CARE.
But other happy consequences soon became apparent. If Acton in
his tipsy state was mad, in his intervals of soberness he was thoroughly
miserable. And this, not merely on the score of sickness, exhaustion,
prostrated spirits, blue-devils, or other the long catalogue of a
drunkard's joys; not merely from a raging wife, and a wretched home; not
merely from the stings, however sharp, however barbed, of a conscience
ill at ease, that would rise up fiercely like a hissing snake, and
strike the black apostate to the earth: these all, doubtless, had their
pleasant influences, adding to the lucky finder's bliss: but there was
another root of misery most unlooked for, and to the poor who dream of
gold, entirely paradoxical.
The possession of that crock was the heaviest of cares. Where on earth
was he to hide it? how to keep it safely, secretly? What if he were
robbed of it in some sly way! O, thought of utter wo! it made the
fortunate possessor quiver like an aspen. Or what, if some one or more
of those blustering boon companions were to come by night with a
bludgeon and a knife, and--and cut his throat, and find the treasure?
or, worse still, were to torture him, set him on the fire like a
saucepan (he had heard of Turpin having done so with a rich old woman),
and make him tell them "where" in his extremity of pains, and give up
all, and then--and then murder him at last, outright, and afterwards
burn the hovel over his head, babes and all, that none might live to
tell the tale? These fears set him on the rack, and furnished one
inciting cause to that uninterrupted orgie; he must be either mad or
miserable, this lucky finder.
Also, even in his tipsy state, he could not cast off care: he might in
his cups reveal the dangerous secret of having found a crock of gold. A
secret still it was: Grace, his wife, and himself, were the only souls
who knew it. Dear Grace feared to say a word about the business: not in
apprehension of the law, for she never thought of that too probable
intrusion on the finder: but simply because her unsophisticated piety
believed that God, for some wise end, had allowed the Evil One to tempt
her father; she, indeed, did not know the epigram,
The devil now is wiser than of yore:
He tempts by making rich--not making poor:
but she did not conceive that notion in her mind; she contrasted the
wealthy patriarch Job, tried by poverty and pain, but just and patient
in adversity--with the poor labourer Acton, tried by luxury and wealth,
and proved to be apostate in prosperity: so she held her tongue, and
hitherto had been silent on a matter of so much local wonder as her
father's sudden wealth, in the midst of urgent curiosity and
extraordinary rumours.
Mary was kept quiet as we know, by superstition of a lower grade, the
dread of having money of the murdered, a thought she never breathed to
any but her husband; and to poor uninitiated Grace (who had not heard a
word of Ben's adventure), her answer about Mrs. Quarles and Mr. Jennings
in the dawn of the crock's first blessing, had been entirely
unintelligible: Mary, then, said never a word, but looked on dreadingly
to see the end.
As for Roger himself, he was too much in apprehension of a landlord's
claims, and of a task-master's extortions, to breath a syllable about
the business. So he hid his crock as best he could--we shall soon hear
how and where--took out sovereign after sovereign day by day, and made
his flush of instant wealth a mystery, a miracle, a legacy, good luck,
any thing, every thing but the truth: and he would turn fiercely round
to the frequent questioner with a "What's that to you?--Nobody's
business but mine:" and then would coaxingly add the implied bribe to
secresy, in his accustomed invitation--"And now, what'll you take?"--a
magical phrase, which could suffice to quell murmurs for the time, and
postponed curiosity to appetite. Thus the fact was still unknown, and
weighed on Roger's mind as a guilty concealment, an oppressive secret.
What if any found it out?
For immediate safety--the evening after his memorable first fifteen
hours of joy--he buried the crock deeply in a hole in his garden,
filling all up hard with stones and brick-bats; and when he had
smoothed it straight and workmanlike, remembered that he surely hadn't
kept out enough to last him; so up it had to come again--five more taken
out, and the crock was restored to its unquiet grave.
Scarcely had he done this, than it became dark, and he began to fancy
some one might have seen him hide it; those low mean tramps (never
before had he refused the wretched wayfarers his sympathy) were always
sneaking about, and would come and dig it up in the night: so he went
out in the dark and the rain, got at it with infinite trouble and a
broken pickaxe, and exultingly brought the crock in-doors; where he
buried it a third time, more securely, underneath the grouted floor,
close beside the fire in the chimney-corner: it was now nearly midnight,
and he went to bed.
Hardly had he tumbled in, after pulling on a nightcap of the flagon,
than the dread idea overtook him that his treasure might be melted! Was
there ever such a fool as he? Well, well, to think he could fling his
purse on the fire! What a horrid thought! Metallurgy was a science quite
unknown to Roger; he only considered gold as heavy as lead, and
therefore probably as fusible: so down he bustled, made another hole, a
deeper one too this time, in the floor under the dresser, where,
exhausted with his toil and care, he deposited the crock by four in the
morning--and so retired once more.
All in vain--nobody ever knew when Black Burke might be returning from
his sporting expeditions--and that beast of a lurcher would be sure to
be creeping in this morning, and would scratch it up, and his brute of a
master would get it all! This fancy was the worst possible: and Roger
rose again, quite sick at heart, pale, worn, and trembling with a
miser's haggard joys. Where should he hide that crock--the epithet
"cursed" crock escaped him this time in his vexed impatience. In the
house and in the garden, it was equally unsafe.
Ha! a bright thought indeed: the hollow in the elm-tree, creaking
overhead, just above the second arm: so the poor, shivering wretch,
almost unclad, swarmed up that slimy elm, and dropped his treasure in
the hollow. Confusion! how deep it was: he never thought of that; here
was indeed something too much of safety: and then those boys of
neighbour Goode's were birds'-nesting continually, specially round the
lake this spring. What an idiot he was not to have remembered this! And
up he climbed again, thrust in his arm to the shoulder, and managed to
repossess himself a fifth time of that blessed crock.
Would that the elm had been hollow to its root, and beneath the root a
chasm bottomless, and that Plutus in that Narbonne jar had served as a
supper to Pluto in the shades! Better had it been for thee, my Roger.
But he had not hid it yet; so, that night--or rather that cold morning
about six, the drenched, half-frozen Fortunatus carried it to bed with
him: and a precious warming-pan it made: for nothing would satisfy the
finder of its presence but perpetual bodily contact:--accordingly, he
placed it in his bosom, and it chilled him to the back-bone.
Yes; that was undoubtedly the safest way; to carry the spoil about with
him; so, next noon--how could he get up till noon after such a woful
night?--next noon he emptied the jar, and tying up its contents in a
handkerchief, proceeded to wear it as a girdle; for an hour he clattered
about the premises, making as much jingle as a wagoner's team of bells;
laden heavily with gold, like the [Greek: ibebusto] genius in Herodotus:
but he soon found out this would not do at all; for, independently of
all concealment at an end, so long as his secret store was rattling as
he walked, louder than military spurs or sabre-tackle, he soberly
reflected that he might--possibly, possibly, though not probably--get a
glass too much again, by some mere accident or other; and then to be
robbed of his golden girdle, this cincture of all joy! O, terrible
thought! as well [this is my fancy, not Rogers's] deprive Venus of her
zone, and see how the beggared Queen of Beauty could exist without her
treasury, the Cestus.