inquired of the countryman
if he knew, who, seeing some advantage in secrecy,
pleaded ignorance of the locality, and then, thinking
his business in London was completed, returned
immediately home, dug beneath the bush, and there he
found a pot filled with gold, and on the cover an
inscription in a language which he did not understand.
The pot and cover were, however, preserved at the
village inn, where one day a bearded stranger like a
Jew, made his appearance, saw the pot, and read the
inscription on the cover, the plain English of which
was--

"'Look lower, where this stood
Is another twice as good.'

The man of Upsall hearing this resumed his spade,
returned to the bush, dug deeper, and found another
pot filled with gold, far more valuable than the
first. Encouraged by this discovery, he dug deeper
still, and found another yet more valuable.

"This is the constant tradition of the neighbourhood,
and the identical bush yet exists (or did in 1860)
beneath which the treasure was found; a burtree, or
elder, _Sambucus nigra_, near the north-west corner of
the ruins of the old castle."[17]

It would be tedious to go through other English versions,[18] but I
must point out that it is connected with a London district. This is
shown not by the actual presence of the legend, which has died out in
London, but by its representation in the parish church of Lambeth. The
legend so strongly current at Swaffham, in Norfolk, is represented in
the church in the shape of a carving in wood of a figure to represent
the pedlar, and below him the figure of what is locally called a
dog.[19] A comparison of this carving with the representation of the
pedlar's window formerly existing in Lambeth Church, but which was
sacrilegiously removed in 1884 by the late vicar of the parish, shows
much the same general characteristics, and search among the parish
books shows it to relate to a pedlar known by the name of Dog Smith,
who left property still known by the name of the "Pedlar's Acre" to
the parish.[20] All this suggests that we have here the last relics of
the pedlar legend located in London.

[Illustration: THE PEDLAR OF LAMBETH AND HIS DOG
FIGURED IN THE WINDOW (NOW DESTROYED) OF LAMBETH CHURCH]

The next stage in the history of this legend shows it to belong to the
world's collection of