simple soul. This little seed will grow
into a huge black pine, that shall darken for a while thy heaven, and
dig its evil roots around thy happiness. Put it away, Roger, put it
away: covet not unhallowed gold.

But Roger felt far otherwise; and this sudden qualm of conscience once
quelled (I will say there seemed much of palliation in the matter), a
kind of inebriate feeling of delight filled his mind, and Steady Acton
plodded on to the meadow yonder, half a mile a-head, in a species of
delirious complacency. Here was luck indeed, filling up the promise of
his dreams. His head was full of thoughts, pleasant holiday thoughts, of
the many little useful things, the many small indulgences, that bit of
gold should buy him. He would change it on the sly, and gradually bring
the shillings home as extra pay for extra work; for, however much his
wife might glory in the chance, and keep his secret, well he knew that
Grace would have a world of things to say about it, and he feared to
tell his daughter of the deed. However, she should have a ribbon, so she
should, good girl, and the pedlar shouldn't pass the door unbidden;
Mary, too, might have a cotton kerchief, and the babes a doll and a
rattle, and poor Thomas a shilling to spend as he liked; and so, in
happy revery, the kind father distributed his ill-got sovereign.

For a while he held it in his hand, as loth to part from the tangible
possession of his treasure; but manual contact could not last all day,
and, as he neared his scene of labour--he came late after all, by the
by, and lost the quarter-day, but it mattered little now--he began to
cogitate a place of safety; and carefully put it in his fob. Poor
fellow--he had never had enough to stow so well away before: his pockets
had been thought quite trust-worthy enough for any treasures hitherto:
never had he used that fob for watch, or note, or gold--and his
predecessor in the cast-off garment had probably been quite aware how
little that false fob was worthy of the name of savings' bank; it was in
the situation of the Irishman's illimitable rope, with the end cut off.
So while Roger was brewing up vast schemes of nascent wealth, and
prosperous days at last, the filched sovereign, attracted by centripetal
gravity, had found a passage downwards, and had straightway rolled into
a crevice of mother-earth, long before its "brief lord" had commenced
his day's labour. Yes, it had been lost a good hour ere he found it out,
for h