bbery and murder.

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 loo