ard thing to feel myself so wicked, and to have to speak up boldly
like a Christian man."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

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.