The notable Mary Acton produced certain scissors, hanging from her pocket by a tape, and cut a knot, which to Roger had been Gordian’s.

“Why, it’s bran, Acton, not honey; look here, will you.”  She tilted it up, and, along with a cloud of saw-dust, dropped out a heavy hail-storm of—­little bits of leather!

“Hallo? what’s that?” said Roger, eagerly:  “it’s gold, gold, I’ll be sworn!” It was so.

Every separate bit of money, whatever kind of coins they were, had been tidily sewn up in a shred of leather; remnants of old gloves of all colours; and the Narbonne jar contained six hundred and eighty-seven of them.  These, of course, were hastily picked up from the path whereon they had first fallen, were counted out at home, and the glittering contents of most of those little leather bags ripped up were immediately discovered.  Oh dear! oh dear! such a sight!  Guineas and half-guineas, sovereigns and half-sovereigns, quite a little hill of bright, clean, prettily-figured gold.

“Hip, hip, hooray!” shouted Roger, in an ecstacy; “Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!” and in the madness of his joy, he executed an extravagant pas seul; up went his hat, round went his heels, and he capered awkwardly like a lunatic giraffe.

“Here’s an end to all our troubles, Poll:  we’re as good as gentle-folks now; catch me a-calling at the Hall, to bother about Jennings and Sir John:  a fig for bailiffs, and baronets, parsons, and prisons, and all,” and again he roared Hooray!  “I tell you what though, old ’ooman, we must just try the taste of our glorious golden luck, before we do any thing else.  Bide a bit, wench, and hide the hoard till I return.  I’m off to the Bacchus’s Arms, and I’ll bring you some stingo in a minute, old gal.”  So off he ran hot-foot, to get an earnest of the blessing of his crock of gold.

The minute that was promised to produce the stingo, proved to be rather of a lengthened character; it might, indeed, have been a minute, or the fraction of one, in the planet Herschel, whose year is as long as eighty-five of our Terra’s, but according to Greenwich calculation, it was nearer like two hours.

The little Tom and Jerry shop, that rejoiced in the classical heraldry of Bacchus’s Arms, had been startled from all conventionalities by the unwonted event of the demand, “change for a sovereign?” and when it was made known to the assembled conclave that Roger Acton was the fortunate possessor, that even assumed an appearance positively miraculous.

“Why, honest Roger, how in the world could you ha’ come by that?” was the troublesome inquiry of Dick the Tanner.

“Well, Acton, you’re sharper than I took you for, if you can squeeze gold out of bailiff Jennings,” added Solomon Snip; and Roger knew no better way of silencing their tongues, than by profusely drenching them in liquor.  So he stood treat all round, and was forced to hobanob with each; and when that was gone, he called for more to keep their curiosity employed.  Now, all this caused delay; and if Mary had been waiting for the “stingo,” she would doubtless have had reasonable cause for anger and impatience:  however, she, for her part, was so pleasantly occupied, like Prince Arthur’s Queen, in counting out the money, that, to say the truth, both lord and liquor were entirely forgotten.