“Is it true, Ben, is it true? the lad isn’t a thief, the lad isn’t a murderer?  Oh, God!  Burke, tell me the truth!

“Blockhead!” was the courteous reply, “what, not believe your own son?  Why, neighbour Acton, look at the boy:  would that frank-faced, open-hearted fellow do worse, think you, than Black Burke?  And would I, bad as I be, turn the bloody villain to take a man’s life?  No, neighbour; Ben kills game, not keepers:  he sets his wire for a hare, but wouldn’t go to pick a dead man’s pocket.  All that’s wrong in me, mun, the game-laws put there; but I’m neither burglar, murderer, highwayman—­no, nor a mean, sneaking thief; however the quality may think so, and even wish to drive me to it.  Neither, being as I be no rogue, could I bear to live a fool; but I should be one, neighbour, and dub myself one too, if I didn’t stoop to pick up money that a madman flings away.”

“Madman? pick up money? tell us how it was, Ben,” interposed female curiosity.

“Well, neighbours, listen:  I was a-setting my night-lines round Pike Island yonder, more nor a fortnight back; it was a dark night and a mizzling, or morning rather, ’twixt three and four; by the same token, I’d caught a power of eels.  All at once, while I was fixing a trimmer, a punt came quietly up:  as for me, Roger, you know I always wades it through the muddy shallow:  well, I listens, and a chap creeps ashore—­a mad chap, with never a tile to his head, nor a sole to his feet—­and when I sings out to ax him his business, the lunatic sprung at me like a tiger:  I didn’t wish to hurt a little weak wretch like him, specially being past all sense, poor nat’ral! so I shook him off at once, and held him straight out in this here wice.” [Ben’s grasp could have cracked any cocoa-nut.] “He trembled like a wicked thing; and when I peered close into his face, blow me but I thought I’d hooked a white devil—­no one ever see such a face:  it was horrible too look at.  ’What are you arter, mun?’ says I; ‘burying a dead babby?’ says I.  ’Give us hold here—­I’m bless’d if I don’t see though what you’ve got buckled up there.’  With that, the little white fool—­it’s sartin he was mad—­all on a sudden flings at my head a precious hard bundle, gives a horrid howl, jumps into the punt, and off again, afore I could wink twice.  My head a’n’t a soft un, I suppose; but when a lunatic chap hurls at it with all his might a barrow-load of crockery at once, it’s little wonder that my right eye flinched a minute, and that my right hand rubbed my right eye; and so he freed himself, and got clear off.  Rum start this, thinks I:  but any how he’s flung away a summut, and means to give it me:  what can it be? thinks I. Well, neighbours, if I didn’t know 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,