Both—­both darlings, dead Annie’s little orphaned pets, thus stricken by one stone to infamy!  Grace, scouted as a hussey, an outcast, a bad girl, a wanton—­blessed angel!  Thomas—­generous boy—­keenly looked for, in his near return, to be seized by rude hands, manacled, and dragged away, and tried on suspicion as a felon—­for what? that crock of gold.  Yet Roger heard it all, knew it all, writhed at it all, as if scorpions were lashing him; but still he held on grimly, keeping that bad secret.  Should he blab it out, and so be poor again, and lose the crock?

That our labourer’s changed estate influenced his bodily health, under this accumulated misery and desperate excitement, began to be made manifest to all.  The sturdy husbandman was transformed into a tremulous drunkard; the contented cottager, into a querulous hypochondriac; the calm, religious, patient Christian, into a tumultuous blasphemer.  Could all this be, and even Roger’s iron frame stand up against the battle!  No, the strength of Samson has been shorn.  The crock has poured a blessing on its finder’s very skin, as when the devil covered Job with boils.

CHAPTER XX.

THE BAILIFF’S VISIT.

ONE day at noon, ere the first week well was over since the fortunate discovery of gold, as Roger lay upon his bed, recovering from an overnight’s excess, tossed with fever, vexation, and anxiety, he was at once surprised and frightened by a visit from no less a personage than Mr. Simon Jennings.  And this was the occasion of his presence: 

Directly the gathering storm of rumours had collected to that focus of all calumny, the destruction of female character and murder charged upon the innocent, Grace Acton had resolved upon her course; secresy could be kept no longer; her duty now appeared to be, to publish the story of her father’s lucky find.

Grace, we may observe, had never been bound to silence, but only imposed it on herself from motives of tenderness to one, whom she believed to be taken in the toils of a temptation.  She, simple soul, knew nothing of manorial rights, nor wotted she that any could despoil her father of his money; but even if such thoughts had ever crossed her mind, she loathed the gold that had brought so much trouble on them all, and cared not how soon it was got rid of.  Her father’s health, honour, happiness, were obviously at stake; perhaps, also, her brother’s very life:  and, as for herself, the martyr of calumny looked piously to heaven, offered up her outraged heart, and resolved to stem this torrent of misfortune.  Accordingly, with a noble indignation worthy of her, she had gone straightway to the Hall, to see the baronet, to tell the truth, fling aside a charge which she could scarcely comprehend, and openly vindicate her offended honour.  She failed—­many imagine happily for her own peace, if Sir John had not been better than his friends—­in gaining access to the Lord of Hurstley; but she did see Mr. Jennings, who serenely interposed, and listened to all she came to say—­“her father had been unfortunate enough to find a crock of money on the lake side near his garden.”