Tales of Three Hemispheres

  THE SACK OF EMERALDS

  One bad October night in the high wolds beyond Wiltshire, with a northwind chaunting of winter, with the old leaves letting go their holdone by one from branches and dropping down to decay, with a mournfulsound of owls, and in fearsome loneliness, there trudged in brokenboots and in wet and windy rags an old man, stooping low under a sackof emeralds. It were easy to see had you been travelling late on thatinauspicious night, that the burden of the sack was far too great forthe poor old man that bore it. And had you flashed a lantern in hisface there was a look there of hopelessness and fatigue that wouldhave told you it was no wish of his that kept him tottering on underthat bloated sack.

  When the menacing look of the night and its cheerless sounds, and thecold, and the weight of the sack, had all but brought him to the doorof death, and he had dropped his sack onto the road and was draggingit on behind him, just as he felt that his final hour was come, andcome (which was worse) as he held the accursed sack, just then he sawthe bulk and the black shape of the Sign of the Lost Shepherd loom upby the ragged way. He opened the door and staggered into the lightand sank on a bench with his huge sack beside him.

  All this you had seen had you been on that lonely road, so late onthose bitter wolds, with their outlines vast and mournful in the dark,and their little clumps of trees sad with October. But neither younor I were out that night. I did not see the poor old man and hissack until he sank down all of a heap in the lighted inn.

  And Yon the blacksmith was there; and the carpenter, Willie Losh; andJackers, the postman's son. And they gave him a glass of beer. Andthe old man drank it up, still hugging his emeralds.

  And at last they asked him what he had in his sack, the question heclearly dreaded; and he only clasped yet tighter the sodden sack andmumbled he had potatoes.

  "Potatoes," said Yon the blacksmith.

  "Potatoes," said Willie Losh.

  And when he heard the doubt that was in their voices the old manshivered and moaned.

  "Potatoes, did you say?" said the postman's son. And they all threerose and tried to peer at the sack that the rain-soaked wayfarer sozealously sheltered.

  And from the old man's fierceness I had said that, had it not been forthat foul night on the roads and the weight he had carried so far andthe fearful winds of October, he had fought with the blacksmith, thecarpenter and the postman's son, all three, till he beat them awayfrom his sack. And weary and wet as he was he fought them hard.

  I should no doubt have interfered; and yet the three men meant no harmto the wayfarer, but resented the reticence that he displayed to themthough they had given him beer; it was to them as though a master keyhad failed to open a cupboard. And, as for me, curiosity held me downto my chair and forbade me to interfere on behalf of the sack; for theold man's furtive ways, and the night out of which he came, and thehour of his coming, and the look of his sack, all made me long as muchto know what he had, as even the blacksmith, the carpenter and thepostman's son.

  And then they found the emeralds. They were all bigger than hazelnuts, hundreds and hundreds of them: and the old man screamed.

  "Come, come, we're not thieves," said the blacksmith.

  "We're not thieves," said the carpenter.

  "We're not thieves," said the postman's son.

  And with awful fear on his face the wayfarer closed his sack,whimpering over his emeralds and furtively glancing round as thoughthe loss of his secret were and utterly deadly thing. And then theyasked him to give them just one each, just one huge emerald each,because they had given him a glass of beer. Then to see the wayfarershrink against his sack and guard it with clutching fingers one wouldhave said that he was a selfish man, were it not for the terror thatwas freezing his face. I have seen men look sheer at Death with farless fear.

  And they took their emerald all three, one enormous emerald each,while the old man hopelessly struggled till he saw his three emeraldsgo, and fell to the floor and wept, a pitiable, sodden heap.

  And about that time I began to hear far off down the windy road, bywhich that sack had come, faintly at first and slowly louder andlouder, the click clack clop of a lame horse coming nearer. Clickclack clop and a loose shoe rattling, the sound of a horse too wearyto be out upon such a night, too lame to be out at all.

  Click clack clop. And all of a sudden the old wayfarer heard it;heard it above the sound of his won sobbing, and at once went white tothe lips. Such sudden fear as blanched him in a moment struck rightto the hearts of all there. They muttered to him that it was onlytheir play, they hastily whispered excuses, they asked him what waswrong, but seemed scarcely to hope for an answer, nor did he speak,but sat with a frozen stare, all at once dry-eyed, a monument toterror.

  Nearer and nearer came the click clack clop.

  And when I saw the expression of that man's face and how its horrordeepened as the ominous sound drew nearer, then I knew that somethingwas wrong. And looking for the last time upon all four I saw thewayfarer horror-struck by his sack and the other three crowding roundto put their huge emeralds back then, even on such a night, I slippedaway from the inn.

  Outside the bitter wind roared in my ears, and close in the darknessthe horse went click clack clop.

  And as soon as my eyes could see at all in the night I saw a man in ahuge hat looped up in front, wearing a sword in a scabbard shabby andhuge, and looking blacker than the darkness, riding on a lean horseslowly up to the inn. Whether his were the emeralds, or who he was,or why he rode a lame horse on such a night, I did not stop todiscover, but went at once from the inn as he strode in his greatblack riding coat up to the door.

  And that was the last that was ever seen of the wayfarer; theblacksmith, the carpenter or the postman's son.