"A flock of sheep, that leisurely pa.s.s by, One after one,"
he was trying to reckon, for pleasant peace of mind"s sake, how many folks were looking at him. Only see--he is turning his white stareful face in every direction, and his lips are going a thousand and forty-one, a thousand and forty-two, a thousand and forty-three; he will not hurry it over, by leaving out the "thousand:" alas! this holiday of idiotic occupation is all the respite now his soul can know.
And the judge broke that awful silence, saying,
"Prisoner at the bar, you are convicted on your own confession, as well as upon other evidence, of crimes too horrible to speak of. The deliberate repet.i.tion of that fearful murder, cla.s.ses you among the worst of wretches whom it has been my duty to condemn: and when to this is added your perjured accusation of an innocent man, whom nothing but a miracle has rescued, your guilt becomes appalling--too hideous for human contemplation. Miserable man, prepare for death, and after that the judgment; yet, even for you, if you repent, there may be pardon; it is my privilege to tell even you, that life and hope are never to be separated, so long as G.o.d is merciful, or man may be contrite. The Sacrifice of Him who died for us all, for you, poor fellow-creature [here the good judge wept for a minute like a child]--for you, no less than for me, is available even to the chief of sinners. It is my duty and my comfort to direct your blood-stained, but immortal soul, eagerly to fly to that only refuge from eternal misery. As to this world, your career of wickedness is at an end: covetousness has conceived and generated murder; and murder has even over-stept its common bounds, to repeat the terrible crime, and then to throw its guilt upon the innocent. Entertain no hope whatever of a respite; mercy in your case would be sin.
"The sentence of the court is, that you, Simon Jennings, be taken from that bar to the county jail, and thence on this day fortnight to be conveyed to the place of execution within the prison, and there by the hands of the common hangman be hanged by the neck--"
At the word "neck," in the slow and solemn enunciation of the judge, issued a terrific scream from the mouth of Simon Jennings: was he mad after all--mad indeed? or was he being strangled by some unseen executioner? Look at him, convulsively doing battle with an invisible foe! his eyes start; his face gets bluer and bluer; his hands, fixed like griffin"s talons, clutch at vacancy--he wrestles--struggles--falls.
All was now confusion: even the grave judge, who had necessarily stopped at that frightful interruption, leaned eagerly over his desk, while barristers and serjeants learned in the law crowded round the prisoner: "He is dying! air, there--air! a gla.s.s of water, some one!"
About a thimbleful of water, after fifty spillings, arrived safely in a tumbler; but as for air, no one in that court had breathed any thing but nitrogen for four hours.
He was dying: and three several doctors, hoisted over the heads of an admiring mult.i.tude, rushed to his relief with thirsty lancets: apoplexy--oh, of course, apoplexy: and they nodded to each other confidentially.
Yes, he was dying: they might not move him now: he must die in his sins, at that dread season, upon that dread spot. Perjury, robbery, and murder--all had fastened on his soul, and were feeding there like harpies at a Strophadian feast, or vultures ravening on the liver of Prometheus. Guilt, vengeance, death had got hold of him, and rent him, as wild horses tearing him asunder different ways; he lay there gurgling, strangling, gasping, panting: none could help him, none could give him ease; he was going on the dark, dull path in the bottom of that awful valley, where Death"s cold shadow overclouds it like a canopy; he was sinking in that deep black water, that must some day drown us all--pray Heaven, with hope to cheer us then, and comfort in the fierce extremity! His eye filmed, his lower jaw relaxed, his head dropped back--he was dying--dying--dying--
On a sudden, he rallied! his blood had rushed back again from head to heart, and all the doctors were deceived--again he battled, and fought, and wrestled, and flung them from him; again he howled, and his eyes glared lightning--mad? Yes, mad--stark mad! quick--quick--we cannot hold him: save yourselves there!
But he only broke away from them to stand up free--then he gave one scream, leaped high into the air, and fell down dead in the dock, with a crimson stream of blood issuing from his mouth.
CHAPTER XLIX.
RIGHTEOUS MAMMON.
Thus the crock of gold had gained another victim. Is the curse of its acc.u.mulation still unsatisfied? Must more misery be born of that unhallowed store? Shall the poor man"s wrongs, and his little ones" cry for bread, and the widows" vain appeal for indulgence in necessity, and the debtor"s useless hope for time--more time--and the master"s misused bounty, and the murmuring dependants" ever-extorted dues--must the frauds, falsehoods, meannesses, and hardnesses of half a century long, concentrate in that small crock--must these plead still for b.l.o.o.d.y judgments from on high against all who touch that gold?
No! the miasma is dispelled: the curse is gone: the crimes are expiated.
The devil in that jar is dispossessed, and with Simon"s last gasp has returned unto his own place. The murderer is dead, and has thereby laid the ghost of his mate in sin, the murdered victim; while that victim has long ago paid by blood for her many years of mean domestic pilfering.
And now I see a better angel hovering round the crock: it is purified, sanctified, accepted. It is become a talent from the Lord, instead of a temptation from the devil; and the same coin, which once has been but dull, unrighteous mammon, through justice, thankfulness, and piety, shineth as the shekel of the temple. Gratefully, as from G.o.d, the rightful owner now may take the gift.
For, gold is a creature of G.o.d, representing many excellencies: the sweat of honest Industry distils to gold; the hot-spring of Genius congeals to gold; the blessing upon Faithfulness is often showered in gold; and Charities not seldom are guerdoned back with gold. Let no man affect to despise what Providence hath set so high in power. None do so but the man who has it not, and who knows that he covets it in vain.
Sour grapes--sour grapes--for he may not touch the vintage. This is not the verdict of the wise; the temptation he may fear, the cares he may confess, the misuse he may condemn: yet will he acknowledge that, received at G.o.d"s hand, and spent in his service, there is scarce a creature in this nether world of higher name than Money.
Beauty fadeth; Health dieth; Talents--yea, and Graces--go to bloom in other spheres--but when Benevolence would bless, and bless for ages, his blessing is vain, but for money--when Wisdom would teach, and teach for ages, the teacher must be fed, and the school built, and the scholar helped upon his way by money--righteous money. There is a righteous money as there is unrighteous mammon; but both have their ministrations here limited to earth and time; the one, a fruit of heaven--the other, a fungus from below: yet the fruit will bring no blessing, if the Grower be forgotten; neither shall the fungus yield a poison, if warmed awhile beneath the better sun. Like all other gifts, given to us sweet, but spoilt in the using, gold may turn to good or ill: Health may kick, like fat Jeshurun in his wantonness; Power may change from beneficence to tyranny; Learning may grow critical in motes until it overlooks the sunbeam; Love may be degraded to an instinct; Zaccheus may turn Pharisee; Religion may cant into the hypocrite, or dogmatize to theologic hate. Even so it is with money: its power of doing good has no other equivalent in this world than its power of doing evil: it is like fire--used for hospitable warmth, or wide-wasting ravages; like air--the gentle zephyr, or the destroying hurricane. Nevertheless, all is for this world--this world only; a matter extraneous to the spirit, always foreign, often-times adversary: let a man beware of lading himself with that thick clay.
I see a cygnet on the broad Pactolus, stemming the waters with its downy breast; and anon, it would rise upon the wing, and soar to other skies; so, taking down that snow-white sail, it seeks for a moment to rest its foot on sh.o.r.e, and thence take flight: alas, poor bird! thou art sinking in those golden sands, the heavy morsels clog thy flapping wing--in vain--in vain thou triest to rise--Pactolus chains thee down.
Even such is wealth unto the wisest; wealth at its purest source, exponent of labour and of mind. But, to the frequent fool, heaped with foulest dross--for the cygnet of Pactolus and those golden sands, read--the hippopotamus wallowing in the Niger, and smothered in a bay of mud.
CHAPTER L.
THE CROCK A BLESSING.
There was no will found: it is likely Mrs. Quarles had never made one; she feared death too much, and all that put her in mind of it. So the next of kin, the only one to have the crock of gold, was Susan Scott, a good, honest, hard-working woman, whom Jennings, by many arts, had kept away from Hurstley: her husband, a poor thatcher, sadly out of work except in ricking time, and crippled in both legs by having fallen from a hay-stack: and as to the family, it was already as long a flight of steps as would reach to an ordinary first floor, with a prospect (so the gossips said) of more in the distance. Susan was a Wesleyan Methodist--many may think, more the pity: but she neither disliked church, nor called it steeple-house: only, forasmuch as Hagglesfield was blessed with a sporting parson, the chief reminders of whose presence in the parish were strifes perpetual about dues and t.i.thes, it is little blame or wonder, if the starving sheep went anywhither else for pasturage and water. So, then, Susan was a good mother, a kind neighbour, a religious, humble-minded Christian: is it not a comfort now to know that the gold was poured into her lap, and that she hallowed her good luck by prayers and praises?
I judge it worth while stepping over to Hagglesfield for a couple of minutes, to find out how she used that gold, and made the crock a blessing. Susan first thought of her debts: so, to every village shop around, I fear they were not a few, which had kindly given her credit, some for weeks, some for months, and more than one for a year, the happy house-wife went to pay in full; and not this only, but with many thanks, to press a little present upon each, for well-timed help in her adversity.
The next thought was near akin to it: to take out of p.a.w.n divers valued articles, two or three of which had been her mother"s; for Reuben"s lameness, poor man, kept him much out of work, and the childer came so quick, and ate so fast, and wore out such a sight of shoes, that, but for an occasional appeal to Mrs. Quarles--it was her one fair feature this--they must long ago have been upon the parish: now, however, all the ancestral articles were redeemed, and honour no doubt with them.
Thirdly, Susan went to her minister in best bib and tucker, and humbly begged leave to give a guinea to the school; and she hoped his reverence wouldn"t be above accepting a turkey and chine, as a small token of her grat.i.tude to him for many consolations: it pleased me much to hear that the good man had insisted upon Susan and her husband coming to eat it with him the next day at noon.
Fourthly, Susan prudently set to work, and rigged out the whole family in tidy clothes, with a touch of mourning upon each for poor Aunt Bridget, and unhappy brother Simon; while the fifthly, sixthly, and to conclude, were concerned in a world of notable and useful schemes, with a strong resolution to save as much as possible for schooling and getting out the children.
It was wonderful to see how much good was in that gold, how large a fund of blessing was hidden in that crock: Reuben Scott gained health, the family were fed, clad, taught; Susan grew in happiness at least as truly as in girth; and Hagglesfield beheld the goodness of that store, whose curse had startled all Hurstley-c.u.m-Piggesworth.
But also at Hurstley now are found its consequential blessings.
We must take another peep at Roger and sweet Grace; they, and Ben too, and Jonathan, and Jonathan"s master, may all have cause to thank an overruling Providence, for blessing on the score of Bridget"s crock.
Only before I come to that, I wish to be dull a little hereabouts, and moralize: the reader may skip it, if he will--but I do not recommend him so to do.
For, evermore in the government of G.o.d, good groweth out of evil: and, whether man note the fact or not, Providence, with secret care, doth vindicate itself. There is justice done continually, even on this stage of trial, though many pine and murmur: substantial retribution, even in this poor dislocated world of wrong, not seldom overtakes the sinner, not seldom encourages the saint. Encourages? yea, and punishes: blessing him with kind severity; teaching him to know himself a mere bad root, if he be not grafted on his G.o.d; proving that the laws which govern life are just, and wise, and kind; showing him that a man"s own heart"s desire, if fulfilled, would probably tend to nothing short of sin, sorrow, and calamity; that many seeming goods are withheld, because they are evils in disguise; and many seeming ills allowed, because they are masqueraded blessings; and demonstrating, as in this strange tale, that the unrighteous Mammon is a cruel master, a foul tempter, a pestilent destroyer of all peace, and a teeming source of both world"s misery.
Listen to the sayings of the Wisest King of men:
"As the whirlwind pa.s.seth, so is the wicked no more: but the righteous is an everlasting foundation."
"The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead."
"He that trusteth in his riches shall fall: but the righteous shall flourish as a branch."
"Better is a little with righteousness, than great revenues without right."
"The wicked shall be a ransom for the righteous, and the transgressor for the upright."
"A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children"s children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just."
CHAPTER LI.
POPULARITY.
The storm is lulled: the billows of temptation have ebbed away from sh.o.r.e, and the clouds of adversity have flown to other skies.
"The winter is past; the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear upon the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land: the fig-tree putteth forth his green figs, and the blossoms of the vine smell sweetly. Arise, and come away."