'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, a slimy mesh like birdlime: no wonder my eye was a leetle blackish, when half-a-dozen earthern crocks were broken against it.

I was angered enough, I tell you, to think any man could be such a fool as to bring honey there to eat or to hide--when at once I spied summut red among the mess; and what should it be but a pretty little China house, red-brick-like, with a split in the roof for droppings, and ticketed 'Savings-bank:' the chink o' that bank you hears now: and the bank itself is in the pond, now I've cleaned the till out." "Wonderful sure! But what did you do with the honey, Ben ?--some of the pots wasn't broke," urged notable Mrs.Acton.
"Oh, burn the slimy stuff, I warn't going to put my mouth out o' taste o' bacca, for a whole jawful of tooth-aches: I'll tell you, dame, what I did with them ere crocks, wholes, and parts.

There's never a stone on Pike Island, it's too swampy, and I'd forgot to bring my pocketful, as usual.