第12章 THE GARDENER AND THE GUINEA(2)

He possessed the garden intellectually and spiritually,while I only possessed it politically.I know more about flowers than coal-owners know about coal;for at least I pay them honour when they are brought above the surface of the earth.I know more about gardens than railway shareholders seem to know about railways:for at least I know that it needs a man to make a garden;a man whose name is Adam.But as I walked on that grass my ignorance overwhelmed me--and yet that phrase is false,because it suggests something like a storm from the sky above.It is truer to say that my ignorance exploded underneath me,like a mine dug long before;and indeed it was dug before the beginning of the ages.

Green bombs of bulbs and seeds were bursting underneath me everywhere;and,so far as my knowledge went,they had been laid by a conspirator.Itrod quite uneasily on this uprush of the earth;the Spring is always only a fruitful earthquake.With the land all alive under me I began to wonder more and more why this man,who had made the garden,did not own the garden.If I stuck a spade into the ground,I should be astonished at what I found there ...and just as I thought this I saw that the gardener was astonished too.

Just as I was wondering why the man who used the spade did not profit by the spade,he brought me something he had found actually in my soil.It was a thin worn gold piece of the Georges,of the sort which are called,I believe,Spade Guineas.Anyhow,a piece of gold.

If you do not see the parable as I saw it just then,I doubt if I can explain it just now.He could make a hundred other round yellow fruits:

and this flat yellow one is the only sort that I can make.How it came there I have not a notion--unless Edmund Burke dropped it in his hurry to get back to Butler's Court.But there it was:this is a cold recital of facts.There may be a whole pirate's treasure lying under the earth there,for all I know or care;for there is no interest in a treasure without a Treasure Island to sail to.If there is a treasure it will never be found,for I am not interested in wealth beyond the dreams of avarice since I know that avarice has no dreams,but only insomnia.And,for the other party,my gardener would never consent to dig up the garden.

Nevertheless,I was overwhelmed with intellectual emotions when I saw that answer to my question;the question of why the garden did not belong to the gardener.No better epigram could be put in reply than simply putting the Spade Guinea beside the Spade.This was the only underground seed that I could understand.Only by having a little more of that dull,battered yellow substance could I manage to be idle while he was active.

I am not altogether idle myself;but the fact remains that the power is in the thin slip of metal we call the Spade Guinea,not in the strong square and curve of metal which we call the Spade.And then I suddenly remembered that as I had found gold on my ground by accident,so richer men in the north and west counties had found coal in their ground,also by accident.

I told the gardener that as he had found the thing he ought to keep it,but that if he cared to sell it to me it could be valued properly,and then sold.He said at first,with characteristic independence,that he would like to keep it.He said it would make a brooch for his wife.But a little later he brought it back to me without explanation.I could not get a ray of light on the reason of his refusal;but he looked lowering and unhappy.Had he some mystical instinct that it is just such accidental and irrational wealth that is the doom of all peasantries?

Perhaps he dimly felt that the boy's pirate tales are true;and that buried treasure is a thing for robbers and not for producers.Perhaps he thought there was a curse on such capital:on the coal of the coal-owners,on the gold of the gold-seekers.Perhaps there is.