Volume Ii Part 21 (1/2)

”What is that?” said I.

”It is the art,” said he ”that enables us to see things and people as they really are. There is scarcely any thing on this earth really what it appears to be; and this art I have yet to teach you.”

From that day forward he began and performed feats that entirely bewildered my senses, but which furnished, wherever we were, a great fund of amus.e.m.e.nt; all the young people believed him to be in compact with the devil. I have forgot them all but one, which I will remember as long as I live.

We came to a wealthy yeoman's house on the river Urr, where we were to remain several days; and while he exercised the farmer's sons in fencing, I kept the young peasants in exercise--and then in the hall in the evenings he went on with his cantrips. There was a delicious shoulder of bacon hanging up on the farmer's brace, among many meaner hams and pieces of wretched dried flesh. I believe I had fixed my eyes on it, and perhaps my heart a little too. Whether the Gorb noticed this and dreaded the consequences or not, I cannot tell, but he began a speech about things not being what they appeared to be, and offered to give us a striking instance.”

”Take down the choicest and best ham among all these above the fire,”

said he. I did so, taking down the shoulder of bacon with great alacrity.

”Take down the worst,” said he. I did so; it was one of venison dried like a crooked stick.

”Which do you account the best?” said he. I told him. ”Well, you are mistaken,” said he; ”and I'll convince you of it. Roll them both neatly up in straw, or as you will.”

I did so.

”Now, do you know the one from the other?”

”Yes.”

”Very well: heave them up again that you may not be mistaken in the weight. Now, cross your hands, and heave them with different hands.

Quite sensible they are the same?”

”Quite sensible.”

”Very well. Take them aside by yourself and look at them. You will now see them as they really are, not as they appeared to your eyes.”

I hastened and opened out the shoulder of bacon. It was nothing but three dried bones, hanging together by tendons, and stuffed up into the shape of an overgrown shoulder of bacon with brawn, which was covered round with a piece of a sow's hide. I shed some tears at this blighting discovery; for though the bacon was not mine, I felt in my heart that I did not know how matters were to come about. I hung the two hams up as they were, and was cured of my itching eye; but no man can tell how things will come round to the advantage of an acute and clever fellow.

While we were at that house, the country was raised to follow the Lord of Galloway into c.u.mberland. It was a great rising, the utmost quota being demanded of every yeoman in the country, in terms of his villanage. Our landlord got a charge to find five, whereas he had none to send save three, unless he and his eldest son both went, which would have been grievously against him at that time; so he applied to my master and me to go on his behoof, offering large conditions, which were soon accepted. The princ.i.p.al, if not the sole thing that induced me to go out on that raide, was the stipulation that I was to have my choice of all the meat in the house, to the amount of what I could conveniently carry on my back in a march. After a great deal of choosing, I fixed on a small beef-ham, because it was solid, and no bones in it, and blest my master's ingenuity that had let me into the secret of the deceitful shoulder of bacon. The next that came after me was a blade of endless frolic and humour, named Harestanes. He instantly snapped at the bacon-ham, and popped it into his goatskin wallet, nodding his head, and twisting his mouth at me, as much as if he had said, ”What a taste you have! I am glad you had not the sense to take this.” I could easily have prevented him, by revealing the secret; but he had always been trying to make a fool of me, therefore I could scarcely contain my mirth at his mistake, and resolved to enjoy his disappointment in full. He was a sprightly handsome youth, and had such a forward and impertinent manner that he contrived to make friends in every family that we pa.s.sed by, particularly with the women, so that he lacked nothing that he desired; and tho' I watched him night and day for fear of losing the sport, he never took out his bacon to break it up till the fourth day after our departure. My beef-ham was by that time more than half done. It was a most wretched piece of meat, being as hard as wood, and bitter as gall; but I was still comforted with this, that it was so much better than my comrade's.

It was about eight o'clock on a morning, on the English side of the Border, that Harestanes first loosed out his wallet to make a breakfast of his bacon; and he being very hungry, I sat down beside him to enjoy the sport, taking out my black beef likewise. All that I could do I could not retain my gravity while he was loosening the cords, and taking the straw from about his ham, which made him look wistfully at me, and ask what the fool meant? But when I saw him look seriously and greedily at it, and then take out his knife to cut off a great slice, I lost all power, and fell on the ground in a convulsion of laughter, while my voice went away to a perfect wheezle. He could not comprehend me in the least degree, and actually began to cut! yes, he actually began to cut through the bristly skin, while I lay spurring the ground, and screaming with antic.i.p.ation of the grand joke that was to ensue. Before I could recover my sight from amid the tears of extravagant mirth, the scene was changed; and I shall never forget the position in which the puppy sat, when my eyes cleared. No, it is impossible I ever can forget it!

Conceive a wicked impertinent frolicksome whelp of a tailor, for he was nothing better, who had been with Sir Robert Graham's maids all the night, and was so hungry that you might almost have cast a knot on him, sit down to take a hearty luncheon of his bacon ham; and then conceive his looks when he found he had nothing but rubbish and dry bones. If you conceive these, you will conceive the very scene that I saw, at least that I conceived and saw in my mind's eye. How could I but laugh?