The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper | Page 7

of noisy execration and half-drunken strife. Young Sir John,
a free and generous fellow, by far the best among them all, has
collected about him those whom he thought friends, to celebrate his
wished majority; they had now kept it up, night after night, hard upon a
week; and, as well became such friends--the gambler, the duellist, the
man of pleasure, and the fool of Fashion--they never yet had separated
for their day-light beds, without a climax to their orgie, something like
the present scene.
Henry Mynton, high in oath, and dashing down his cards, has charged
Sir Richard Hunt with cheating (it was sauter la coupe or couper la
saut, or some such mystery of iniquity, I really cannot tell which): Sir
Richard, a stout dark man, the patriarch of the party, glossily wigged
upon his head, and imperially tufted on his chin, retorts with a pungent
sarcasm, calmly and coolly uttered; that hot-headed fool Silliphant,
clearly quite intoxicated, backs his cousin Mynton's view of the case by
the cogent argument of a dice-box at Sir Richard's head--and at once all
is struggle, strife, and uproar. The other guests, young fellows of high
fashion, now too much warmed with wine to remember their
accustomed Mohican cold-bloodedness--those happy debtors to the
prowess of a Stultz, and walking advertisers of Nugee--take eager part
with the opposed belligerents: more than one decanter is sent hissing
through the air; more than one bloody coxcomb witnesses to the weight
of a candle-stick and its hurler's clever aim: uplifted chairs are made the
weapons of the chivalric combatants; and along with divers other less
distinguished victims in the melée, poor Sir John Vincent, rushing into
the midst, as a well-intentioned host, to quell the drunken brawl, gets
knocked down among them all; the tables are upset, the bright gold
runs about the room in all directions--ha! no one heeds it--no one owns
it--one little piece rolled right up to the window-sill where Roger still
looked on with all his eyes; it is but to put his hand in--the window is
open to the floor--nay a finger is enough: greedily, one undecided
moment, did he gaze upon the gold; he saw the hideous contrast of his
own dim hovel and that radiant chamber--he remembered the pining

faces of his babes, and gentle Grace with all her hardships--he thought
upon his poverty and well deserts--he looked upon wastefulness of
wealth and wantonness of living--these reflections struck him in a
moment; no one saw him, no one cared about the gold; that little
blessed morsel, that could do him so much good; all was confusion, all
was opportunity, and who can wonder that his fingers closed upon the
sovereign, and that he picked it up?
CHAPTER IV.
THE LOST THEFT.
Stealthily and quickly "honest Roger" crept away, for his conscience
smote him on the instant: he felt he had done wrong; at any rate, the
sovereign was not his--and once the thought arose in him to run back,
and put it where he found it: but it was now become too precious in his
sight, that little bit of gold--and they, the rioters there, could not want it,
might not even miss it; and then its righteous uses--it should be well
spent, even if ill-got: and thus, so many mitigations crowded in to
excuse, if not to applaud the action, that within a little while his warped
mind had come to call the theft a god-send.
O Roger, Roger! alas for this false thought of that wrong deed! the
poisonous gold has touched thy heart, and left on it a spot of cancer: the
asp has bitten thee already, 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