And if she prayed for Ben, with what an agony of deep-felt intercession did she plead for Thomas Acton, that own only brother of hers, just a year the younger to endear him all the more, her playmate, care, and charge, her friend and boisterous protector.  The many sorrowing hours she had spent for his sake, and the thousand generous actions he had done for hers!  Could she forget how the stripling fought for her that day, when rude Joseph Green would help her over the style?  Could she but remember how slily he had put aside, for more than half a year, a little heap of copper earnings—­weeding-money, and errand-money, and harvest-money—­and then bounteously spent it all at once in giving her a Bible on her birth-day?  And when, coming across the fields with him after leasing, years ago now, that fierce black bull of Squire Ryle’s was rushing down upon us both, how bravely did the noble boy attack him with a stake, as he came up bellowing, and make the dreadful monster turn away!  Ah!  I looked death in the face then, but for thee, my brother!  Remember him, my God, for good!

“Poor father! poor father!  Well, I am resolved upon one thing:  I’ll go, with Heaven’s blessing, to the Hall myself, and see Sir John, to-morrow; he shall hear the truth, for”—­And so Grace fell asleep.

Roger, when he went to bed, came to similar conclusions.  He would speak up boldly, that he would, without fear or favour.  Ben’s most seasonable bounty, however to be questioned on the point of right, made him feel entirely independent, both of bailiffs and squires, and he had now no anxieties, but rather hopes, about to-morrow.  He was as good as they, with money in his pocket; so he’d down to the Hall, and face the baronet himself, and blow his bailiff out o’ water:  that should be his business by noon.  Another odd idea, too, possessed him, and he could not sleep at night for thinking of it:  it was a foolish fancy, but the dream might have put it in his head:  what if one or other of those honey-jars, so flung here and there among the rushes, were in fact another sort of “Savings-bank”—­a crock of gold?  It was a thrilling thought—­his very dream, too; and the lot of shillings, and the shawl—­ay, and the inquest, and the rumours how that Mrs. Quarles had come to her end unfairly, and no hoards found—­and—­and the honey-pots missing.  Ha! at any rate he’d have a search to-morrow.  No bugbear now should hinder him; money’s money; he’d ask no questions how it got there.  His own bit of garden lay the nearest to Pike Island, and who knows but Ben might have slung a crock this way?  It wouldn’t do to ask him, though—­for Burke might look himself, and get the crock—­was Roger’s last and selfish thought, before he fell asleep.