The Rival Dreamers

"Brave and early, faix, sir," said Shamus, still hurrying off.

"Stop a bit," resumed the publican. Shamus stood still. "I see you're a countryman of mine --an Irishman; I'd know one of you at a look, though I'm a long time out of the country. And you're not very well off on London Bridge this morning, either."

"No, indeed, sir," replied Shamus, beginning to doubt his skill in physiognomy, at the stranger's kind address; "but as badly off as a body 'ud wish to be."

"Come over to look for the work?"

"Nien, sir; but come out this morning to beg a ha'-penny, to send me a bit of the road home."

"Well, here's a silver sixpence without asking. And you'd better sit on the bench by the door here, and eat a crust and a cut of cheese, and drink a drop of good ale, to break your fast."

With profuse thanks Shamus accepted this kind invitation, blaming himself at heart for having allowed his opinion of the charitable publican to be guided by the expression of the man's features. "Handsome is that handsome does," was Shamus's self-correcting reflection.

While eating his bread and cheese and drinking his strong ale, they conversed freely together, and Shamus's heart opened more and more to his benefactor. The publican repeatedly asked him what had brought him to London; and though, half out of prudence and half out of shame, the dreamer at first evaded the question, he felt it at last impossible to refuse a candid answer to his generous friend.

"Why, then, sir, only I am such a big fool for telling it to you, it's what brought me to Lunnon Bridge was a quare dhrame I had at home in Ireland, that tould me just to come here, and I'd find a pot of goold." For such was the interpretation given by Shamus to the vague admonition of his visionary counsellor.

His companion burst into a loud laugh, saying after it:

"Pho, pho, man, don't be so silly as to put faith in nonsensical dreams of that kind. Many a one like it I have had, if I would bother my head with them. Why, within the last ten days, while you were dreaming of finding a pot of gold on London Bridge, I was dreaming of finding a pot of gold in Ireland."

"Ullaloo, and were you, sir?" asked Shamus, laying down his empty pint.

"Ay, indeed; night after night an old friar with a pale face, and dressed all in white and black, and a black skull-cap on his head, came to me in a dream, and bid me go to Ireland, to a certain spot in a certain county that I know very well, and under the slab of his tomb, that has a cross and some old Romish letters on it, in an old abbey I often saw before now, I'd find a treasure that would make me a rich man all the days of my life."

"Musha, sir," asked Shamus, scarce able prudently to control his agitation," and did he tell you that the treasure lay buried there ever so long under the open sky and the ould walls?"

"No; but he told me I was to find the slab covered in by a shed that a poor man had lately built inside the abbey for himself and his family."

"Whoo, by the powers!" shouted Shamus, at last thrown off his guard by the surpassing joy derived from this intelligence, as well as by the effects of the ale; and at the same time he jumped up, cutting a caper with his legs, and flourishing his shillalah.

"Why, what's the matter with you?" asked his friend, glancing at him a frowning and misgiving look.

"We ax pardon, sir." Shamus rallied his prudence. "An', sure, sorrow a thing is the matter wid me, only the dhrop, I believe, made me do it, as it ever and always does, good luck to it for the same. An' isn't what we were spaking about the biggest raumaush [Footnote: Nonsense.] undher the sun, sir? Only it's the laste bit in the world quare to me how you'd have the dhrame about your own country, that you didn't see for so many years, sir--for twenty long years, I think you said, sir?" Shamus had now a new object in putting his sly question.

"If I said so, I forgot," answered the publican, his suspicions of Shamus at an end. "But it is about twenty years, indeed, since I left Ireland."

"And by your speech, sir, and your dacency, I 'll engage you were in a good way in the poor place afore you left it?"

"You guess correctly, friend." (The publican gave way to vanity.) "Before misfortunes came over me, I possessed, along with a good hundred acres besides, the very ground that the old ruin I saw in the foolish dream I told you stands upon."

"An' so did my curse-o'-God's uncle," thought Shamus, his heart's blood beginning to boil, though, with a great effort, he kept himself seemingly cool. "And this is the man fornent me, if he answers another word I 'll ax him. Faix, sir, and sure that makes your dhrame quarer than ever; and the ground the ould abbey is on, sir, and the good acres round it, did you say they lay somewhere in the poor county myself came from?"

"What county is that, friend?" demanded the publican, again with a studious frown.

"The ould County Monaghan, sure, sir," replied Shamus, very deliberately.

"No, but the county of Clare," answered his companion.

"Was it?" screamed Shamus, again springing up. The cherished hatred of twenty years imprudently bursting out, his uncle lay stretched at his feet, after a renewed flourish of his cudgel. "And do you know who you are telling it to this morning? Did you ever hear that the sisther you kilt left a bit of a gorsoon behind her, that one day or other might overhear you? Ay," he continued, keeping down the struggling man, "IT IS poor Shamus Dempsey that's kneeling by you; ay, and that has more to tell you. The shed built over the old friar's tombstone was built by the hands you feel on your throttle, and that tombstone is his hearthstone; and," continued Shamus, beginning to bind the prostrate man with a rope snatched from a bench near them, "while you lie here awhile, an' no one to help you, in the cool of the morning, I'll just take a start of you on the road home, to lift the flag and get the threasure; and follow me if you dare! You know there's good money bid for your head in Ireland--so here goes. Yes, faith, and wid this-THIS to help me on the way!" He snatched up a heavy purse which had fallen from his uncle's pocket in the struggle. "And sure, there's neither hurt nor harm in getting back a little of a body's own from you. A bright goodmorning, uncle dear!"

Shamus dragged his manacled relative into the shop, quickly shut to and locked the door, flung the key over the house into the Thames, and the next instant was running at headlong speed.

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