THE CROCK OF GOLD;

A Rural Novel.

by

Martin Farquhar Tupper, ESQ., M.A.,

Author of “Proverbial Philosophy.”

Hartford: 
Silas Andrus and Son.

1851.

CHAPTER I.

The labourer; and his dawning discontent.

Roger Acton woke at five.  It was a raw March morning, still dark, and bitterly cold, while at gusty intervals the rain beat in against the crazy cottage-window.  Nevertheless, from his poor pallet he must up and rouse himself, for it will be open weather by sunrise, and his work lies two miles off; Master Jennings is not the man to show him favour if he be late, and Roger cannot afford to lose an hour:  so he shook off the luxury of sleep, and rose again to toil with weary effort.

“Honest Roger,” as the neighbours called him, was a fair specimen of a class which has been Britain’s boast for ages, and may be still again, in measure, but at present that glory appears to be departing:  a class much neglected, much enduring; thoroughly English—­just, industrious, and patient; true to the altar, and loyal to the throne; though haply shaken somewhat now from both those noble faiths—­warped in their principles, and blunted in their feelings, by lying doctrines and harsh economies; a class—­I hate the cold cant term—­a race of honourable men, full of cares, pains, privations—­but of pleasures next to none; whose life at its most prosperous estate is labour, and in death we count him happy who did not die a pauper.  Through them, serfs of the soil, the earth yields indeed her increase, but it is for others; from the fields of plenty they glean a scanty pittance, and fill the barns to bursting, while their children cry for bread.  Not that Roger for his part often wanted work; he was the best hand in the parish, and had earned of his employers long ago the name of Steady Acton; but the fair wages for a fair day’s labour were quite another thing, and the times went very hard for him and his.  A man himself may starve, while his industry makes others fat:  and a liberal landlord all the winter through may keep his labourers in work, while a crafty, overbearing bailiff mulcts them in their wages.

For the outward man, Acton stood about five feet ten, a gaunt, spare, and sinewy figure, slightly bent; his head sprinkled with gray; his face marked with those rigid lines, which tell, if not of positive famine, at least of too much toil on far too little food; in his eye, patience and good temper; in his carriage, a mixture of the sturdy bearing, necessary to the habitual exercise of great muscular strength, together with that gait of humility—­almost humiliation—­which is the seal of oppression upon poverty.  He might be about forty, or from that to fifty, for hunger, toil, and weather had used him the roughest; while, for all beside, the patched and well-worn smock, the heavily-clouted high-laced boots, a dingy worsted neck-tie, and an old felt hat, complete the picture of externals.