The Man of Gotham and his Cheeses.

One hot summer’s day a man of Gotham was on his way to Nottingham market to sell his cheeses, which he carried in a bag slung across his shoulder. He found the heat oppressive, and his load so troublesome, that he could not help bewailing his lot in the following words—“Unfortunate man that I am, why have I not a cart like neighbour Dobbins, or even a barrow like old Mathews? My good woman will make so many cheeses that I have no rest any market day. But now I have it; she is a shrewd woman, and I will propose to her to make the cheeses so that they can walk to market, and then I need only walk by the side of them, to see that they do not loiter or play by the way. I wonder she never thought of that.”

This bright idea consoled him and made him forget even his load for a time, but it weighed so heavily upon him that he was soon recalled to his misfortunes, and as he trudged along he constantly changed the bag from one shoulder to the other. Now with these frequent changes the mouth of the bag had got loose, and just as he reached the top of the hill, looking down upon the bridge and Nottingham in the distance, one of the cheeses fell out and rolled down the hill.

He watched it for a time, and as it kept so well to the road, neither turning to one side nor the other, but jumping over the stones that lay in its way, he exclaimed in delight, “Well done, well done, keep on like that, my good friend, and you’ll soon be at your journey’s end! It was foolish of my old woman not to tell me that they could run by themselves, but now that I have found it out, I’m not going to carry the lazy things a step farther.”

Having come to this wise resolution he bundled the cheeses out of the bag, and, as they rolled down the hill, cried after them, “There, follow your companion; but you need not run so fast, for I shall rest myself a bit and then walk leisurely after you. Now,[233]
[234] mind you all meet me in the market-place.” He watched them with the greatest satisfaction as they ran down the hill and over the bridge, when, the road turning suddenly, they were lost to his sight; and then, too, they all left the road, some running into one bush and some into another, whilst the rest got no further than the ditch by the roadside.

After a short rest the worthy man went on his way to Nottingham, without troubling his mind about the cheeses, as he fully expected to find them waiting for him in the market-place; but when he got there he was somewhat astonished to find that they had not yet arrived. “No doubt,” he said to himself, “as soon as they were out of my sight they got to some of their games in some field or another. That is always the way, but they’ll be here soon.” When, however, the market time was nearly over, and the cheeses had not appeared, he inquired of the market people whether they had seen them. No one had seen his cheeses, and when he was asked who brought them he said,—

“No one brought them. Sure they were quite able to come by themselves, as you would say if you had seen them running along the road; but now I think of it, they were going at such a rate that they are no doubt half way on their road to York by now.” So he hired a horse and rode off towards York to try and overtake them, but strange to say he did not overtake them, nor indeed did he ever see them again, nor hear any tidings of them.