It was deep midnight
before his anxious mind could settle itself into sleep. Again the
golden dream was repeated, and again he saw his garden teeming with
ingots and money-bags.
Wolfert rose the next morning in complete bewilderment. A dream three
times repeated was never known to lie; and if so, his fortune was made.
In his agitation he put on his waistcoat with the hind part before, and
this was a corroboration of good luck. He no longer doubted that a huge
store of money lay buried somewhere in his cabbage-field, coyly waiting
to be sought for, and he half repined at having so long been scratching
about the surface of the soil, instead of digging to the centre.
He took his seat at the breakfast-table full of these speculations;
asked his daughter to put a lump of gold in to his tea, and on handing
his wife a plate of slap-jacks, begging her to help herself to a
doubloon.
His grand care now was how to secure this immense treasure without it
being known. Instead of working regularly in his grounds in the
day-time, he now stole from his bed at night, and with spade and
pickaxe, went to work to rip up and dig about his paternal acres, from
one end to the other. In a little time the whole garden, which had
presented such a goodly and regular appearance, with its phalanx of
cabbages, like a vegetable army in battle array, was reduced to a scene
of devastation, while the relentless Wolfert, with nightcap on head,
and lantern and spade in hand, stalked through the slaughtered ranks,
the destroying angel of his own vegetable world.
