INVESTMENT.
Next day, the wealthy Roger had higher aspirations. Why should
not he get interest for his money, like lords and gentlefolk? His gold
had been lying idle too long; more fool he: it ought to breed money
somehow, he knew that; for, like most poor men whose sole experience of
investment is connected with the Lombard's golden balls, he took exalted
views of usury. Was he to be "hiding up his talent in a napkin--?"
Ah!--he remembered and applied the holy parable, but it smote across his
heart like a flash of frost, a chilling recollection of good things past
and gone. What had he been doing with his talents--for he once
possessed the ten? had he not squandered piety, purity, and patience?
where were now his gratitude to God, his benevolence to man? the
father's duteous care, the husband's industry and kindness, the
labourer's faith, the Christian's hope--who had spent all these?--Till
money's love came in, and money-store to feed it, the poor man had been
rich: but now, rotten to the core, by lust of gold, the rich is poor
indeed.
However, such considerations did not long afflict him--for we know that
lookers-on see more than players--and if Roger had encouraged half our
wise and sober thoughts, he might have been a better man: but Roger
quelled the thoughts, and silenced them; and thoughts are tender
intonations, shy little buzzing sounds, soon scared by coarser noise:
Roger had no mind to cherish those small fowls; so they flew back again
to Heaven's gate, homeless and uncomforted as weeping peri's.
The bank--the county bank--Shark, Breakem, and Company--this was the
specious Eldorado, the genuine gold-increaser, the hive where he would
store his wealth (as honey left for the bees in winter), and was to have
it soon returned fourfold. It was indeed a thought to make the rich man
glad, that all his shining heap was just like a sample of seed-corn, and
the pocket-full should next year fill a sack. How grudgingly he now
began to mourn over past extravagance, five pieces gone within the week!
how close and careful he resolved to be in future! how he would scrape
and economize to get and save but one more of those sweet little seeds,
that yield more gold--more gold! And if Roger had been privileged in
youth to have fed upon the wisdom of the Eton Latin grammar, he could
have now quoted with some experimental unction the "_Crescit Amor_"
line, which every body well knows how to finish. Truly, it was growing
with his growth, and rioting in strength above his weakness.
Swollen with this expanding love, he packed up his money in what were,
though he knew it not, _rouleaux_, but to his plebeian eyes looked more
like golden sausages: and he would take it to the bank, and they should
bow to him, and Sir him, and give him forthwith more than he had
brought; and if those summary gains were middling great--say twice as
much, to be moderate--he thought he might afford himself a chaise coming
back, and return to Hurstley Common like a nabob. Thus, full of wealthy
fancies, after one glass more, off set Roger to the county town, with
his treasure in a bundle.
Half-way to it, as hospitality has ordained to be the case wherever
there be half-ways, occurred a public-house: and really,
notwithstanding all our monied neophyte's economical resolutions, his
throat was so "uncommon dry," that he needs must stop there to refresh
the muscles of his larynx: so, putting down his bundle on the settle, he
called for a foaming tankard, and thanking the crock, as his evil wont
now was, sat down to drink and think. Here was prosperity indeed, a
flood of astonishing good fortune: that he, but a little week agone, a
dirty ditcher--so was he pleased to designate his former self--a ragged
wretch, little better than a tramp, should be now progressing like a
monarch, with a mighty bag of gold to enrich his county town. To enrich,
and be thereby the richer; for Roger's actions of finance were so
simple, as to run the risk of being called sublimely indistinct: he took
it as an axiom that "money bred money," but in what way to draw forth
its generative properties, whether or not by some new-fangled manure, he
was entirely ignorant; and it clearly was his wisdom to leave all that
mystery of money-making solely to the banker. All he cared about was
this: to come back richer than he came--and, lo! how rich he was
already. Lolling at high noon, on a Wednesday too, in the extremest mode
of rustic beauism, with a bag of gold by his side, and a pot of porter
in his hand--here was an accumulation of magnificence--all the
prepositions pressed into his service. His wildest hopes exceeded, and
almost nothing left to wish. Blown up with the pride and importance of
the moment, and some little oblivious from the potent porter--he had
paid and sallied forth, and marched a mile upon his way, full of golden
fancies, a rich luxurious lord as he was--when all on a sudden the
hallucination crossed his dull pellucid mind, that he had left the store
behind him! O, pungent terror!--O, most exquisite torture! was it clean
gone, stolen, lost, lost, lost for ever? Rushing back in an agony of
fear, that made the ruddy hostess think him crazed, with his hair on
end, and a face as if it had been white-washed, he flew to the tap-room,
and--almost fainted for ecstasy of joy when he found it, where he had
laid it, on the settle!
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.