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.