Now, that episode should have been in a foot note; but no one takes the trouble to read notes; and with justice too; for if a man has any thing to say, let him put it in his text, as orderly as may be.  And, if order be sometimes out of the question, as seems but clearly suitable at present to our hero’s manner of life, it is wise to go boldly on, without so prim an usher; to introduce our thoughts as they reveal themselves, ignorant of “their own degrees,” not “standing on the order of their coming,” but, as a pit crowd on a benefit-night, bustling over one another, helter-skelter, “in most admired disorder.”  This will well comport with Roger’s daily life:  for, notwithstanding the frequent interference of an Amazon wife—­regardless of poor, dear Grace’s gentle voice and melancholy eyes—­in spite of a conscience pricking in his breast, with the spines of a horse-chestnut, that evil crock appeared from the beginning to have been found for but one sole purpose—­videlicet, that of keeping alight in Roger’s brain the fire of mad intoxication.  Yes, there were sundry other purposes, too, which may as well be told directly.

The utter dislocation of all home comforts occupied the foremost rank.  True—­in comparison with the homes of affluence and halls of luxury—­those comforts may have formerly seemed few and far between; yet still the angel of domestic peace not seldom found a rest within the cottage.  Not seldom? always:  if sweet-eyed Grace be such an angel, that ever-abiding guest, full of love, duty, piety, and cheerfulness.  But now, after long-enduring anguish, vexed in her righteous soul by the shocking sights and sounds of the drunkard and his parasites (for all the idle vagabonds about soon flocked around rich Acton, and were freely welcome to his reckless prodigality), Grace had been forced to steal away, and seek refuge with a neighbour.  Here was one blessing the less.

Another wretched change was in the wife.  Granted, Mary Acton had not ever been the pink of politeness, the violet of meekness, nor the rose of entire amiability:  but if she were a scold, that scolding was well meant; and her irate energies were incessantly directed towards cleanliness, economy, quiet, and other notabilia of a busy house-wife.  She did her best to keep the hovel tidy, to make the bravest show with their scanty chattels, to administer discreetly the stores of their frugal larder, and to recompense the good-man returning from his hard day’s work, with much of rude joy and bustling kindness.  But now, after the first stupor of amazement into which the crock and its consequences threw her, Poll Acton grew to be a fury:  she raged and stormed, and well she might, at filth and discomfort in her home, at nauseous dregs and noisome fumes, at the orgie still kept up, day by day, and night by night, through the length of that first foul week, which succeeded the fortunate discovery.  And not in vain she raged and stormed—­and fought too; for she did fight—­ay, and conquered:  and miserable Roger, now in full possession of those joys which he had longed for at the casement of Hurstley Hall, was glad to betake himself to the bench at Bacchus’s, whither he withdrew his ragged regiment.  Thus, that crock had spoilt all there was to spoil in the temper and conduct of the wife.