Martin Farquhar Tupper - The Crock of Gold
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Martin Farquhar Tupper >> The Crock of Gold
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Now, I know quite well that the reader is as fully aware as I am, what
is about to happen; but it is impossible to help the matter. If the
heading of this chapter tells the truth, a "discovery" of some sort is
inevitable. Let us preliminarize a thought or two, if thereby we can
hang some shadowy veil of excuse over a too naked mystery. First and
foremost, truth is strange, stranger, _et-cetera_; and this
_et-cetera_, pregnant as one of Lyttleton's, intends to add the
superlative strangest, to the comparative stranger of that seldom-quoted
sentiment. To every one of us, in the course of our lives, something
quite as extraordinary has befallen more than once. What shall we say of
omens, warnings, forebodings? What of the most curious runs of luck; the
most whimsical freaks of fortune; the unaccountable things that happen
round us daily, and no one marvels at them, till he reads of them in
print? Even as Macpherson, ingenious, if not ingenuous, gathered Ossian
from the lips of Highland hussifs, and made the world with modern Attila
to back it, wonder at the stores that are hived on old wives' tongues;
even so might any other literary, black-smith hammer from the ore of
common gossip a regular Vulcan's net of superstitious "facts." Never yet
was uttered ghost story, that did not breed four others; every one at
table is eager to record his, or his aunt's, experience in that line;
and the mass of queer coincidences, inexplicable incidents, indubitable
seeings, hearings, doings, and sufferings; which you and I have heard of
in this popular vein of talk, would amply excuse the wildest fictionist
for the most extravagant adventure--the more improbable, the nearer
truth. Talk of the devil, said our ancestors--let "&c." save us from the
consequence. Think of any thing vehemently, and it is an even chance it
happens: be confident, you conquer; be obstinate in willing, and events
shall bend humbly to their lord: nay, dream a dream, and if you
recollect it in the morning, and it bother you next day, and you cannot
get it out of your head for a week, and the matter positively haunt you,
ten to one but it finds itself or makes itself fulfilled, some odd day
or other. Just so, doubtless, will it prove to be with Roger's dream: I
really cannot help the matter.
Again, it is more than likely that the reader is clever, very clever,
and that any attempts at concealment would be merely futile. From the
first page he has discovered who is the villain, and who the victim: the
title alone tells him of the golden hinge on which the story turns: he
can look through stone walls, if need be, or mesmerically see, without
making use of eyes: no peep-holes for him, as for Pyramus and Thisbe: no
initiation requisite for any hidden mysteries; all arcana are revealed
to him, every sanctum is a highway. No art of mortal pen can defeat this
mischief of acuteness: character is character; oaks grow of acorns, and
the plan of a life may be detected in a microscopic speech. The career
of Mr. Jennings is as much predestined by us to iniquity, from the first
intimation that he never makes excuse, as honest Roger is to trouble
and temptation from the weary effort wherewithal he woke. And, even now,
pretty Grace and young Sir John, the reader thinks that he can guess at
nature's consequence; while, with respect to Roger's going forth to dig
this morning, he sees it straight before him, need not ask for the
result. Well, if the shrewd reader has the eye of Lieuenhoeeck, and can
discern, cradled in the small triangular beech-mast, a noble
forest-tree, with silvery trunk, branching arms, and dark-green foliage,
he deserves to be complimented indeed, for his own keen skill; but, at
the same time, Nature will not hurry herself for him, but will quietly
educe results which he foreknew--or thought he did--a century ago. And
is there not the highest Art in this unveiled simplicity: to lead the
reader onwards by a straight road, with the setting sun a-blaze at the
end of it, knowing his path, knowing its object, yet still borne on with
spirits unexhausted and unflagging foot? Trust me, there is better
praise in this, than in dazzling the distracted glance with a perpetual
succession of luminous fire-flies, and dragging your fair novel-reader,
harried and excited, through the mazes of a thousand incidents.
Thirdly, and lastly, in this prefatorial say, there is to be considered
that inevitable defeator of all printed secrets--impatience. Nothing is
easier, nothing commoner (most wise people do it, whose fate is, that
they must keep up with the race of current publication, and therefore
must keep down the still-increasing crowd of authorial creations),
nothing is more venial, more laudable, than to read the last chapter
first; and so, finding out all mysteries at once, to save one's self a
vast deal of unnecessary trouble. And, for mere tale-telling, this may
be sufficient. What need to burden memory with imaginary statements, or
to weary out one's sympathies on trite fictitious woes?--come to the
catastrophe at once: the uncle hanged; the heir righted; the heroine, an
orange-flowered bride; and the white-headed grandmother, after all her
wrongs, winding up the story with a prudent moral. Now, this may all be
very well with histories that merely carry a sting in the tail, whose
moral is the warning of the rattlesnake, and whose hot-exciting interest
is posted with the scorpion's venom. They are the Dragon of Wantley,
with one caudal point--a barbed termination: we, like Moore of Moore
Hall, all point, covered with spikes: every where we boast ourselves an
ethical hedge-hog, all-over-armed with keen morals--a Rumour painted
full of tongues, echoing all around with revealing of secrets. The
feelings of our humble hero, altered Roger Acton, are worthy to be
studied by the great, to be sifted by the rich; and Grace's simple
tongue may teach the sage, for its wisdom cometh from above; and
Jonathan, for all his shoulder-knot and smart cockade, is worthy to give
lessons to his master: that master, also, is far better than you think
him; and poor Burke too, for true humanity's sake: so we get a mint of
morals, set aside the story. It is not raw material, but the
workmanship, that gives its value to the flowered damask; our
grand-dames' sumptuous taffeties and stand-alone brocades are but spun
silk-worms' interiors; the fairest statue is intrinsically but a mass of
clumsy stone, until, indeed, the sculptor has rough-hewn it, and shaped
it, and chiselled it, and finished all the touches with sand-paper. This
story of '_The Crock of Gold_' purports to be a Dutch picture, as
becometh boors, their huts, their short and simple annals; so that,
after its moralities, the mass of minute detail is the only thing that
gives it any value.
Now, whilst all of you have been yawning through these egotistic
phrases, Roger has been digging in his garden; there he is, pecking away
at what once was the celery-bed, but now are fallow trenches; celery, as
we all know, is a water-loving plant, doing best in marshy-land, so no
wonder the trenches open on the sedge, and the muddy shallow opposite
Pike Island puddles up to them. There needs be no suspense, no mystery
at all; Roger's dream had clearly sent him thither, for he should not
have levelled those trenches yet awhile, it was a little too soon--bad
husbandry; and, barring the appearance of a devil, Roger's dream came
true. Yes, under the roots of a clump of bullrush, he lifted out with
his spade--a pot of Narbonne honey!
When first he spied the pot, his heart was in his mouth--it must be
gold, and with tottering knees he raised the precious burden. But, woful
disappointment! the word "Honey," with plenty of French and Fortnum on
another pasted label, stared him in the face; it was sweet and slimy too
about the neck; there was no sort of jingle when he shook the crock;
what though it be heavy?--honey's heavy; and it was tied over quite in a
common way with pig's bladder, and his clumsy trembling fingers could
not undo that knot; and thus, with a miserable sense of cheated poverty,
he threw it down beside the path, and would, perhaps, have flung it
right away in sheer disgust, but for the reflection that the little ones
might like it. Once, indeed, the glorious doubt of maybe gold came back
upon his mind, and he lifted up the spade to smash the baffling pot, and
so make sure of what it might contain;--make sure, eh? why, you would
only lose the honey, whispered domestic economy. So he left the jar to
be opened by his wife when he should go in.
CHAPTER XIV.
JONATHAN'S STORE.
AND where has Mrs. Acton been all this morning? Off to the
Hall, very soon after Grace had got away; and she rung at the side
entrance, hard by the kitchen, most fortunately caught Sarah Stack
about, and had a good long gossip with her; telling her, open-mouthed,
all about Ben Burke having found a shawl of Mrs. Quarles's on the
island; and how, it being very rotten, yes, and smelling foul, Ben had
been fool enough to burn it; what a pity! how could the shawl have got
there? if it only could ha' spoken what it knew! And the bereaved
gossips mourned together over secrets undivulged, and their evidence
destroyed. As to the crockery, for a miraculous once in life, Mrs. Acton
held her tongue about a thing she knew, and said not a syllable
concerning it. Roger would be mad to lose the money. Just at parting
with her friend Mary Acton was going out by the wrong door, through the
hall, but luckily did no more than turn the handle; or she never could
have escaped bouncing in upon the lovers' interview, and thereby
occasioning a chaos of confusion. For, be it whispered, the step-dame
was not a little jealous of her ready-made daughter's beauty, persisted
in calling her a child, and treated her any thing but kindly and
sisterly, as her full-formed woman's loveliness might properly have
looked for. Only imagine, if the Hecate had but seen Jonathan's lit-up
looks, or Grace's down-cast blushes; for it really slipped my
observation to record that there were blushes, and probably some cause
for them when the keep-sake was given and accepted; only conceive if
the step-mother had heard Jonathan's afterward soliloquy, when he was
watching pretty Grace as she tripped away--and how much he seemed to
think of her eyes and eye-lashes! I am reasonably fearful, had she heard
and seen all this--Poll Acton's nails might have possibly drawn blood
from the cheeks of Jonathan Floyd. As it was, the little god of love
kindly warded from his votaries the coming of so crabbed an antagonist.
Grace has now reached home again, blessing her overruling stars to have
escaped notice so entirely both in going and returning; for the mother
was hard at washing near the well, having got in half an hour before,
and father has not yet left off digging in his garden. So she crept up
stairs quietly, put away her Sunday best, and is just dropping on her
knees beside her truckle-bed, to speak of all her sorrows to her
Heavenly friend, and to thank him for the kindness He had raised her in
an earthly one. She then, with no small trepidation, took out of her
tucker, just below those withered snow-drops, the crumpled bit of paper
that held Jonathan's parting gift. It was surprising how her tucker
heaved; she could hardly get at the parcel. She wanted to look at that
half-crown; not that she feared it was a bad one, or was curious about
coins, or felt any pleasure in possessing such a sum: but there was such
a don't-know-what connected with that new half-crown, which made her
long to look at it; so she opened the paper--and found its golden
fellows! O noble heart! O kind, generous, unselfish--yes, beloved
Jonathan! But what is she to do with the sovereigns? Keep them? No, she
cannot keep them, however precious in her sight as proofs of deep
affection; but she will call as soon as possible, and give them back,
and insist upon his taking them, and keeping them too--for her, if no
otherwise. And the dear innocent girl was little aware herself how glad
she felt of the excuse to call so soon again at Hurstley.
Meantime, for safety, she put the money in her Bible.
What hallowed gold was that? Gained by honest industry, saved by
youthful prudence, given liberally and unasked, to those who needed, and
could not pay again; with a delicate consideration, an heroic essay at
concealment, a voluntary sacrifice of self, of present pleasure,
passion, and affection. And there it lies, the little store, hidden up
in Grace's Bible. She has prayed over it, thanked over it, interceded
over it, for herself, for it, for others. How different, indeed, from
ordinary gold, from common sin-bought mammon; how different from that
unblest store, which Roger Acton covets; how purified from meannesses,
and separate from harms! This is of that money, the scarcest coins of
all the world, endued with all good properties in heaven and in earth,
whereof it had been written, "The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,
saith the Lord of hosts."
Such alone are truly riches--well-earned, well-saved, well-sanctified,
well-spent. The wealthiest of European capitalists--the Croesus of
modern civilization--may be but a pauper in that better currency,
whereof a sample has been shown in the store of Jonathan Floyd.
CHAPTER XV.
ANOTHER DISCOVERY, AND THE EARNEST OF GOOD THINGS.
"DAME, here's one o' Ben's gallipots he flung away: it's naught
but honey, dame--marked so--no crock of gold; don't expect it; no such
thing; luck like that isn't for such as me: though, being as it is, the
babes may like it, with their dry bread: open it, good-wife: I hope the
water mayn't ha' spoilt it."
The notable Mary Acton produced certain scissors, hanging from her
pocket by a tape, and cut a knot, which to Roger had been Gordian's.
"Why, it's bran, Acton, not honey; look here, will you." She tilted it
up, and, along with a cloud of saw-dust, dropped out a heavy hail-storm
of--little bits of leather!
"Hallo? what's that?" said Roger, eagerly: "it's gold, gold, I'll be
sworn!" It was so.
Every separate bit of money, whatever kind of coins they were, had been
tidily sewn up in a shred of leather; remnants of old gloves of all
colours; and the Narbonne jar contained six hundred and eighty-seven of
them. These, of course, were hastily picked up from the path whereon
they had first fallen, were counted out at home, and the glittering
contents of most of those little leather bags ripped up were immediately
discovered. Oh dear! oh dear! such a sight! Guineas and half-guineas,
sovereigns and half-sovereigns, quite a little hill of bright, clean,
prettily-figured gold.
"Hip, hip, hooray!" shouted Roger, in an ecstacy; "Hurrah, hurrah,
hurrah!" and in the madness of his joy, he executed an extravagant pas
seul; up went his hat, round went his heels, and he capered awkwardly
like a lunatic giraffe.
"Here's an end to all our troubles, Poll: we're as good as gentle-folks
now; catch me a-calling at the Hall, to bother about Jennings and Sir
John: a fig for bailiffs, and baronets, parsons, and prisons, and all,"
and again he roared Hooray! "I tell you what though, old 'ooman, we must
just try the taste of our glorious golden luck, before we do any thing
else. Bide a bit, wench, and hide the hoard till I return. I'm off to
the Bacchus's Arms, and I'll bring you some stingo in a minute, old
gal." So off he ran hot-foot, to get an earnest of the blessing of his
crock of gold.
The minute that was promised to produce the stingo, proved to be rather
of a lengthened character; it might, indeed, have been a minute, or the
fraction of one, in the planet Herschel, whose year is as long as
eighty-five of our Terra's, but according to Greenwich calculation, it
was nearer like two hours.
The little Tom and Jerry shop, that rejoiced in the classical heraldry
of Bacchus's Arms, had been startled from all conventionalities by the
unwonted event of the demand, "change for a sovereign?" and when it was
made known to the assembled conclave that Roger Acton was the fortunate
possessor, that even assumed an appearance positively miraculous.
"Why, honest Roger, how in the world could you ha' come by that?" was
the troublesome inquiry of Dick the Tanner.
"Well, Acton, you're sharper than I took you for, if you can squeeze
gold out of bailiff Jennings," added Solomon Snip; and Roger knew no
better way of silencing their tongues, than by profusely drenching them
in liquor. So he stood treat all round, and was forced to hobanob with
each; and when that was gone, he called for more to keep their curiosity
employed. Now, all this caused delay; and if Mary had been waiting for
the "stingo," she would doubtless have had reasonable cause for anger
and impatience: however, she, for her part, was so pleasantly occupied,
like Prince Arthur's Queen, in counting out the money, that, to say the
truth, both lord and liquor were entirely forgotten.
But another cause that lengthened out the minute, was the embarrassing
business of where to find the change. Bacchus's didn't chalk up trust,
where hard money was flung upon the counter; but all the accumulated
wealth of Bacchus's high-priest, Tom Swipey, and of the seven
worshippers now drinking in his honour, could not suffice to make up
enough of change: therefore, after two gallons left behind him in
libations as aforesaid, and two more bottled up for a drink-offering at
home, Roger was contented to be owed seven and fourpence; a debt never
likely to be liquidated. Much speculation this afforded to the gossips;
and when the treater's back was turned, they touched their foreheads,
for the man was clearly crazed, and they winked to each other with a
gesture of significance.
Grace, while musing on her new half-crown--it was strange how long she
looked at it--had heard with real amazement that uproarious huzzaing!
and, just as her father had levanted for the beer, glided down from her
closet, and received the wondrous tidings from her step-mother. She
heard in silence, if not in sadness: intuitive good sense proclaimed to
her that this sudden gush of wealth was a temptation, even if she felt
no secret fears on the score of--shall we call it superstition?--that
dream, this crock, that dark angel--and this so changed spirit of her
once religious father: what could she think? she meekly looked to Heaven
to avert all ill.
Mary Acton also was less elated and more alarmed than she cared to
confess: not that she, any more than Grace, knew or thought about lords
of manors, or physical troubles on the score of finding the crock: but
Mrs. Quarles's shawl, and sundry fearful fancies tinged with blood,
these worried her exceedingly, and made her look upon the gold with an
uneasy feeling, as if it were an unclean thing, a sort of Achan's wedge.
At last, here comes Roger back, somewhat unsteadily I fear, with a stone
two-gallon jar of what he was pleased to avouch to be "the down-right
stingo." "Hooray, Poll!" (he had not ceased shouting all the way from
Bacchus's,) "Hooray--here I be again, a gentle-folk, a lord, a king,
Poll: why daughter Grace, what's come to you? I won't have no dull looks
about to-day, girl. Isn't this enough to make a poor man merry? No more
troubles, no more toil, no more 'humble sarvent,' no more a ragged,
plodding ploughman: but a lord, daughter Grace--a great, rich, luxurious
lord--isn't this enough to make a man sing out hooray?--Thank the crock
of gold for this--Oh, blessed crock!"
"Hush, father, hush! that gold will be no blessing to you; Heaven send
it do not bring a curse. It will be a sore temptation, even if the
rights of it are not in some one else: we know not whom it may belong
to, but at any rate it cannot well be ours."
"Not ours, child? whose in life is it then?"
Mary Acton, made quite meek by a superstitious dread of having money of
the murdered, stepped in to Grace's help, whom her father's fierce
manner had appalled, with "Roger, it belonged to Mrs. Quarles, I'm
morally sure on it--and must now be Simon Jennings's, her heir."
"What?" he almost frantically shrieked, "shall that white hell-hound rob
me yet again? No, dame--I'll hang first! the crock I found, the crock
I'll keep: the money's mine, whoever did the murder." Then, changing his
mad tone into one of reckless inebriate gayety--for he was more than
half-seas over even then from the pot-house toastings and excitement--he
added, "But come, wenches, down with your mugs, and help me to get
through the jar: I never felt so dry in all my life. Here's blessings on
the crock, on him as sent it, him as has it, and on all the joy and
comfort it's to bring us! Come, drink, drink--we must all drink
that--but where's Tom?"
If Roger had been quite himself, he never would have asked so
superfluous a question: for Tom was always in one and the same company,
albeit never in one and the same place: he and his Pan-like Mentor were
continually together, studying wood-craft, water-craft, and all manner
of other craft connected with the antique trade of picking and stealing.
"Where's Tom?"
Grace, glad to have to answer any reasonable question, mildly answered,
"Gone away with Ben, father."
Alas! that little word, Ben, gave occasion to reveal a depth in Roger's
fall, which few could have expected to behold so soon. To think that the
liberal friend, who only last night had frankly shared his all with him,
whose honest glowing heart would freely shed its blood for him, that he
in recollection should be greeted with a loathing! Ben would come, and
claim some portion of his treasure--he would cry halves--or, who knows?
might want all--all: and take it by strong arm, or by threat to 'peach
against him:--curse that Burke! he hated him.
Oh, Steady Acton! what has made thee drink and swear? Oh, Honest Roger!
what has planted guile, and suspicion, and malice in thy heart? Are
these the mere first-fruits of coveting and having? Is this the earliest
blessing of that luck which many long for--the finding of a crock of
gold?
We would not enlarge upon the scene; a painful one at all times, when
man forgets his high prerogative, and drowns his reason in the tankard:
but, in a Roger Acton's case, lately so wise, temperate, and patient,
peculiarly distressing. Its chief features were these. Grace tasted
nothing, but mournfully looked on: once only she attempted to
expostulate, but was met--not with fierce oaths, nor coarse chidings,
nor even with idiotic drivelling--oh no! worse than that she felt: he
replied to her with the maudlin drunken promise, "If she'd only be a
good girl, and let him bide, he'd give her a big Church-bible, bound in
solid gold--that 'ud make the book o' some real value, Grace." Poor
broken-hearted daughter--she rushed to her closet in a torrent of tears.
As for Mary Acton, she was miraculously meek and dumb; all the scold was
quelled within her; the word "blood" was the Petruchio that tamed that
shrew; she could see a plenty of those crimson spots, which might
"The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green, one red,"
dancing in the sun-beams, dotted on the cottage walls, sprinkled as
unholy water, over that foul crock. Would not the money be a curse to
them any how, say nothing of the danger? If things went on as they
began, Mary might indeed have cause for fear: actually, she could not
a-bear to look upon the crock; she quite dreaded it, as if it had
contained a "bottled devil." So there she sat ever so long--silent,
thoughtful, and any thing but comfortable.
What became of Roger until next day at noon, neither he nor I can tell:
true, his carcase lay upon the floor, and the two-gallon jar was empty.
But, for the real man, who could answer to the name of Roger Acton, the
sensitive and conscious soul--that was some where galloping away for
fifteen hours in the Paradise of fools: the Paradise? no--the Maelstrom;
tossed about giddily and painfully in one whirl of tumultuous
drunkenness.
CHAPTER XVI.
HOW THE HOME WAS BLEST THEREBY.
IT will surprise no one to be told that, however truly such an
excess may have been the first, it was by no means the last exploit of
our altered labourer in the same vein of heroism. Bacchus's was quite
close, and he needs must call for his change; he had to call often;
drank all quits; changed another sovereign, and was owed again; but,
trust him, he wasn't going to be cheated out of that: take care of the
pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves. But still it was
ditto repeated; changing, being owed, grudging, grumbling: at last he
found out the famous new plan of owing himself; and as Bacchus's did not
see fit to reject such wealthy customers, Roger soon chalked up a
yard-long score, and grew so niggardly that they could not get a penny
from him.
It is astonishing how immediately wealth brings in, as its companion,
meanness: they walk together, and stand together, and kneel together, as
the hectoring, prodigal Faulconbridge, the Bastard Plantagenet in _King
John_, does with his white-livered, puny brother, Robert. Wherefore, no
sooner was Roger blest with gold, than he resolved not to be such a fool
as to lose liberally, or to give away one farthing. To give, I say, for
extravagant indulgence is another thing; and it was a fine, proud
pleasure to feast a lot of fellows at his sole expense. If meanness is
brother to wealth, it is at any rate first cousin to extravagance.
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