and finished all the touches with sand-paper. This
story of '_The Crock of Gold_' purports to be a Dutch picture, as
becometh boors, their huts, their short and simple annals; so that,
after its moralities, the mass of minute detail is the only thing that
gives it any value.

Now, whilst all of you have been yawning through these egotistic
phrases, Roger has been digging in his garden; there he is, pecking away
at what once was the celery-bed, but now are fallow trenches; celery, as
we all know, is a water-loving plant, doing best in marshy-land, so no
wonder the trenches open on the sedge, and the muddy shallow opposite
Pike Island puddles up to them. There needs be no suspense, no mystery
at all; Roger's dream had clearly sent him thither, for he should not
have levelled those trenches yet awhile, it was a little too soon--bad
husbandry; and, barring the appearance of a devil, Roger's dream came
true. Yes, under the roots of a clump of bullrush, he lifted out with
his spade--a pot of Narbonne honey!

When first he spied the pot, his heart was in his mouth--it must be
gold, and with tottering knees he raised the precious burden. But, woful
disappointment! the word "Honey," with plenty of French and Fortnum on
another pasted label, stared him in the face; it was sweet and slimy too
about the neck; there was no sort of jingle when he shook the crock;
what though it be heavy?--honey's heavy; and it was tied over quite in a
common way with pig's bladder, and his clumsy trembling fingers could
not undo that knot; and thus, with a miserable sense of cheated poverty,
he threw it down beside the path, and would, perhaps, have flung it
right away in sheer disgust, but for the reflection that the little ones
might like it. Once, indeed, the glorious doubt of maybe gold came back
upon his mind, and he lifted up the spade to smash the baffling pot, and
so make sure of what it might contain;--make sure, eh? why, you would
only lose the honey, whispered domestic economy. So he left the jar to
be opened by his wife when he should go in.

CHAPTER XIV.

JONATHAN'S STORE.

And where has Mrs. Acton been all this morning? Off to the
Hall, very soon after Grace had got away; and she rung at the side
entrance, hard by the kitchen, most fortunately caught Sarah Stack
about, and had a good long gossip with her; telling her, open-mouthed,
all about Ben Burke having found a shawl of Mrs. Quarles's on the
island; and how, it being