Martin Farquhar Tupper - The Crock of Gold

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"Oh, sir!" cried Roger, quite unmanned at this most cruel
disappointment; "be merciful--be generous--give me my gold, my own bit
of gold! I'll swear his honour gave it for me: blessings on his head!
You know he did, Mr. Simon; don't play upon me!"

"Play upon you?--generous--your gold--what is it you mean, man? We'll
have no madmen about us, I can tell you; take the shilling, or else--"

"'Rob not the poor, because he is poor, for the Lord shall plead his
cause,'" was the solemn answer.

"Roger Acton!"--the bailiff gave a scared start, as usual, and,
recovering himself, looked both white and stern: "you have dared to
quote the Bible against me: deeply shall you rue it. Begone, man! your
work on this estate is at an end."

CHAPTER VII.

WRONGS AND RUIN.

A VERY miserable man was Roger Acton now, for this last trial
was the worst of all. The vapours of his discontent had almost passed
away--that bright pernicious dream was being rapidly forgotten--the
morning's ill-got coin, "thank the Lord, it was lost as soon as found,"
and penitence had washed away that blot upon his soul; but here, an
honest pound, liberally bestowed by his hereditary landlord--his own
bright bit of gold--the only bit but one he ever had (and how different
in innocence from that one!)--a seeming sugar-drop of kindness, shed by
the rich heavens on his cup of poverty--to have this meanly filched away
by a grasping, grinding task-master--oh, was it not a bitter trial? What
affliction as to this world's wealth can a man meet worse than this?

Acton's first impulse was to run to the Hall, and ask to see Sir
John:--"Out; won't be back till seven, and then can see nobody; the
baronet will be dressing for dinner, and musn't be disturbed." Then he
made a vain effort to speak with Mr. Jennings, and plead with him: yes,
even on his knees, if must be. Mr. Simon could not be so bad; perhaps it
was a long joke after all--the bailiff always had a queer way with him.
Or, if indeed the man meant robbery, loudly to threaten him, that all
might hear, to bring the house about his ears, and force justice, if he
could not fawn it. But both these conflicting expedients were vetoed.
Jonathan Floyd, who took in Acton's meek message of "humbly craved leave
to speak with Master Jennings," came back with the inexplicable mandate,
"Warn Roger Acton from the premises." So, he must needs bide till
to-morrow morning, when, come what might, he resolved to see his honour,
and set some truths before him.

Acton was not the only man on the estate who knew that he had a
landlord, generous, not to say prodigal--a warm-hearted,
well-intentioned master, whose mere youth a career of sensuality had not
yet hardened, nor a course of dissipation been prolonged enough to
distort his feelings from the right. And Acton, moreover, was not the
only man who wondered how, with such a landlord (ay, and the guardians
before him were always well-spoken gentle-folks, kindly in their
manners, and liberal in their looks), wages could be kept so low, and
rents so high, and indulgences so few, and penalties so many. There
were fines for every thing, and no allowances of hedgebote, or
housebote, or any other time-honoured right; the very peat on the common
must be paid for, and if a child picked a bit of fagot the father was
mulcted in a shilling. Mr. Jennings did all this, and always pleaded his
employers' orders; nay, if any grumbled, as men would now and then, he
would affect to think it strange that the gentlemen guardians, with the
landlord at their head, could be so hard upon the poor: he would not be
so, credit him, if he had been born a gentleman; but the bailiff, men,
must obey orders, like the rest of you; these are hard times for
Hurstley, he would say, and we must all rub over them as best we can.
According to Simon, it was as much as his own place was worth to remit
one single penny of a fine, or make the least indulgence for calamity;
while, as to lowering a cotter's rent, or raising a ditcher's wages, he
dared not do it for his life; folks must not blame him, but look to the
landlord.

Now, all this, in the long absence of any definite resident master at
the Hall, sounded reasonable, if true; and Mr. Jennings punctually paid,
however bad the terms; so the poor men bode their time, and looked for
better days. And the days long-looked-for now were come; but were they
any better? The baronet, indeed, seemed bent upon inquiry, reform,
redress; but, as he never went without the right-hand man, his
endeavours were always unsuccessful. At first it would appear that the
bailiff had gone upon his old plan, shrugging up his shoulders to the
men at the master's meanness, while he praised to the landlord the
condition of his tenants; but this could not long deceive, so he turned
instanter on another tack; he assumed the despot, issuing authoritative
edicts, which no one dared to disobey; he made the labourer hide his
needs, and intercepted at its source the lord's benevolence; he began to
be found out, so the bolder spirits said, in filching with both hands
from man and master; and, to the mind of more than one shrewd observer,
was playing the unjust steward to admiration.

But stop: let us hear the other side; it is possible we may have been
mistaken. Bailiffs are never popular, particularly if they are too
honest, and this one is a stern man with a repulsive manner. Who knows
whether his advice to Acton may not have been wise and kind, and would
not have conduced to a general rise of wages? Who can prove, nay,
venture to insinuate, any such systematic roguery against a man hitherto
so strict, so punctual, so sanctimonious? Even in the case of Sir John's
golden gift, Jennings may be right after all; it is quite possible that
Roger was mistaken, and had gilt a piece of silver with his longings;
and the upright man might well take umbrage at so vile an imputation as
that hot and silly speech; it was foolish, very foolish, to have quoted
text against him, and no wonder that the labourer got dismissed for it.
Then again to return to wages--who knows? it might be, all things
considered, the only way of managing a rise; the bailiff must know his
master's mind best, and Acton had been wise to have done as he bade him;
perhaps it really was well-meant, and might have got him twelve
shillings a-week, instead of eight as hitherto; perhaps Simon was a
shrewd man, and arranged it cleverly; perhaps Roger was an honest man,
and couldn't but think others so.

Any how, though, all was lost now, and he blamed his own rash tongue,
poor fellow, for what he could not help fearing was the ruin of himself
and all he loved. With a melancholy heart, he shouldered his spade, and
slowly plodded homewards. How long should he have a home? How was he to
get bread, to get work, if the bailiff was his enemy? How could he face
his wife, and tell her all the foolish past and dreadful future? How
could he bear to look on Grace, too beautiful Grace, and torture his
heart by fancying her fate? Thomas, too, his own brave boy, whom utter
poverty might drive to desperation? And the poor babes, his little
playful pets, what on earth would become of them? There was the Union
workhouse to be sure, but Acton shuddered at the thought; to be
separated from every thing he loved, to give up his little all, and be
made both a prisoner and a slave, all for the sake of what?--daily
water-gruel, and a pauper's branded livery. Or they might perchance go
beyond the seas, if some Prince Edward's Company would help him and his
to emigrate; ay, thought he, and run new risks, encounter fresh dangers,
lose every thing, get nothing, and all the trouble taken merely to
starve three thousand miles from home. No, no; at his time of life, he
could not be leaving for ever old friends, old habits, old fields, old
home, old neighbourhood--where he had seen the saplings grow up trees,
and the quick toppings change into a ten-foot hedge; where the very
cattle knew his step, and the clods broke kindly to his ploughshare; and
more than all, the dear old church, where his forefathers had worshipped
from the Conquest, and the old mounds where they slept,
and--and--and--that one precious grave of his dear lost Annie--could he
leave it? Oh God, no! he had done no ill, he had committed no crime--why
should he prefer the convict's doom, and seek to be transported for
life?

A miserable walk home was that, and full of wretched thoughts. Poor
Roger Acton, tossed by much trouble, vexed with sore oppression, I wish
that you had prayed in your distress; stop, he did pray, and that
vehemently; but it was not for help, or guidance, or patience, or
consolation--he only prayed for gold.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE COVETOUS DREAM.

ONCE at home, the sad truth soon was told. Roger's look alone
spoke of some calamity, and he had but little heart or hope to keep the
matter secret. True, he said not a word about the early morning's sin;
why should he? he had been punished for it, and he had repented; let him
be humbled before God, but not confess to man. However, all about the
bailiff, and the landlord, and the thieved gift, and the sudden
dismissal, the sure ruin, the dismal wayside plans, and fears, and dark
alternatives, without one hope in any--these did poor Acton fluently
pour forth with broken-hearted eloquence; to these Grace listened
sorrowfully, with a face full of gentle trust in God's blessing on the
morrow's interview; these Mary, the wife, heard to an end, with--no
storm of execration on ill-fortune, no ebullition of unjust rage against
a fool of a husband, no vexing sneers, no selfish apprehensions. Far
from it; there really was one unlooked-for blessing come already to
console poor Roger; and no little compensation for his trouble was the
way his wife received the news. He, unlucky man, had expected something
little short of a virago's talons, and a beldame's curse; he had
experienced on less occasions something of the sort before; but now that
real affliction stood upon the hearth, Mary Acton's character rose with
the emergency, and she greeted her ruined husband with a kindness
towards him, a solemn indignation against those who grind the poor, and
a sober courage to confront evil, which he little had imagined.

"Bear up, Roger; here, goodman, take the child, and don't look quite so
downcast; come what may, I'll share your cares, and you shall halve my
pleasures; we will fight it out together."

Moreover, cross, and fidgetty, and scolding, as Mary had been ever
heretofore, to her meek step-daughter Grace, all at once, as if just to
disappoint any preconcerted theory, now that actual calamity was come,
she turned to be a kind good mother to her. Roger and his daughter could
scarcely believe their ears.

"Grace, dear, I know you're a sensible good girl, try and cheer your
father." And then the step-dame added,

"There now, just run up, fetch your prayer-book down, and read a little
to us all to do us good."--The fair, affectionate girl, unused to the
accents of kindness, could not forbear flinging her arms round Mary
Acton's neck, and loving her, as Ruth loved Naomi.

Then with a heavenly smile upon her face, and a happy heart within her
to keep the smile alight, her gentle voice read these words--it will do
us good to read them too:

"Out of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice.
O let thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint.
If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss,
O Lord, who may abide it?
Because there is mercy with thee; therefore shall thou be feared.
I look for the Lord, my soul doth wait for him: in his word is my trust.
My soul fleeth unto the Lord, before the morning watch,
before the morning watch.
O Israel, trust in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy:
and with him is plenteous redemption.
And he shall redeem Israel from all his sins."

"Isn't the last word 'troubles,' child? look again; I think it's
'troubles' either there, or leastways in the Bible-psalm."

"No, father, sins, 'from all his sins;' and 'iniquities' in the
Bible-version--look, father."

"Well, girl, well; I wish it had been 'troubles;' 'from all his
troubles' is a better thought to my mind: God wot, I have plenty on 'em,
and a little lot of gold would save us from them all."

"Gold, father? no, my father--God."

"I tell you, child," said Roger, ever vacillating in his strong
temptation between habitual religion and the new-caught lust of money,
"if only on a sudden I could get gold by hook or by crook, all my cares
and all your troubles would be over on the instant."

"Oh, dear father, do not hope so; and do not think of troubles more than
sins; there is no deliverance in Mammon; riches profit not in the day of
evil, and ill-got wealth tends to worse than poverty."

"Well, any how, I only wish that dream of mine came true."

"Dream, goodman--what dream?" said his wife.

"Why, Poll, I dreamt I was a-working in my garden, hard by the celery
trenches in the sedge; and I was moaning at my lot, as well I may: and a
sort of angel came to me, only he looked dark and sorrowful, and kindly
said, 'What would you have, Roger?' I, nothing fearful in my dream, for
all the strangeness of his winged presence, answered boldly, 'Money;' he
pointed with his finger, laughed aloud, and vanished away: and, as for
me, I thought a minute wonderingly, turned to look where he had pointed,
and, O the blessing! found a crock of gold!"

"Hush, father! that dark angel was the devil; he has dropt ill thoughts
upon your heart: I would I could see you as you used to be, dear father,
till within these two days."

"Whoever he were, if he brought me gold, he would bring me blessing.
There's meat and drink, and warmth and shelter, in the yellow gold--ay,
and rest from labour, child, and a power of rare good gifts."

"If God had made them good, and the gold were honest gains, still,
father, even so, you forget righteousness, and happiness, and wisdom.
Money gives us none of these, but it might take them all away: dear
father, let your loving Grace ask you, have you been better, happier,
wiser, even from the wishing it so much?"

"Daughter, daughter, I tell you plainly, he that gives me gold, gives me
all things: I wish I found the crock the de--the angel, I mean, brought
me."

"O father," murmured Grace, "do not breathe the wicked wish; even if you
found it without any evil angel's help, would the gold be rightfully
your own?"

"Tush, girl!" said her mother; "get the gold, feed the children, and
then to think about the right."

"Ay, Grace, first drive away the toils and troubles of this life," added
Roger, "and then one may try with a free mind to discover the comforts
of religion."

Poor Grace only looked up mournfully, and answered nothing.

CHAPTER IX.

THE POACHER.

A SUDDEN knock at the door here startled the whole party, and
Mary Acton, bustling up, drew the bolt to let in--first, a lurcher, one
Rover to wit, our gaunt ember-loving friend of Chapter II.; secondly,
Thomas Acton, full flush, who carried the old musket on his shoulder,
and seemed to have something else under his smock; and thirdly, Ben
Burke, a personage of no small consequence to us, and who therefore
deserves some specific introduction.

Big Ben, otherwise Black Burke, according to the friendship or the
enmity of those who named him, was a huge, rough, loud, good-humoured,
dare-devil sort of an individual, who lived upon what he considered
common rights. His dress was of the mongrel character, a well-imagined
cross between a ploughman's and a sailor's; the bottle-green frock of
the former, pattern-stitched about the neck as ingeniously as if a tribe
of Wisconsin squaws had tailored it--and mighty fishing boots, vast as
any French postillion's, acting as a triton's tail to symbolize the
latter: a red cotton handkerchief (dirty-red of course, as all things
else were dirty, for cleanliness had little part in Ben), occupied just
now the more native region of a halter; and a rusty fur cap crowned the
poacher; I repeat it--crowned the poacher; for in his own estimation,
and that of many others too, Ben was, if not quite an emperor, at least
an Agamemnon, a king of men, a natural human monarch; in truth, he felt
as much pride in the title Burke the Poacher (and with as great justice
too, for aught I know), as Ali-Hamet-Ghee-the-Thug eastwards, or
William-of-Normandy-the-Conqueror westwards, may be thought respectively
to have cherished, on the score of their murderous and thievish
surnames.

There was no small good, after all, in poor Ben; and a mountain of
allowance must be flung into the scales to counterbalance his
deficiencies. However coarse, and even profane, in his talk (I hope the
gentle reader will excuse me alike for eliding a few elegant extracts
from his common conversation, and also for reminding him
characteristically, now and then, that Ben's language is not entirely
Addisonian), however rough of tongue and dissonant in voice, Ben's heart
will be found much about in the right place; nay, I verily believe it
has more of natural justice, human kindness, and right sympathies in
it, than are to be found in many of those hard and hollow cones that
beat beneath the twenty-guinea waistcoats of a Burghardt or a
Buckmaster. Ay, give me the fluttering inhabitant of Ben Burke's cowskin
vest; it is worth a thousand of those stuffed and artificial denizens,
whose usual nest is figured satin and cut velvet.

Ben stole--true--he did not deny it; but he stole naught but what he
fancied was wrongfully withheld him: and, if he took from the rich, who
scarcely knew he robbed them, he shared his savoury booty with the poor,
and fed them by his daring. Like Robin Hood of old, he avenged himself
on wanton wealth, and frequently redressed by it the wrongs of penury.
Not that I intend to break a lance for either of them, nor to go any
lengths in excusing; slight extenuation is the limit for prudent
advocacy in these cases. Robin Hood and Benjamin Burke were both of them
thieves; bold men--bad men, if any will insist upon the bad; they sinned
against law, and order, and Providence; they dug rudely at the roots of
social institutions; they spoke and acted in a dangerous fashion about
rights of men and community of things. But set aside the statutes of
Foresting and Venery, disfranchise pheasants, let it be a cogent thing
that poverty and riches approach the golden mean somewhat less
unequally, and we shall not find much of criminality, either in Ben or
Robin.

For a general idea, then, of our poaching friend:--he is a gigantic,
black-whiskered, humorous, ruddy mortal, full of strange oaths, which we
really must not print, and bearded like the pard, and he tumbles in
amongst our humble family party, with--

"Bless your honest heart, Roger! what makes you look so sodden? I'm a
lord, if your eyes a'n't as red as a hedge-hog's; and all the rest o'
you, too; why, you seem to be pretty well merry as mutes. Ha! I see what
it is," added Ben, pouring forth a benediction on their frugal supper;
"it's that precious belly-ache porridge that's a-giving you all the
'flensy. Tip it down the sink, dame, will you now? and trust to me for
better. Your Tom here, Roger, 's a lad o' mettle, that he is; ay, and
that old iron o' yours as true as a compass; and the pheasants would
come to it, all the same as if they'd been loadstoned. Here, dame, pluck
the fowl, will you: drop 'em, Tom."--And Thomas Acton flung upon the
table a couple of fine cock-pheasants.

Roger, Mary, and Grace, who were well accustomed to Ben Burke's eloquent
tirades, heard the end of this one with anxiety and silence; for Tom
had never done the like before. Grace was first to expostulate, but was
at once cut short by an oath from her brother, whose evident state of
high excitement could not brook the semblance of reproof. Mary Acton's
marketing glance was abstractedly fixed upon the actual _corpus
delicti_; each fine plump bird, full-plumaged, young-spurred; yes, they
were still warm, and would eat tender, so she mechanically began to
pluck them; while, as for poor downcast Roger, he remembered, with a
conscience-sting that almost made him start, his stolen bit of money in
the morning--so, how could he condemn? He only looked pityingly on
Thomas, and sighed from the bottom of his heart.

"Why, what's the matter now?" roared Ben; "one 'ud think we was bailiffs
come to raise the rent, 'stead of son Tom and friendly Ben; hang it,
mun, we aint here to cheat you out o' summut--no, not out o' peace o'
mind neither; so, if you don't like luck, burn the fowls, or bury 'em,
and let brave Tom risk limbo for nothing."

"Oh, Ben!" murmured Grace, "why will you lead him astray? Oh, brother!
brother! what have you done?" she said, sorrowfully.

"Miss Grace,"--her beauty always awed the poacher, and his rugged
Caliban spirit bowed in reverence before her Ariel soul--"I wish I was
as good as you, but can't be: don't condemn us, Grace; leastways, first
hear me, and then say where's the harm or sin on it. Twelve hundred head
o' game--I heard John Gorse, the keeper, tell it at the Jerry--twelve
hundred head were shot at t'other day's battew: Sir John--no blame to
him for it--killed a couple o' hundred to his own gun: and though they
sent away a coachful, and gave to all who asked, and feasted themselves
chuckfull, and fed the cats, and all, still a mound, like a haycock, o'
them fine fat fowl, rotted in a mass, and were flung upon the dungpit.
Now, Miss Grace, that ere salt pea-porridge a'n't nice, a'n't wholesome;
and, bless your pretty mouth, it ought to feed more sweetly. Look at
Acton, isn't he half-starved. Is Tom, brave boy, full o' the fat o' the
land? Who made fowl, I should like to know, and us to eat 'em? And
where's the harm or sin in bringing down a bird? No, Miss, them ere
beaks, dammem (beg humble pardon, Miss, indeed I won't again) them ere
justices, as they call themselves, makes hard laws to hedge about their
own pleasures; and if the poor man starves, he starves; but if he stays
his hunger with the free, wild birds of heaven, they prison him and
punish him, and call him poacher."

"Ben, those who make the laws, do so under God's permission; and they
who break man's law, break His law."

"Nonsense, child,"--suddenly said Roger; "hold your silly tongue. Do
you mean to tell us, God's law and man's law are the same thing! No,
Grace, I can't stomach that; God makes right, and man makes
might--riches go one way, and poor men's wrong's another. Money, money's
the great law-maker, and a full purse frees him that has it, while it
turns the jailor's key on the wretch that has it not: one of those
wretches is the hopeless Roger Acton. Well, well," he added, after a
despondent sigh, "say no more about it all; that's right,
good-wife--why, they do look plump. And if I can't stomach Grace's
text-talk there, I'm sure I can the birds; for I know what keeps crying
cupboard lustily."

It was a faint effort to be gay, and it only showed his gloom the
denser. Truly, he has quite enough to make him sad; but this is an
unhealthy sadness: the mists of mammon-worship, rising up, meet in the
mid aether of his mind, these lowering clouds of discontent: and the
seeming calamity, that should be but a trial to his faith, looks too
likely to wreck it.

So, then, the embers were raked up, the trivet stuck a-top, the savoury
broil made ready; and (all but Grace, who would not taste a morsel, but
went up straight to bed) never had the Actons yet sate down before so
rich a supper.

CHAPTER X.

BEN BURKE'S STRANGE ADVENTURE.

"TAKE a pull, Roger, and pass the flask," was the cordial
prescription of Ben Burke, intended to cure a dead silence, generated
equally of eager appetites and self-accusing consciences; so saying, he
produced a quart wicker-bottle, which enshrined, according to his
testimony, "summut short, the right stuff, stinging strong, that had
never seen the face of a wishy-washy 'ciseman." But Roger touched it
sparingly, for the vaunted nectar positively burnt his swallow: till
Ben, pulling at it heartily himself, by way of giving moral precept the
full benefit of a good example, taught Roger not to be afraid of it, and
so the flask was drained.

Under such communicative influence, Acton's tale of sorrows and
oppressions, we may readily believe, was soon made known; and as
readily, that it moved Ben's indignant and gigantic sympathies to an
extent of imprecation on the eyes, timbers, and psychological existence
of Mr. Jennings, very little edifying. One thing, however, made amends
for the license of his tongue; the evident sincerity and warmth with
which his coarse but kindly nature proffered instant aid, both offensive
and defensive.

"It's a black and burning shame, Honest Roger, and right shall have his
own, somehow, while Big Ben has a heart in the old place, and a hand to
help his friend." And the poacher having dealt his own broad breast a
blow that would have knocked a tailor down, stretched out to Acton the
huge hand that had inflicted it.

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