“What?” he almost frantically shrieked, “shall that white hell-hound rob me yet again?  No, dame—­I’ll hang first! the crock I found, the crock I’ll keep:  the money’s mine, whoever did the murder.”  Then, changing his mad tone into one of reckless inebriate gayety—­for he was more than half-seas over even then from the pot-house toastings and excitement—­he added, “But come, wenches, down with your mugs, and help me to get through the jar:  I never felt so dry in all my life.  Here’s blessings on the crock, on him as sent it, him as has it, and on all the joy and comfort it’s to bring us!  Come, drink, drink—­we must all drink that—­but where’s Tom?”

If Roger had been quite himself, he never would have asked so superfluous a question:  for Tom was always in one and the same company, albeit never in one and the same place:  he and his Pan-like Mentor were continually together, studying wood-craft, water-craft, and all manner of other craft connected with the antique trade of picking and stealing.

“Where’s Tom?”

Grace, glad to have to answer any reasonable question, mildly answered, “Gone away with Ben, father.”

Alas! that little word, Ben, gave occasion to reveal a depth in Roger’s fall, which few could have expected to behold so soon.  To think that the liberal friend, who only last night had frankly shared his all with him, whose honest glowing heart would freely shed its blood for him, that he in recollection should be greeted with a loathing!  Ben would come, and claim some portion of his treasure—­he would cry halves—­or, who knows? might want all—­all:  and take it by strong arm, or by threat to ’peach against him:—­curse that Burke! he hated him.

Oh, Steady Acton! what has made thee drink and swear?  Oh, Honest Roger! what has planted guile, and suspicion, and malice in thy heart?  Are these the mere first-fruits of coveting and having?  Is this the earliest blessing of that luck which many long for—­the finding of a crock of gold?

We would not enlarge upon the scene; a painful one at all times, when man forgets his high prerogative, and drowns his reason in the tankard:  but, in a Roger Acton’s case, lately so wise, temperate, and patient, peculiarly distressing.  Its chief features were these.  Grace tasted nothing, but mournfully looked on:  once only she attempted to expostulate, but was met—­not with fierce oaths, nor coarse chidings, nor even with idiotic drivelling—­oh no! worse than that she felt:  he replied to her with the maudlin drunken promise, “If she’d only be a good girl, and let him bide, he’d give her a big Church-bible, bound in solid gold—­that ‘ud make the book o’ some real value, Grace.”  Poor broken-hearted daughter—­she rushed to her closet in a torrent of tears.

As for Mary Acton, she was miraculously meek and dumb; all the scold was quelled within her; the word “blood” was the Petruchio that tamed that shrew; she could see a plenty of those crimson spots, which might