I be where I be," he said. "If you'll excuse me,
Miss Phil, I don't hold with bein' flogged before breakfast, at my time
o' life." He's a huge big man, but he looked so comical squatting among
the hives that--I know I oughtn't to--I laughed, and he laughed. I
always laugh at the wrong time. But I soon recovered my dignity, and I
said, "Then give me back what you made poor Cissie steal!"

'"Your pore Cissie," he said. "She's a hatful o' trouble. But you shall
have 'em, Miss Phil. They're all ready put by for you." And, would you
believe it, the old sinner pulled my three silver spoons out of his
dirty pocket, and polished them on his cuff! "Here they be," he says,
and he gave them to me, just as cool as though I'd come to have my warts
charmed. That's the worst of people having known you when you were
young. But I preserved my composure. "Jerry," I said, "what in the world
are we to do? If you'd been caught with these things on you, you'd have
been hanged."

'"I know it," he said. "But they're yours now."

'"But you made my Cissie steal them," I said.

'"That I didn't," he said. "Your Cissie, she was pickin' at me and
tarrifyin' me all the long day an' every day for weeks, to put a charm
on you, Miss Phil, and take away your little spitty cough."

'"Yes, I knew that, Jerry, and to make me flesh up!" I said. "I'm much
obliged to you, but I'm not one of your pigs!"

'"Ah! I reckon she've been talking to you, then," he said. "Yes, she
give me no peace, and bein' tarrified--for I don't hold with old
women--I laid a task on her which I thought 'ud silence her. _I_ never
reckoned the old scrattle 'ud risk her neckbone at Lewes Assizes for
your sake, Miss Phil. But she did. She up an' stole, I tell ye, as
cheerful as a tinker. You might ha' knocked me down with any one of them
liddle spoons when she brung 'em in her apron."

'"Do you mean to say, then, that you did it to try my poor Cissie?" I
screamed at him.

'"What else for, dearie?" he said. "_I_ don't stand in need of
hedge-stealings. I'm a freeholder, with money in the bank; and now I
won't trust women no more! Silly old besom! I do beleft she'd ha' stole
the Squire's big fob-watch, if I'd required her."

'"Then you're a wicked, wicked old man," I said, and I was so angry that
I couldn't help crying, and of course that made me cough.

'Jerry was in a fearful taking. He picked me up and carried me into his
cottage--it's full of foreign curiosities--and he got m