The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper | Page 5

discomfort than the room below; so that, what with
squalling children, a scolding wife, and empty stomach, and that cold
and wet March morning, it is little wonder maybe (though no small
blame), that Roger Acton had not enough of religion or philosophy to
rise and thank his Maker for the blessings of existence.
He had just been dreaming of great good luck. Poor people often do so;
just as Ugolino dreamt of imperial feasts, and Bruce, in his delirious

thirst on the Sahara, could not banish from his mind the cool fountains
of Shiraz, and the luxurious waters of old Nile. Roger had
unfortunately dreamt of having found a crock of gold--I dare say he
will tell us his dream anon--and just as he was counting out his treasure,
that blessed beautiful heap of shining money--cruel habit roused him up
before the dawn, and his wealth faded from his fancy. So he awoke at
five, anything but cheerfully.
It was Grace's habit, good girl, to read to her father in the morning a
few verses from the volume she best loved: she always woke betimes
when she heard him getting up, and he could hear her easily from her
little flock-bed behind the lath partition; and many a time had her dear
religious tongue, uttering the words of peace, soothed her father's mind,
and strengthened him to meet the day's affliction; many times it raised
his thoughts from the heavy cares of life to the buoyant hopes of
immortality. Hitherto, Roger had owed half his meek contentedness to
those sweet lessons from a daughter's lips, and knew that he was
reaping, as he heard, the harvest of his own paternal care, and
heaven-blest instructions. However, upon this dark morning, he was
full of other thoughts, murmurings, and doubts, and poverty, and riches.
So, when Grace, after her usual affectionate salutations, gently began to
read,
"The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with
the glory--"
Her father strangely stopped her on a sudden with--
"Enough, enough, my girl! God wot, the sufferings are grievous, and
the glory long a-coming."
Then he heavily went down stairs, and left Grace crying.
CHAPTER III.
THE CONTRAST.
Thus, full of carking care, while he pushed aside the proffered

consolation, Roger Acton walked abroad. There was yet but a glimmer
of faint light, and the twittering of birds told more assuringly of
morning than any cheerful symptom on the sky: however, it had pretty
well ceased raining, that was one comfort, and, as Roger, shouldering
his spade, and with the day's provision in a handkerchief, trudged out
upon his daily duty, those good old thoughts of thankfulness came upon
his mind, and he forgot awhile the dream that had unstrung him.
Turning for a moment to look upon his hovel, and bless its inmates
with a prayer, he half resolved to run back, and hear a few more words,
if only not to vex his darling child: but there was now no time to spare;
and then, as he gazed upon her desolate abode--so foul a casket for so
fair a jewel--his bitter thoughts returned to him again, and he strode
away, repining.
Acton's cottage was one of those doubtful domiciles, whose only
recommendation it is, that they are picturesque in summer. At present
we behold a reeking rotting mass of black thatch in a cheerless swamp;
but, as the year wears on, those time-stained walls, though still both
damp and mouldy, will be luxuriantly overspread with creeping
plants--honeysuckle, woodbine, jessamine, and the everblowing
monthly rose. Many was the touring artist it had charmed, and
Suffolk-street had seen it often: spectators looked upon the scene as on
an old familiar friend, whose face they knew full well, but whose name
they had forgotten for the minute. Many were the fair hands that had
immortalized its beauties in their albums, and frequent the notes of
admiration uttered by attending swains: particularly if there chanced to
be taken into the view a feathery elm that now creaked overhead, and
dripped on the thatch like the dropping-well at Knaresborough, and (in
the near distance) a large pond, or rather lake, upon whose sedgy banks,
gay--not now, but soon about to be--with flowering reeds and bright
green willows, the pretty cottage stood. In truth, if man were but an
hibernating animal, invisible as dormice in the winter, and only to be
seen with summer swallows, Acton's cottage at Hurstley might have
been a cantle cut from the Elysian-fields. But there are certain other
seasons in the year, and human nature cannot long exist on the merely
"picturesque in summer."

Some fifty yards, or so, from the hither shore, we discern a roughly
wooded ait, Pike Island to wit, a famous place for fish, and the grand
rendezvous