< The Dream of the Swaffham Tinker (continued from page 8-340) >
joy to be full of money. After securing his treasure, he observed on the lid of the box an inscription which, unlearned as he was, he could not decipher. But by a stratagem he got the inscription read, without any suspicion on the part of his neighbours, by some of the Grammar School lads, and found it to be—
Where this stood |
And in truth, on digging again, the lucky tinker disinterred, below the place where the first chest had lain, a second, twice as large, also full of gold and silver coin. It is stated that, become thus a wealthy man, the tinker showed his thankfulness to Providence by building a new chancel to the church, the old one being out of repair. “And whatever fiction the marvellous taste of those ages may have mixed, up with the tale, certain it is that there is shown to this day a monument in Swaffham Church, having an effigy in marble, said to be that of the tinker, with his dog at his side, and his tools and implements of trade lying about him.” Notwithstanding this exceedingly direct and conclusive evidence of the veracity of the story of the tinker’s dream—a very good story of its kind—the machinery employed seems to have been too clumsy ever to have been contrived by that “Providence” to which the tinker ascribed his good fortune; for nothing could be more superfluous than to send a man to London to get information about a treasure in his own garden, from a man who knew nothing about that treasure but what lie had learned from a dream-warning which, fortunately for the other dreamer, he did not obey.
The Aria Samaj
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A Theory of Mediumship
...<... continues on page 8-343 >
Editor's notes