hief was
reward enough. These, and a hundred other little thieveries, they
committed with such dexterity, that old Tim Crib, whose son was
transported last assizes for sheep stealing, used to be often
reproaching his boys that Giles's sons were worth a hundred of such
blockheads as he had; for scarce a night passed but Giles had some
little comfortable thing for supper which his boys had pilfered in
the day, while his undutiful dogs never stole any thing worth
having. Giles, in the meantime, was busy in his way, but as busy as
he was in laying his nets, starting coveys, and training dogs, he
always took care that his depredations should not be confined merely
to game.

Giles's boys had never seen the inside of a church since they were
christened, and the father thought he knew his own interest better
than to force them to it; for church-time was the season of their
harvest. Then the hen's nests were searched, a stray duck was
clapped under the smock-frock, the tools which might have been left
by chance in a farm-yard were picked up, and all the neighboring
pigeon-houses were thinned, so that Giles used to boast to tawny
Rachel, his wife, that Sunday was to them the most profitable day
in the week. With her it was certainly the most laborious day, as
she always did her washing and ironing on the Sunday morning, it
being, as she said, the only leisure day she had, for on the other
days she went about the country telling fortunes, and selling
dream-books and wicked songs. Neither her husband's nor her
children's clothes were ever mended, and if Sunday, her idle day,
had not come about once in every week, it is likely they would never
have been washed neither. You might however see her as you were
going to church smoothing her own rags on her best red cloak, which
she always used for her ironing-cloth on Sundays, for her cloak when
she traveled, and for her blanket at night; such a wretched manager
was Rachel! Among her other articles of trade, one was to make and
sell peppermint, and other distilled waters. These she had the cheap
art of making without trouble and without expense, for she made them
without herbs and without a still. Her way was, to fill so many
quart bottles with plain water, putting a spoonful of mint water in
the mouth of each; these she corked down with rosin, carrying to
each customer a phial of real distilled water to taste by way of
sample. This was so good that her bottles were commonly bought up