THE WONDERFUL BAG

There was a morning in it that the gomeral from the Heights of Fearn came into my neighbour's booth at the Fair in Balintore, and began to treat over the price of one thing, and troke over the cost of another, and seek to coff at a poor price. While he did so, he took up swiftly a small bag laid upon her coonter and slipped it into his pooch, but she saw and seized him by the sleeve, crying out for aid and succour.

There was myself and many another went hard to her help, and laid hands upon him, and carried him to the market court, and the judgement was to be held instanter. Here, he had the snash and brass neck to say the bag and what it had within it was his own property, picked up from the coonter where the boothkeeper who before stole it from him had the impudence to display it.

"The gamphrell begunker lees in his stumpy teeth," said the boothholder. "The bag is mine."

"Not so, not so," said the heightsman. "I lost it yesterday, and I slept not all night for thinking on how dear it was to me. Oh, sir, restore it to me or I shall sink down and expire before yer startled een.

"Well, we do not wish you to die. Not in the court, at least," said the market judge. "Since you say your loss is so recent, you will be able to tell me the contents of the bag. Now."

With not a moment of hesitating the heightsman began to enumerate.

"A wise judge indeed. Well, in my bag are two small bottles of best whisky, a handkerchief, two ladles, a cushion, and a comb."

The boothkeeper was widemouthed at the fellow's impudence, and broke in.

"Sir judge. This slee trumper may hae sich stuff in his bag. But in this my bag is but a gaming table, two basins, fourteen knitting needles, a sack of lentils, a pregnant cat, a shorn horned ewe, a lioness with three cubs, two green tents, and a company of twelve boothkeepers of this market all ready to swear that the bag is my own."

The heightsman burst into tears, and between sobs gasped out, "Oh, sir judge, be not deceived by the smooth tongue of this townsman, but be guided only by lofty justice that is not of town or country, but floats above like the fine dew of morning. In this that is my bag as well as I have said there are only two donkeys, a female bear, three foxes of which one wants a tail, a large dog-kennel, a boys' school, a company of soldiers playing dice, a smith's furnace with a horse half-shod, a shepherd's crook, a court with two bailiffs and a jury waiting on the judge to finish his lunch, and fifty men and women from the Heights of Fearn all ready to swear that this bag is my own sole property."

He turned to the boothkeeper, saying, "Deny it if you can!"

The boothkeeper had grown more flushed with ire as the list progressed.

"How can the court be patient enough tae listen calmly tae such stuff? Ah'll tell ye the contents o this my bag, after what ah hae said before. There are two royal burghs with all their buildings and the rivers that run through them and the bridges across those rivers, eight chessplayers of whom two are famous cheats, four are blind men and six are far-seeing women, two long spears, a sea captain and all the sails of his ship, a metalworking factory for the making of spoons and forks, the cathedral of Rheims, enough headache cures and love potions to cure and at the same time enslave with love the whole population of Auld Reekie, an apple orchard and a thousand barrels of cider, and two senior churchmen who will depone upon oath that this bag and all its contents are my own property now and at all times."

"Come, come, sir," broke in the heightsman, striving to be calm. "Listen not to this person. In this my bag are what I told you, and in addition there is a deer park, a thousand mice trained in the arts of martial warfare, the Great Forest of Caledonia, the smell of jasmine, the royal army of the province of Andalucia, Loch Lomond and Loch Katerine, four marriage ceremonies, the country of Lochlann, four Chinese islands, a deaf man playing a clarinet, enough tartan to clothe the wild savages of the Americas, twenty three corn mills all grinding oats to make beer, a hive of wild bees, the Great Black Whale, a plank with a nail sticking out, the Fairy Flag of Skye, a rabbit with half its whiskers shorn off, the brass trumpet that the Archangel Gabriel plays, a dandelion, an anteater, one hundred and seventy six separate squeaks made by different doors in the Palace of Holyrood, the cow that jumped over the moon, the wind that shakes the barley, a lum hat wantin a croon, an eyebrow from the prophet Ezekiel - and a coffin, shroud and razor to be applied to this boothkeeper if she will not recognise my rights and say that the bag is mine and mine alone."

I think," said the market judge, "it is time we opened this bag and saw what are the contents."

In it were a small penknife and a handful of hazelnuts.

"Oh," said the heightsman, "that is not my bag after all. It belongs to the boothkeeper. I do apologise for wasting the court's time."