation, and knew not what to make of it. He saw that it was not a three-neukit stane which the cobler wore on his head, and though very like one in colour, yet that it had once been felt. Still the hat had such a striking resemblance to the stone which John had so often seen in his vision, that he was satisfied the one was represented by the other. He saw there was something extraordinary in the case, and something that boded him luck; but how to solve this mystery of the three-neukit stane and the cockit hat, John was greatly at a loss. He had no doubt that he had found the cue to the treasure; for he had found this cockit hat exactly mid-way between the bridge and the north corner of the abbey, as nearly as he could judge or measure. It was not indeed a three-neukit stane, but it was very like one; and at any rate, it was the very thing, shape, and size, and all, that he had dreamed about, and under which he had been assured the gold was hid. Above all, here was the very person, in form, voice, size, and feature, whose image had appeared to him in his sleep, and had held repeated conversations with him on the subject of the hidden pose; but then, what was there below the hat save the cobler, and he could not possibly be a pan full of gold and silver? The coincidence was however too striking to be passed over without scrutiny. Even the wisest of men would have been struck with it, and have tried to find out some solution; and curious would I be to know what a wise man, in such a case, would have thought of the matter.

  John, as I said, was the philosopher of nature, and always fixed on the most obvious and simple solutions, in determining on effects from their general causes. He first asked of the cobler a sight of his hat; which being granted, he looked inside of it; but perceiving that there was neither money nor lining of any sort there, he returned it, saying, it was a curious hat. He then asked the cobler, seriously, if he had never swallowed any gold. The other said, he had not to his knowledge. ‘At least,’ said John; ‘you certainly could not swallow any very large quantity? Very weel, then, frien’; if ye’ll be sae gude as to stand a wee bit back.’ The cobler did so; and John, marking the precise spot where he had been standing, and on which he had first seen him in his real corporeal being, went directly to procure mattocks to dig with, thinking it would to a certainty be below that spot, and of course virtually covered by the hat at the time he first saw its ample and triangular form.

  He soon got a pick and spade, and fell to digging on the side of the narrow street with all expedition, to the great amusement of the old cobler, who, for fear of incurring blame from his townsmen, went into his stall, and awaited the issue of this singular adventure.

  Poor John was hungry, and the column of air was become so oppressive on him, that he felt as if his life depended on his success, and wrought with no ordinary exertion. The pit waxed in its dimensions, and deepened exceedingly. He first came to sand, and then to loam, at which time his hopes ran very high, for he found two or three small bones, which he was sure had once formed a part of the body of some immensely rich abbot; and finally, he came t
o a stiff, almost an impenetrable till. Nevertheless he continued to dig, until the town’s people, beginning to move about as the morning advanced, gathered about him, and asked him what he meant? He desired them to mind their own business, and let him mind his; and on this the first comers went away, thinking he was a man employed in repairing the street; but it was not long ere two town officers arrived, and forced him to desist, threatening, that if he refused to comply, and to fill up the hole exactly as he found it, they would carry him to prison, and have him punished. John was forced to yield, and once more abandon his golden dream. He filled up the pit with evident marks of chagrin and disappointment, some averring that they even saw the tears dropping from his eyes, and mixing with the gravel. He had now nothing for it, but to return as he came, and apply to the wretched loom once more. He even knew not where he was to procure a breakfast, and still less how Tibby Stott, poor creature! and the children, were breakfasting at home. The officers asked him whence he came, and what he wanted; but he refused to satisfy them; and after he had made the street as it was, and to their satisfaction, they left him.

  There was something so whimsical in all that the cobler had witnessed, that he determined, if possible, to find out something of the man’s meaning. He dreaded that he was a little deranged in his intellects; still there was a harmless simplicity about the stranger that interested him; and he thought he discerned glimpses of shrewdness that could not possibly be inherent in an ideot. Accordingly, as soon as the crowd had dispersed, and John had lifted his plaid and staff, and blown his nose two or three times, as he took a last look of the bridge and the old abbey, the cobler went out to him, addressed him with kindness, and beseeched him to go in, and take share of his breakfast.

  Thankfully did John accept of the invitation, and seldom has a man done more justice to his entertainer’s hospitality, than our hero did that morning. After despatching a bowlfull of good oat meal parritch, washed down with a bottle of brisk treacle ale, the cobler’s daughter presented them with a large cut of broiled salmon. This rich and solid fare answering John’s complaint exceedingly well, he set to it with so much generous avidity, that the cobler restrained himself, and suffered his guest to realize the greater part of it. The delightful sensations excited by this repast raised John’s heart a little above his late disappointment, and even before the salmon was finished, he had begun to converse with some spirit. But his sphere of conversation was rather of a circumscribed nature, being confined to one object, namely, that of poses hidden in the earth, with its collateral branches. He asked the cobler what sort of men the monks were, who had lived in that grand abbey – Of the abbots that governed them – The sources of their great riches, and how they disposed of these on any invasion by the English.

  There was no subject on which the cobler loved more to converse, having himself come of that race, and, as he assured John, the sixth in descent from the last abbot and a lady of high quality; he, and his forebears so far back, having been the fruits of a Christmas confession; and that, had the establishment still continued, he would in all likelihood have at that day been abbot himself. He showed John an old charter on emblazoned vellum, granted by Malcolm the fourth to the abbey of Kelso, on the removal of the Cistertian Monks from Selkirk to that place; and he talked so long on the customs and usages of the monks, the manner of lives they led, their fasts, holidays, and pilgrimages, that John never thought to be so weary of monachism; no mention having ever been made of their poses, in all this lengthened discourse.

  After breakfast, the cobler pledged John in a bumper of brandy, and then handed his guest another, which John took with a blushing smile, and after holding it up between him and the light to enjoy its pure dark colour, he drank to the good health of the cobler; and, as the greatest blessing on earth that he could think of, wished he might find a good pose.

  The cobler, thinking he now had his guest in the proper key, asked him to explain to him, if he pleased, the motives of his procedure that morning and last night? John laughed with a sly leer, bit his lip, and looking at the women who were bustling but and ben, at length told his host, that if he was to tell him that, he must tell him by himself; on which they went into the stall, and after John had desired the cobler to shut the door, he addressed him as follows:

  ‘Now, ye see, friend, ye’re sic an honest kind man, that I canna refuse to tell you ony thing; an’ for that cause, I’ll tell you the plain truth; but, as I ken you will think me a great fool, I’ll neither tell you my name, nor my wife’s name, nor the name o’ the place where I bide; but it is a wee bit out o’ Kelso; no very far; I can gang hame to my dinner. Ye maun just let that satisfy you on that score. Weel, ye see, disna I dream ae night, that there’s an auld oon-pan, fu’ o’ gold an’ silver, hidden aneath a queer shapen stane, exactly mid-way atween the end o’ your brig an’ the north neuk o’ the auld abbey there; an’ I dreamed it sae aft, that I could get nae rest; for troth it was like to mislead me, an’ pit me by mysel a’ thegither. To sickan a height did the fleegary rin in my imagination, (hee, hee, hee! Is the door closs, think ye?) that I mistook the stane that was happin the pose, and, meaning to pit a mark in it to ken it by, (Will naebody hear us, think ye?) disna I rin a lang sharp bodkin into the head i’ the wrang side o’ my wife, poor creature! till I e’en gart her skirl like a gait, an’ was amaist fleyed her out o’ her wits. An’ there was ae night after that, she ran a greater risk still. Sae, troth, just to prevent me frae fa’ing till her wi’ a pick an’ a spade some night, an’ to see gin it wad help me to ony better blink o’ rest, I was fain to come to Kelso yestreen, to see if there was sic a thing or no. An’ this morning, when you and I first met, for reasons that I needna an’ canna weel explain, I thought I had found the very spot. Now, that’s the main truth, an’ I daresay you will think me a great fool.’

  The cobler, who was mightily amused by this statement of facts, answered as follows: ‘A man, my good friend, may act foolishly at a time, an’ yet no be a’thegither a fool. To be a fool, you see, is to – is to – In short, it’s to be a fool – a born fool like. But it is a Gallic word that, an’ has mony meanings. Now, dreaming disna make a man a fool; but it makes him a fool sae far, that he may play the fool in his dream. He may rise in his sleep, an’ play the fool; but if he dinna play the fool after he wakens, he canna just be ca’d an absolute fool. But it is the fool, who, after he has dreamed, takes a’ his dreams for reality. At least, it is acting very foolishly to do that.’ ‘I thought your speech wad land there,’ said John. ‘No, but stay till I explain myself,’ said the cobler. ‘O, ye needna fash, the thing’s plain enough,’ said John; ‘I maun think about setting awa’ hame.’ ‘Stop a wee bit, man,’ said the cobler, taking hold of John’s coat as he was rising, ‘I hae a queer story to tell you about a purse afore ye gang away, that will explain the matter wi’ mair clearness an’ precision than a’ the learning an’ logic that I’m master o’.

  ‘It is ower true, what I maun tell you, honest man, that I am very ill for dreaming mysel, an’ mony a wild unsonsy dream I hae had; an’ the mair I strave against it, I grew aye the waur. When I was a young child, there was hardly a night that I didna’ dream I was a monk, an’ confessing some ane or ither o’ the bonny lasses an’ wives about Kelso. An’ sic tales as I thought they tauld me! Then, when I saw them again sittin’ i’ the kirk, wi’ their douse decent faces, I couldna’ get their confessions out o’ my mind, gude forgie me! an’ I had some kind o’ inklin’ about my heart, that they were a’ true. There was the folly o’ the thing! Then I had nae sooner closed my een the neist night than I was a monk again, and hard engaged at the auld business. There was ane Bess Kelly, a fine sponkin’ lass, that a’ the lads were like to gang wudd about; I’m sure I confessed Bess mair nor a hunder times i’ my sleep, an’ mony was the sin I pardoned till her.’ John chuckled, and grinned, and made every now and then a long neck by the cobler, to see if the door was close enough shut; but when he reached thus far, John rose, passed him, and f
elt the latch, and though the door was shut, he gave it a push with his shoulder, to make it, if possible, go a little closer. ‘Friend, I can tell you,’ said John; ‘there may be here that ken, an’ here that dinna ken; but that’s a very queer story. So you always dreamed you were a monk?’ ‘So often,’ said the cobler, ‘that the idea became familiar to me; and even in the day time, I often deemed myself one.’ ‘So did I,’ said John, ‘it became familiar to me too, and I thought you a monk both by night and by day.’ The cobler stared at John, and thought him mad in good earnest; but the latter, feeling that he was going to divulge more perhaps than prudence and caution with regard to hidden poses warranted, corrected himself by saying, that he thought he resembled one of that order, in his grave, decent appearance, which was all he meant to say. The cobler then went on.

  ‘Weel, I’m no yet come to the story I was gaun to tell you. I had sic a dream last night, as I hae nae had these twenty years; and, I think, I never had sic a queer dream in my life. An’ then it was sae like your ain, too; for it was about a hidden purse.’ ‘Aye aye, man!’ said John, ‘Gude sauf us! what was’t? but stop a wee till I see if the door be close steekit.’ John again felt the door, gave it another push, and then sat down, with open mouth and ears, to drink in the story of the cobler’s dream.

  ‘I was as usual a monk, and had gane out after vespers to take a walk by the side o’ the Tweed; an’ as I was gaun down by the boat-pool foot, I sees an ill-faur’d-looking carle, something like yoursel’, sitting eating a roll, an’ he’d a living hare lying beside him that he had catched in her den.’ – ‘Hout, friend!’ said John, ‘but did you really dream that?’ ‘In very deed I did,’ said the cobler, ‘why do you doubt it?’ ‘Because, friend,’ said John, ‘they may be here that ken, an’ here that dinna ken; but that’s a very queer dream indeed.’ ‘There’s nae doubt o’t,’ said the cobler; ‘but stay till you hear it out. Weel, I says to the carle, (he was very like you,) friend, will you sell your hare? “Hout na’,” quo’ he, “you palmer bodies are a’ poor, ye hae nae sae muckle siller atween you an’ poverty as wad buy my hare. Ye’re a very poor man, monk, for a’ the rich confessions ye hae made, an’ ye’re a daft man, that’s waur; but, an’ ye wad like to be rich, I can tell you where you will get plenty o’ goud an’ siller.” I thankit the carle, an’ said there were few that wadna’ like to be richer than they were, an’ I had nae objections at a’ to the thing. “Weel, weel,” quo’ he; “he that hides kens best where to seek; but there was mony ane i’ the days o’ langsyne, wha haid weel, but never wan back to howk again. Gang ye your ways west the country the morn, an’ spier for a place they ca’ Middleholm; an’ when ye come there, speer for a man they ca’ John Gray. Gang ye into his garden, an’ ye will find thirteen apple-trees in it, six at the head, an’ six at the foot, an’ ane in the middle.” ’ – ‘Hout friend!’ said John, interrupting him, ‘but are ye no joking? did you really dream that?’ “As sure as yon sun is in the heaven, I did,’ said the cobler; ‘why should you doubt it?’ ‘Because ye see, friend,’ said John, ‘they are here that ken, an’ here that dinna ken; but, let me tell you, that’s a very queer dream indeed. Weel, what did the fearsome carle say mair?’