as in; they would have found the treasures long ago by that
writing, only the treasure is under a spell, you can't get at it."

"Why can't you get at it, grandfather?" asked the young man.

"I suppose there is some reason, the soldier didn't say. It is under a
spell... you need a talisman."

The old man spoke with warmth, as though he were pouring out his soul
before the overseer. He talked through his nose and, being unaccustomed
to talk much and rapidly, stuttered; and, conscious of his defects, he
tried to adorn his speech with gesticulations of the hands and head and
thin shoulders, and at every movement his hempen shirt crumpled into
folds, slipped upwards and displayed his back, black with age and
sunburn. He kept pulling it down, but it slipped up again at once. At
last, as though driven out of all patience by the rebellious shirt, the
old man leaped up and said bitterly:

"There is fortune, but what is the good of it if it is buried in the
earth? It is just riches wasted with no profit to anyone, like chaff or
sheep's dung, and yet there are riches there, lad, fortune enough for
all the country round, but not a soul sees it! It will come to this,
that the gentry will dig it up or the government will take it away. The
gentry have begun digging the barrows.... They scented something! They
are envious of the peasants' luck! The government, too, is looking after
itself. It is written in the law that if any peasant finds the treasure
he is to take it to the authorities! I dare say, wait till you get it!
There is a brew but not for you!"

The old man laughed contemptuously and sat down on the ground. The
overseer listened with attention and agreed, but from his silence and
the expression of his figure it was evident that what the old man told
him was not new to him, that he had thought it all over long ago, and
knew much more than was known to the old shepherd.

"In my day, I must own, I did seek for fortune a dozen times," said the
old man, scratching himself nervously. "I looked in the right places,
but I must have come on treasures under a charm. My father looked for
it, too, and my brother, too--but not a thing did they find, so they
died without luck. A monk revealed to my brother Ilya--the Kingdom of
Heaven be his--that in one place in the fortress of Taganrog there was
a treasure under three stones, and that that treasure was under a charm,
and in those days--it was, I remember, in the year '38--an Armenia