at once, to save one’s self a vast deal of unnecessary trouble.  And, for mere tale-telling, this may be sufficient.  What need to burden memory with imaginary statements, or to weary out one’s sympathies on trite fictitious woes?—­come to the catastrophe at once:  the uncle hanged; the heir righted; the heroine, an orange-flowered bride; and the white-headed grandmother, after all her wrongs, winding up the story with a prudent moral.  Now, this may all be very well with histories that merely carry a sting in the tail, whose moral is the warning of the rattlesnake, and whose hot-exciting interest is posted with the scorpion’s venom.  They are the Dragon of Wantley, with one caudal point—­a barbed termination:  we, like Moore of Moore Hall, all point, covered with spikes:  every where we boast ourselves an ethical hedge-hog, all-over-armed with keen morals—­a Rumour painted full of tongues, echoing all around with revealing of secrets.  The feelings of our humble hero, altered Roger Acton, are worthy to be studied by the great, to be sifted by the rich; and Grace’s simple tongue may teach the sage, for its wisdom cometh from above; and Jonathan, for all his shoulder-knot and smart cockade, is worthy to give lessons to his master:  that master, also, is far better than you think him; and poor Burke too, for true humanity’s sake:  so we get a mint of morals, set aside the story.  It is not raw material, but the workmanship, that gives its value to the flowered damask; our grand-dames’ sumptuous taffeties and stand-alone brocades are but spun silk-worms’ interiors; the fairest statue is intrinsically but a mass of clumsy stone, until, indeed, the sculptor has rough-hewn it, and shaped it, and chiselled it, 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!