“Mighty well! I thank your honour,” said Tim; “and ’twas a good beast I rode, surely!”
There was a great laugh at Tim’s answer; and then there was a whispering, and a great cugger mugger, and coshering; and at last, a pretty little bit of a voice said, “Shut your eyes, and you’ll see, Tim.”
“By my word, then,” said Tim, “that is the queer way of seeing; but I’m not the man to gainsay you, so I’ll do as you bid me, any how.” Presently he felt a small warm hand rubbed over his eyes with an ointment, and in the next minute he saw himself in the middle of thousands of little men and women, not half so high as his brogue, that were pelting one another with golden guineas and lily white thirteens[32], as if they were so much dirt. The finest dressed and the biggest of them all went up to Tim, and says he, “Tim Jarvis, because you are a decent, honest, quiet, civil, well-spoken man,” says he, “and know how to behave yourself in strange company, we’ve altered our minds about you, and will find a neighbour of yours that will do just as well to give to the old serpent.”
“Oh, then, long life to you, sir!” said Tim, “and there’s no doubt of that.”
“But what will you say, Tim,” inquired the little fellow, “if we fill your pockets with these yellow boys? What will you say, Tim, and what will you do with them?”
“Your honour’s honour, and your honour’s glory,” answered Tim, “I’ll not be able to say my prayers for one month with thanking you—and indeed I’ve enough to do with them. I’d make a grand lady, you see, at once of Norah—she has been a good wife to me. We’ll have a nice bit of pork for dinner; and, may be, I’d have a glass, or may be two glasses; or sometimes, if ’twas with a friend, or acquaintance, or gossip, you know, three glasses every day; and I’d build a new cabin; and I’d have a fresh egg every morning, myself, for my breakfast; and I’d snap my fingers at the ‘squire, and beat his hounds, if they’d come coursing through my fields; and I’d have a new plough; and Norah, your honour, would have a new cloak, and the boys would have shoes and stockings as well as Biddy Leary’s brats—that’s my sister that was—and Nelly would marry Bill Long of Affadown; and, your honour, I’d have some corduroy for myself to make breeches, and a cow, and a beautiful coat with shining buttons, and a horse to ride, or may be two. I’d have every thing,” said Tim, “in life, good or bad, that is to be got for love or money—hurra-whoop!—and that’s what I’d do.”
“Take care, Tim,” said the little fellow, “your money would not go faster than it came, with your hurra-whoop.”
But Tim heeded not this speech: heaps of gold were around him, and he filled and filled away as hard as he could, his coat and his waistcoat and his breeches pockets; and he thought himself very clever, moreover, because he stuffed some of the guineas into his brogues. When the little people perceived this, they cried out—“Go home, Tim Jarvis, go home, and think yourself a lucky man.”
“I hope, gentlemen,” said he, “we won’t part for good and all; but may be ye’ll ask me to see you again, and to give you a fair and square account of what I’ve done with your money.”