The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper

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Better had you lost it, Roger; better had your ecstasy been sorrow:
there is more trouble yet for you, from that bad crock of gold. But if
your lesson is not learnt, and you still think otherwise, go on a little
while exultingly as now I see you, and hug the treasure to your
heart--the treasure that will bring you yet more misery.

And now the town is gained, the bank approached. What! that big barred,
guarded place, looking like a mighty mouse-trap? he didn't half like to
venture in. At last he pushed the door ajar, and took a peep; there
were muskets over the mantel-piece, ostentatiously ticketed as "Loaded!
Beware!" there were leather buckets ranged around the walls: he did not
in any degree like it: was he to expose his treasure in this idiot
fashion to all the avowed danger of fire and thieves? However, since he
had come so far, he would get some interest for his money, that he
would--so he'd just make bold to step to the counter and ask a very
obsequious bald-headed gentleman, who sired him quite affably,

"How much, Master, will you be pleased to give me for my gold?"

The gentleman looked queerish, as if he did not comprehend the question,
and answered, "Oh! certainly, sir--certainly--we do not object to give
you our notes for it," at the same time producing an extremely dirty
bundle of worn-out bits of paper.

Roger stroked his chin.

"But, Master, my meaning is, not how many o' them brown bits o' paper
you'll sell me for my gold here," and he exhibited a greater store than
Mr. Breakem had seen at once upon his counter for a year, "but how much
more gold you'll send me back with than what I've brought? by way of
interest, you know, or some such law: for I don't know much about the
Funds, Master."

"Indeed, sir," replied the civil banker, who wished by any means to
catch the clodpole's spoil--"you are very obliging; we shall be glad to
allow you two-and-a-half per centum per annum for the deposit you are
good enough to leave in our keeping."

"Leave in your keeping, Master! no, I didn't say that! by your leave,
I'll keep it myself!"

"In that case, sir, I really do not see how I can do business with you."

True enough; and Roger would never have been such a monetary blockhead,
had he not been now so generally tipsy; the fumes of beer had mingled
with his plan, and all his usual shrewdness had been blunted into folly
by greediness of lucre on the one side, and potent liquors on the other.
The moment that the banker's parting speech had reached his ear, the
absurdity of Roger's scheme was evident even to himself, and with a bare
"Good day, Master," he hurriedly took his bundle from the counter, and
scuttled out as quick as he could.

His feelings, walking homeward, were any thing but pleasant; the bubble
of his ardent hope was burst: he never could have more than the paltry
little sum he carried in that bundle: what a miser he would be of it:
how mean it now seemed in his eyes--a mere sample-bag of seed, instead
of the wide-waving harvest! Ah, well; he would save and scrape--ay, and
go back to toil again--do any thing rather than spend.

Got home, the difficulty now recurred, where was he to hide it? The
store was a greater care than ever, now those rascally bankers knew of
it. He racked his brain to find a hiding-place, and, at length, really
hit upon a good one. He concealed the crock, now replenished with its
contents, in the thatch just over his bed's head: it was a rescued
darling: so he tore a deep hole, and nested it quite snugly.

Perhaps it did not matter much, but the rain leaked in by that hole all
night, and fortunate Roger woke in the morning drenched with wet, and
racked by rheumatism.

CHAPTER XIX.

CALUMNY.

More blessings issue from the crock; Pandora's box is set wide
open, and all the sweet inhabitants come forth. If apprehensions for its
safety made the finder full of care, the increased whisperings of the
neighbourhood gave him even deeper reason for anxiety. In vain he told
lie upon lie about a legacy of some old uncle in the clouds; in vain he
stuck to the foolish and transparent falsehood, with a dogged
pertinacity that appealed, not to reason, but to blows; in vain he made
affirmation weaker by his oath, and oaths quite unconvincing by his
cudgel: no one believed him: and the mystery was rendered more
inexplicable from his evidently nervous state and uneasy terror of
discovery.

He had resolved at the outset, cunningly as he fancied, to change no
more than one piece of gold in the same place; though Bacchus's
undoubtedly proved the rule by furnishing an exception: and the
consequence came to be, that there was not a single shop in the whole
county town, nor a farm-house in all the neighbourhood round, where
Roger Acton had not called to change a sovereign. True, the silver had
seldom been forthcoming; still, he had asked for it; and where in life
could he have got the gold? Many was the rude questioner, whose
curiosity had been quenched in drink; many the insufferable pryer, whom
club-law had been called upon to silence. Meanwhile, Roger steadily kept
on, accumulating silver where he could: for his covetous mind delighted
in the mere semblance of an increase to his store, and took some
untutored numismatic interest in those pretty variations of his
idol--money.

But if Roger's heap increased, so did the whispers and suspicions of the
country round; they daily grew louder, and more clamorous; and soon the
charitable nature of chagrined wonder assumed a shape more heart-rending
to the wretched finder of that golden hoard, than any other care, or
fear, or sin, that had hitherto torn him. It only was a miracle that the
neighbours had not thought of it before; seldom is the world so
unsuspicious; but then honest Roger's forty years of character were
something--they could scarcely think the man so base; and, above all,
gentle Grace was such a favourite with all, was such a pattern of
purity, and kindliness, and female conduct, that the tongue would have
blistered to its roots, that had uttered scorn of her till now. As
things were, though, could any thing be clearer? Was charity herself to
blame in putting one and one together? Sir John was rich, was young,
gay, and handsome; but Grace was poor--but indisputably beautiful, and
probably had once been innocent: some had seen her going to the Hall at
strange times and seasons--for in truth, she often did go there;
Jonathan and Sarah Stack, of course, were her dearest friends on earth:
and so it came to pass, that, through the blessing of the crock, honest
Roger was believed to live on the golden wages of his daughter's shame!
Oh, coarse and heartless imputation! Oh, bitter price to pay for secresy
and wonderful good fortune! In vain the wretched father stormed, and
swore, and knocked down more than one foul-spoken fellow that had
breathed against dear Grace. None but credited the lie, and many envious
wretches actually gloried in the scandal; I grieve to say that
women--divers venerable virgins--rejoiced that this pert hussey was at
last found out; she was too pretty to be good, too pious to be pure; now
at length they were revenged upon her beauty; now they had their triumph
over one that was righteous over-much. For other people, they would urge
the reasonable question, how else came Roger by the cash? and getting no
answer, or worse than none--a prevaricating, mystifying mere
put-off--they had hardly an alternative in common exercise of judgment:
therefore, "Shame on her," said the neighbours, "and the bitterest shame
on him:" and the gaffers and grand-dames shook their heads virtuously.

Yet worse: there was another suggestion, by no means contradictory,
though simultaneous: what had become of Tom? ay--that bold young
fellow--Thomas Acton, Ben Burke's friend: why was he away so long,
hiding out of the country? they wondered.

The suspected Damon and Pythias had gone a county off to certain fens,
and were, during this important week, engaged in a long process of
ensnaring ducks.

Old Gaffer White had muttered something to Gossip Heartley, which Dick
the Tanner overheard, wherein Tom Acton and a gun, and Burke, and
burglary, and throats cut, and bags of gold, were conspicuous
ingredients: so that Roger Acton's own dear Tom, that eagle-eyed and
handsome better image of himself, stood accused, before his quailing
father's face, of robbery and murder.

Both--both darlings, dead Annie's little orphaned pets, thus stricken by
one stone to infamy! Grace, scouted as a hussey, an outcast, a bad girl,
a wanton--blessed angel! Thomas--generous boy--keenly looked for, in his
near return, to be seized by rude hands, manacled, and dragged away, and
tried on suspicion as a felon--for what? that crock of gold. Yet Roger
heard it all, knew it all, writhed at it all, as if scorpions were
lashing him; but still he held on grimly, keeping that bad secret.
Should he blab it out, and so be poor again, and lose the crock?

That our labourer's changed estate influenced his bodily health, under
this accumulated misery and desperate excitement, began to be made
manifest to all. The sturdy husbandman was transformed into a tremulous
drunkard; the contented cottager, into a querulous hypochondriac; the
calm, religious, patient Christian, into a tumultuous blasphemer. Could
all this be, and even Roger's iron frame stand up against the battle!
No, the strength of Samson has been shorn. The crock has poured a
blessing on its finder's very skin, as when the devil covered Job with
boils.

CHAPTER XX.

THE BAILIFF'S VISIT.

One day at noon, ere the first week well was over since the
fortunate discovery of gold, as Roger lay upon his bed, recovering from
an overnight's excess, tossed with fever, vexation, and anxiety, he was
at once surprised and frightened by a visit from no less a personage
than Mr. Simon Jennings. And this was the occasion of his presence:

Directly the gathering storm of rumours had collected to that focus of
all calumny, the destruction of female character and murder charged upon
the innocent, Grace Acton had resolved upon her course; secresy could be
kept no longer; her duty now appeared to be, to publish the story of her
father's lucky find.

Grace, we may observe, had never been bound to silence, but only imposed
it on herself from motives of tenderness to one, whom she believed to be
taken in the toils of a temptation. She, simple soul, knew nothing of
manorial rights, nor wotted she that any could despoil her father of his
money; but even if such thoughts had ever crossed her mind, she loathed
the gold that had brought so much trouble on them all, and cared not how
soon it was got rid of. Her father's health, honour, happiness, were
obviously at stake; perhaps, also, her brother's very life: and, as for
herself, the martyr of calumny looked piously to heaven, offered up her
outraged heart, and resolved to stem this torrent of misfortune.
Accordingly, with a noble indignation worthy of her, she had gone
straightway to the Hall, to see the baronet, to tell the truth, fling
aside a charge which she could scarcely comprehend, and openly vindicate
her offended honour. She failed--many imagine happily for her own peace,
if Sir John had not been better than his friends--in gaining access to
the Lord of Hurstley; but she did see Mr. Jennings, who serenely
interposed, and listened to all she came to say--"her father had been
unfortunate enough to find a crock of money on the lake side near his
garden."

When Jennings heard the tale, he started as if stung by a wasp: and
urging Grace to tell it no one else (though the poor girl "must," she
said, "for honour's sake"), he took up his hat, and ran off breathlessly
to Acton's cottage. Roger was at home, in bed, and sick; there was no
escape; and Simon chuckled at the lucky chance. So he crept in,
carefully shut the door, put his finger on his lips to hush Roger's note
of admiration at so little wished a vision; and then, with one of his
accustomed scared and fearful looks behind him, muttered under his
breath,

"Man, that gold is mine: I have paid its price to the uttermost; give me
the honey-pot."

Roger's first answer was a vulgar oath; but his tipsy courage faded soon
away before old habits of subserviency, and he faltered out,
"I--I--Muster Jennings! I've got no pot of gold!"

"Man, you lie! you have got the money! give it me at once--and--" he
added in a low, hoarse voice, "we will not say a word about the murder."

"Murder!" echoed the astonished man.

"Ay, murder, Acton:--off! off, I say!" he muttered parenthetically, then
wrestled for a minute violently, as with something in the air; and
recovering as from a spasm, calmly added,

"Ay, murder for the money."

"I--I!" gasped Roger; "I did no murder, Muster Jennings!"

A new light seemed to break upon the bailiff, and he answered with a
tone of fixed determination,

"Acton, you are the murderer of Bridget Quarles."

Roger's jaw dropped, dismay was painted on his features, and certainly
he did look guilty enough. But Simon proceeded in a tenderer tone;

"Notwithstanding, give me the gold, Acton, and none shall know a word
about the murder. We will keep all quiet, Roger Acton, all nice and
quiet, you know;" and he added, coaxingly, "come, Roger, give me up this
crock of gold."

"Never!" with a fierce anathema, answered our hero, now himself again:
the horrid accusation had entranced him for a while, but this coaxing
strain roused up all the man in him: "Never!" and another oath confirmed
it.

"Acton, give it up, I say!" was shouted in rejoinder, and Jennings
glared over him with his round and staring eyes as he lay faint upon his
bed--"Give up the crock, or else--"

"Else what? you whitened villain."

The bailiff flung himself at Roger's neck, and almost shrieked, "I'll
serve you as I--"

There was a tremendous struggle; attacked at unawares, for the moment he
was nearly mastered; but Acton's tall and wiry frame soon overpowered
the excited Jennings, and long before you have read what I have
written--he has leaped out of bed--seized--doubled up--and flung the
battered bailiff headlong down the narrow stair-case to the bottom. This
done, Roger, looking like Don Quixote de la Mancha in his penitential
shirt, mounted into bed again, and quietly lay down; wondering,
half-sober, at the strange and sudden squall.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE CAPTURE.

He had not long to wonder. Jennings got up instantly, despite
of bruises, posted to the Hall, took a search-warrant from Sir John's
study, (they were always ready signed, and Jennings filled one up,) and
returned with a brace of constables to search the cottage.

Then Roger, as he lay musing, fancied he heard men's voices below, and
his wife, who had just come in, talking to them; what could they want?
tramps, perhaps: or Ben? he shuddered at the possibility; with Tom too;
and he felt ashamed to meet his son. So he turned his face to the wall,
and lay musing on--he hadn't been drinking too much over-night--Oh, no!
it was sickness, and rheumatics, and care about the crock; Tom should be
told that he was very ill, poor father! Just as he had planned this, and
resolved to keep his secret from that poaching ruffian Burke, some one
came creeping up the stairs, slided in at the door, and said to him in a
deep whisper from the further end of the room,

"Acton, give me the gold, and the men shall go away; it is not yet too
late; tell me where to find the crock of gold."

An oath was the reply; and, at a sign from Jennings, up came the other
two.

"We have searched every where, Mr. Simon Jennings, both cot and garden;
ground disturbed in two or three places, but nothing under it; in-doors
too, the floor is broken by the hearth and by the dresser, but no signs
of any thing there: now, Master Acton, tell us where it is, man, and
save us all the trouble."

Roger's newly-learnt vocabulary of oaths was drawn upon again.

"Did you look in the ash-pit?" asked Jennings.

"No, sir."

"Well, while you two search this chamber, I will examine it myself."

Mr. Jennings apparently entertained a wholesome fear of Acton's powers
of wrestling.

Up came Simon in a hurry back again, with a lot of little empty leather
bags he had raked out, and--the fragment of a shawl! the edges burnt, it
was a corner bit, and marked B.Q.

"What do you call this, sir?" asked the exulting bailiff.

"Curse that Burke!"--thought Roger; but he said nothing.

And the two men up stairs had searched, and pried, and hunted every
where in vain; the knotty mattress had been ripped up, the chimney
scrutinized, the floor examined, the bed-clothes overhauled, and as for
the thatch, if it hadn't been for Roger Acton's constant glance upwards
at his treasure in the roof, I am sure they never would have found it.
But they did at last: there it was, the crock of gold, full proof of
robbery and murder!

"Aha!" said Simon, in a complacent triumph, "Mrs. Quarles's identical
honey-pot, full of her clean bright gold, and many pieces still encased
in those tidy leather bags;" and his round eyes glistened again; but all
at once, with a hurried look over his left shoulder, he exclaimed,
involuntarily, in a very different tone, "Ha! away, I say!--" Then he
snatched the crock up eagerly, and nursed it like a child.

"Come along with us, Master Acton, you're wanted somewhere else; up,
man, look alive, will you?"

And Roger dressed himself mechanically. It was no manner of use, not in
the least worth while resisting, innocent though he was; his treasure
had been found, and taken from him; he had nothing more to live for; his
gold was gone--his god; where was the wisdom of fighting for any thing
else; let them take him to prison if they would, to the jail, to the
gallows, to any-whither, now his gold was gone. So he put on his
clothes without a murmur, and went with them as quiet as a lamb.

Never was there a clearer case; the housekeeper's hoard had been found
in his possession, with a fragment of her shawl; and Sir John Vincent
was very well aware of the mystery attending the old woman's death;
besides, he was in a great hurry to be off; for Pointer, and Silliphant,
and Lord George Pypp, were to have a hurdle race with him that day, for
a heavy bet; so he really had not time to go deep into the matter; and
the result of five minutes' talk before the magisterial chairs (Squire
Ryle having been summoned to assist) was, that, on the accusation of
Simon Jennings, Roger Acton was fully committed to the county jail, to
be tried at next assizes, for Bridget Quarles's murder.

Thank God! poor Roger, it has come to this. What other way than this was
there to save thee from thy sin--to raise thee from thy fall? Where
else, but in a prison, could you get the silent, solitary hours leading
you again to wholesome thought and deep repentance? Where else could you
escape the companionship of all those loose and low associates, sottish
brawlers, ignorant and sensual unbelievers, vagabond radicals, and
other lewd fellows of the baser sort, that had drank themselves drunk at
your expense, and sworn to you as captain! The place, the time, the
means for penitence are here. The crisis of thy destiny is come.

Honest Roger, Steady Acton, did I not see thy guardian angel--after all
his many tears, aggrieved and broken spirit!--did I not see him lift his
swollen eyes in gratitude to Heaven, and benevolence to thee, and smile
a smile of hopeful joy when that damned crock was found?

Gladly could he thank his Lord, to behold the temptation at an end.

Did I not see the devil slink away from thee abashed, issuing like an
adder from thy heart, and then, with a sudden Protean change, driven
from thy hovel as a thunder-cloud dispersing, when Simon Jennings seized
the jar, hugged it as his household-god--and took it home with him--and
counted out the gold--and locked the bloody treasure in his iron-chest?

Fitly did the murderer lock up curses with his spoil.

And when God smote thine idol, dashing Dagon to the ground, and thy
heart was sore with disappointment, and tender as a peeled fig--when
hope was dead for earth, and conscience dared not look beyond it--ah!
Roger, did I judge amiss when I saw, or thought I saw, those eyes full
of humble shame, those lips quivering with remorseful sorrow?

We will leave thee in the cold stone cell--with thy well-named angel
Grace to comfort thee, and pray with thee, and help thee back to God
again, and so repay the debt that a daughter owes her father.

Happy prison! where the air is sweetened by the frankincense of piety,
and the pavement gemmed with the flowers of hope, and the ceiling arched
with Heaven's bow of mercy, and the walls hung around with the dewy
drapery of penitence!

Happy prison! where the talents that were lost are being found again,
gathered in humility from this stone floor; where poor-making riches are
banished from the postern, and rich-making poverty streameth in as light
from the grated window; where care vexeth not now the labourer emptied
of his gold, and calumny's black tooth no longer gnaws the heart-strings
of the innocent.

Hark! it is the turnkey, coming round to leave the pittance for the day:
he is bringing in something in an earthern jar. Speak, Roger Acton,
which will you choose, man--a prisoner's mess of pottage--or a crock of
gold?

CHAPTER XXII.

THE AUNT AND HER NEPHEW.

While we leave Roger Acton in the jail, waiting for the very
near assizes, and wearing every hour away in penitence and prayer, it
will be needful to our story that we take a retrospective glance at
certain events, of no slight importance.

I must now speak of things, of which there is no human witness;
recording words, and deeds, whereof Heaven alone is cognizant, Heaven
alone--and Hell! For there are secret matters, which the murdered cannot
tell us, and the murderer dare not--let him confess as fully as he will.
Therefore, with some omnipresent sense, some invisible ubiquity, I must
note down scenes as they occurred, whether mortal eye has witnessed them
or not; I must lay bare secret thoughts, unlatch the hidden chambers of
the heart, and duly set out, as they successively arose, the idea which
tongue had not embodied, the feeling which no action had expressed.

Hitherto, we have pretty well preserved inviolate the three grand
unities--time, place, circumstance; and even now we do not sin against
the first and chiefest, however we may seem so to sin; for, had it
suited my purpose to have begun with the beginning, and to have placed
the present revelations foremost, the strictest stickler for the unities
would have only had to praise my orthodox adherence to them. As it is, I
have chosen, for interest sake, to shuffle my cards a little; and two
knaves happen to have turned up together just at this time and place.
The time is just three weeks ago--a week before the baronet came of age,
and a fortnight antecedent to the finding of the crock; which, as we
know, after blessing Roger for a se'nnight, has at last left him in
jail. The place is the cozy house-keepers room at Hurstley: and the
brace of thorough knaves, to enact then and there as _dramatis personae_,
includes Mistress Bridget Quarles, a fat, sturdy, bluffy, old woman, of
a jolly laugh withal, and a noisy tongue--and our esteemed acquaintance
Mister Simon Jennings. The aunt, house-keeper, had invited the nephew,
butler, to take a dish of tea with her, and rum-punch had now succeeded
the souchong.

"Well, Aunt Quarles, is it your meaning to undertake a new master?"

"Don't know, nephy--can't say yet what he'll be like: if he'll leave us
as we are, won't say wont."

"Ay, as we are, indeed; comfortable quarters, and some little to put by,
too: a pretty penny you will have laid up all this while, I'll be bound:
I wager you now it is a good five hundred, aunt--come, done for a
shilling."

"Get along, foolish boy; a'n't you o' the tribe o' wisdom too--ha, ha,
ha!"

"I will not say," smirked Simon, "that my nest has not a feather."

"It's easy work for us, Nep; we hunt in couples: you the men, and I the
maids--ha, ha!"

"Tush, Aunt Bridget! that speech is not quite gallant, I fear." And the
worshipful extortioners giggled jovially.

"But it's true enough for all that, Simon: how d'ye manage it, eh, boy?
much like me, I s'pose; wages every quarter from the maids, dues from
tradesmen Christmas-tide and Easter, regular as Parson Evans's; pretty
little bits tacked on weekly to the bills, beside presents from every
body; and so, boy, my poor forty pounds a-year soon mounts up to a
hundred."

"Ay, ay, Aunt Bridget--but I get the start of you, though you probably
were born a week before-hand: talk of parsons, look at me, a regular
grand pluralist monopolist, as any bishop can be; butler in doors,
bailiff out of doors, land-steward, house-steward, cellar-man, and
pay-master. I am not all this for naught, Aunt Quarles: if so much goes
through my fingers, it is but fair that something stick."

"True, Simon--O certainly; but if you come to boasting, my boy, I don't
carry this big bunch o' keys for nothing neither. Lord love you! why
merely for cribbings in the linen-line for one month, John Draper
swapped me that there shawl: none o' my clothes ever cost me a penny,
and I a'n't quite as bare as a new-born baby neither. Look at them
trunks, bless you!"