ow the chap was mad
afore, I was sartain of it now; what do you think of a grown man--little
enough, truly, but out of long coats too--sneaking by night to Pike
Island, to count out a little lot of silver, and to guzzle twelve
gallipots o' honey? There it was, all hashed up in an old shawl, a slimy
mesh like birdlime: no wonder my eye was a leetle blackish, when
half-a-dozen earthern crocks were broken against it. I was angered
enough, I tell you, to think any man could be such a fool as to bring
honey there to eat or to hide--when at once I spied summut red among
the mess; and what should it be but a pretty little China house,
red-brick-like, with a split in the roof for droppings, and ticketed
'Savings-bank:' the chink o' that bank you hears now: and the bank
itself is in the pond, now I've cleaned the till out."

"Wonderful sure! But what did you do with the honey, Ben?--some of the
pots wasn't broke," urged notable Mrs. Acton.

"Oh, burn the slimy stuff, I warn't going to put my mouth out o' taste
o' bacca, for a whole jawful of tooth-aches: I'll tell you, dame, what I
did with them ere crocks, wholes, and parts. There's never a stone on
Pike Island, it's too swampy, and I'd forgot to bring my pocketful, as
usual. The heaviest fish, look you, always lie among the sedge,
hereabouts and thereabouts, and needs stirring, as your Tom knows well;
so I chucked the gallipots fur from me, right and left, into the
shallows, and thereby druv the pike upon my hooks. A good night's work I
made of it too, say nothing of the Savings-bank; forty pound o' pike and
twelve of eel warn't bad pickings."

"Dear, it was a pity though to fling away the honey; but what became of
the shawl, Ben?" Perhaps Mrs. Acton thought of looking for it.

"Oh, as for that, I was minded to have sunk it, with its mess of
sweet-meats and potsherds; but a thought took me, dame, to be
'conomical for once: and I was half sorry too that I'd flung away the
jars, for I began to fancy your little uns might ha' liked the stuff; so
I dipped the clout like any washerwoman, rinshed, and squeezed, and
washed the mess away, and have worn it round my waist ever since; here,
dame, I haven't been this way for a while afore to-night; but I meant to
ask you if you'd like to have it; may be 'tan't the fashion though."

"Good gracious, Ben! why that's Mrs. Quarles's shawl, I'd swear to it
among a hundred; Sarah Stack, at the Hall, once took and wore it, when
Mrs. Quarles