It was almost dark, when going into the brokers market, we saw
abundance of things to be bought and sold: of no extraordinary value,
'tis true; yet such whose night-walking trade, the dusk of the evening
might easily conceal. We also had the mantle with us, and taking the
opportunity of a blind corner, fell a shaking the skirt of it, to try
if so glittering a shew would bring us a purchaser; nor had we been
long there, e're a certain country-man, whom I thought I had seen
before, came up to us with a hussye that follow'd him, and began to
consider the mantle more narrowly, as on rhe other side did Ascyltos
our country chapman's shoulders, which presently startled him, and
struck him dumb, nor could my self behold 'em without being concern'd
at it, for he seemed to me to be the same fellow that had found the
coat in the wood, as in truth he was: But Ascyltos doubting whether he
might trust his eyes or not, and that he might not do any thing
rashly, first came nearer to him as a buyer, and taking the coat from
his shoulders, began to cheapen, and turn it more carefully. O the
wonderful vagaries of fortune! for the country-man had not so much as
examined a seam of it, but carelessly exposed it as beggars-booty.
Ascyltos seeing the coat unript, and the person of the seller
contemptible, took me aside from the crowd: And "Don't you see,
brother," said he, "the treasure I made such moan about is returned?
That's the coat with the gold in't, all safe and untoucht: What
therefore do we do, or what course shall we take to get our own
again?"
I now comforted, not so much that I had seen the booty, but had
clear'd my self of the suspicion that lay upon me, was by no means for
going about the bush, but down-right bringing an action against him,
that if the fellow would not give up the coat to the right owner, we
might recover it by law:
Laws bear the name, but money has the power;
The cause is bad when e'er the client's poor:
Those strickt liv'd men that seem above our world
Are oft too modest to resist our gold.
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