EXPERIENCE.
Then, with disjointed sentences, suited to the turmoil of his
thoughts, half in a soliloquy, half as talking to his daughter, Roger
Acton gave his hostile testimony to the worth of wealth.
"Oh, fool, fool that I have been, to set so high a price on gold! To
have hungered and thirsted for it--to have coveted earnestly so bad a
gift--to have longed for Mammon's friendship, which is enmity with God!
What has not money cost me? Happiness:--ay, wasn't it to have given me
happiness? and the little that I had (it was much, Grace, not little,
very much--too much--God be praised for it!) all, all the happiness I
had, gold took away. Look at our dear old home--shattered and scattered,
as now I wish that crock had been. Health, too; were it not for gold,
and all gold gave, I had been sturdy still, and capable; but my nights
maddened with anxieties, my days worried with care, my head feverish
with drink, my heart rent by conscience--ah, my girl, my girl, when I
thought much of poverty and its hardships, of toil, and hunger, and
rheumatics, I little imagined that wealth had heavier cares and pains: I
envied them their wanton life of pleasure at the Hall, and little knew
how hard it was: well are they called hard-livers who drink, and game,
and have nothing to do, except to do wickedness continually.
Religion--can it bide with money, child? I never knew my wicked heart,
till fortune made me rich; not until then did I guess how base, lying,
false, and bad was "honest Roger;" how sensual, coarse, and brutal, was
that hypocrite "steady Acton". Money is a devil, child, or pretty near
akin. Then I complained of toil, too, didn't I?--Ah, what are all the
aches I ever felt--labouring with spade and spud in cold and rain,
hungry belike, and faint withal--what are they all at their worst (and
the worst was very seldom after all), to the gnawing cares, the hideous
fears, the sins--the sins, my girl, that tore your poor old father?
Wasn't it to be an end of troubles, too, this precious crock of gold?
Wo's me, I never knew real trouble till I had it! Look at me, and judge;
what has made me live like a beast, sin like a heathen, and lie down
here like a felon? what has made me curse Ben Burke--kind, hearty,
friendly Ben?--and given my poor good boy an ill-report as having stolen
and slain? all this crock of gold. But O, my Grace, to think that the
crock's curses touched thee, too! didn't it madden me to hear them?
Dear, pure, patient child, my darling, injured daughter, here upon my
knees I pray, forgive that wrong!" And he fell at her feet beseechingly.
"My father," said the noble girl, lifting up his head, and passionately
kissing it; "when they whispered so against me, and Jonathan heard the
wicked things men said, I would have borne it all, all in silence, and
let them all believe me bad, father, if I could have guessed that by
uttering the truth, I should have seen thee here, in a dungeon, treated
as a--murderer! How was I to tell that men could be so base, as to
charge such crimes upon the innocent, when his only fault, or his
misfortune, was to find a crock of gold? Oh! forgive me, too, this
wrong, my father!"
And they wept in each other's arms.