He began business in a humble way at first; but gradually as his customers increased, his business grew, and instead of continuing to vend treacle from a two-gallon can, he at length ventured on giving an order for a whole hogshead at once! The arrival of this consignment created quite a sensation in the village; the like had never been seen there before, and the urchins who watched the process of unloading the precious cask, and saw it safely deposited end up in the corner of the store, smacked their lips as their imagination pictured the luscious reservoir of sweets. In the course of the day a further consignment--this time of whitewash brushes--arrived, and Betty, mounting a chair in the corner, and thence stepping on to the top of the treacle barrel, was just in the act of hanging the brushes on the hook in the ceiling, when the barrel end gave way underneath her, and down she settled gradually up to the arm-pits into the syrupy mass! Hiram, who was busy at the back of the shop, hearing the crash, hurried in to ascertain the cause, and stood for a few moments gazing in consternation at the head of his better-half barely visible above the barrel edge. What was to be done? Ruin and disgrace and ridicule stared him in the face, but with great presence of mind he ran to the shop door, closed it, shot the bolt, and then drew down the window blind. Mounting the barrel and securing a footing on its edge, he succeeded, by the help of a clothes-line which he looped on to the hook overhead, and which she stoutly grasped, in gradually extricating Betty from her savoury bath. Carefully he stroked the treacle from her as she rose ceilingwards, and, that no loss of merchandise might ensue, at the same time wiping her down with a cloth dipped in a bucket of water; thus all traces of Betty's misadventure were soon obliterated, and nobody but themselves was any the wiser. Hiram, in recounting the circumstance to me, confidentially, after long years had elapsed, declared that the run on that hogshead was immense. It was relished by his customers, old and young, and was the occasion of more oatmeal being consumed in the village than had ever previously been known, so that what at first appeared to Hiram to be an irretrievable misfortune, turned out profitable in more ways than one. "Eh! but, mon," said Hiram, shaking his head, and with a solemn countenance, "that hogshead o' treacle wur th' ruination o' me." "Ruination!" I exclaimed in puzzled surprise. "How do you mean?" "Well, yo' see, me and our Betty had been wed for three yer, and up to then we'd had no childer, but hoo began from that time forrud, and never once stopped till hoo had thirteen! Eh! that hogshead o' treacle wur t' ruination o' me!" * * * * *