It was even so. The Bank had stopped. The good old firm of G.o.dolphin, Crosse, and G.o.dolphin had--GONE!

CHAPTER XVIII.

MURMURS; AND CURIOUS DOUBTS.

We hear now and again of banks breaking, and we give to the sufferers a pa.s.sing sympathy; but none can realize the calamity in its full and awful meaning, except those who are eye-witnesses of the distress it entails, or who own, unhappily, a personal share in it. When the Reverend Mr. Hastings walked into the Bank of G.o.dolphin, Crosse, and G.o.dolphin, he knew that the closing of the shutters, then in actual process, was the symbol of a fearful misfortune, which would shake to its centre the happy security of Prior's Ash. The thought struck him, even in the midst of his own suspense and perplexity.

One of the first faces he saw was Mr. Hurde's. He made his way to him.

"I wish to draw my money out," he said.

The old clerk shook his head. "It's too late, sir."

Mr. Hastings leaned his elbow on the counter, and approached his face nearer to the clerk's. "I don't care (comparatively speaking) for my own money: that which you have held so long; but I must have refunded to me what has been just paid in to my account, but which is none of mine. The nine thousand pounds."

Mr. Hurde paused ere he replied, as if the words puzzled him. "Nine thousand pounds!" he repeated. "There has been no nine thousand pounds paid in to your account."

"There has," was the reply of Mr. Hastings, given in a sharp, distinct tone. "I paid it in myself, and hold the receipt."

"Well, I don't know," said the clerk dubiously; "I had your account under my eye this morning, sir, and saw nothing of it. But there's no fear, Mr. Hastings, as I hope and trust," he added, confidentially. "We have telegraphed for remittances, and expect a messenger down with them before the day's out."

"You are closing the Bank," remarked Mr. Hastings in answering argument.

"We are obliged to do that. We had not an inexhaustible fountain of funds here: and you see how people have been thronging in. On Monday morning I hope the Bank will be open again; and in a condition to restore full confidence."

Mr. Hastings felt a slight ray of rea.s.surance. But he would have felt a greater had the nine thousand pounds been handed to him, there and then.

He said so: in fact, he pressed the matter. How ineffectually, the next words of the clerk told him.

"We have paid away all we had, Mr. Hastings," he whispered. "There's not a farthing left in the coffers."

"You have paid the accounts of applicants in full, I presume?"

"Yes: up to the time that the funds, in hand, lasted to do it."

"Was that just?--to the body of creditors?" asked the Rector in a severe tone.

"Where was the help for it?--unless we had stopped when the run began?"

"It would have been the more equable way--if you were to stop at all,"

remarked Mr. Hastings.

"But we did not know we should stop. How was it possible to foresee that this panic was about to arise? Sir, all I can say is, I hope that Monday morning will see you, and every other creditor, paid in full."

Mr. Hastings was pushed away from the counter. Panic-stricken creditors were crowding in, demanding to be paid. Mr. Hastings elbowed his way clear of the throng, and stood aside. Stood in the deepest perplexity and care. What if that money, entrusted to his hands, should be _gone_?

His brow grew hot at the thought.

Not so hot as other brows there: brows of men gifted with less equable temperaments than that owned by the Rector of All Souls'. One gentleman came in and worked his way to the front, the perspiration pouring off him, as from one in sharp agony.

"I want my money!" he cried. "I shall be a bankrupt next week if I can't get my money."

"I want _my_ money!" cried a quieter voice at his elbow; and Mr.

Hastings recognized the speaker as Barnaby, the corn-dealer.

They received the same answer; the answer which was being reiterated in so many parts of the large room, in return to the same demand. The Bank had been compelled to suspend its payments for the moment. But remittances were sent for, and would be down, if not that day, by Monday morning.

"When I paid in my two thousand pounds a few days ago, I asked, before I would leave it, whether it was all safe," said Mr. Barnaby, his tone one of wailing distress, though quiet still. But, quiet as it was, it was heard distinctly, for the people hushed their murmurs to listen to it.

The general feeling, for the most part, was one of exasperation: and any downright good cause of complaint against the Bank and its management, would have been half as welcome to the unfortunate malcontents as their money. Mr. Barnaby continued:

"I had heard a rumour that the Bank wasn't right. I heard it at Rutt's.

And I came down here with the two thousand pounds in my hand, and saw Mr. George G.o.dolphin in his private room. He told me it was all right: there was nothing the matter with the Bank: and I left my money. I am not given to hard words; but, if I don't get it paid back to me, I shall say I have been swindled out of it."

"Mr. George couldn't have told that there'd be this run upon the Bank, sir," replied a clerk, giving the best answer he could, the most plausible excuse: as all the clerks had to exert their wits to do, that day. "The Bank _was_ all right then."

"If it was all right then, why isn't it all right now?" roared a chorus of angry voices. "Banks don't get wrong in a day."

"Why did Mr. George G.o.dolphin pa.s.s his word to me that it was safe?"

repeated Mr. Barnaby, as though he had not heard the refuting arguments.

"I should not have left my money here but for that."

The Rector of all Souls' stood his ground, and listened. But that George G.o.dolphin was his daughter's husband, he would have echoed the complaint: that, but for his positive a.s.sertion of the Bank's solvency, he should not have left _his_ money there--the trust-money of the little Chisholms.

When the Bank had virtually closed, the order gone forth to put up the shutters, Mr. G.o.dolphin had retired to an inner room. These clamorous people had pushed in since, in defiance of the a.s.surance that business for the day was over. Some of them demanded to see Mr. G.o.dolphin. Mr.

Hurde declined to introduce them to him. In doing so, he was acting on his own responsibility: perhaps to save that gentleman vexation, perhaps out of consideration to his state of health. He knew that his master, perplexed and astounded with the state of affairs, could only answer them as he did--that on Monday morning, all being well, the Bank would be open for business again. Did any undercurrent of doubt that this would be the case, run in Mr. Hurde's own heart? If so, he kept it down, refusing to admit it even to himself. One thing is certain until that unpleasant episode of the previous day, when the rough, unknown man had applied so loudly and inopportunely for money, Mr. Hurde would have been ready to answer with his own life for the solvency of the house of G.o.dolphin. He had believed, not only in the ability of the house to meet its demands and liabilities, but to meet them, if needed, twice over.

That man's words, reflecting upon Mr. George G.o.dolphin, grated upon Mr.

Hurde's ears at the time, and they had grated on his memory ever since.

But, so far as he could do so, he had beaten them down.

The crowd were got rid of. They became at length aware that to stay there would not answer their purpose in any way, would not do them good.

They were fain to content themselves with that uncertain a.s.surance, touching Monday morning, and went out, the doors being immediately barred upon them. If the catastrophe of the day was unpleasant for the princ.i.p.als, it was not much less unpleasant for the clerks: and they lost no time in closing the entrance when the opportunity occurred. The only man who had remained was the Rector of All Souls'.

"I must see Mr. G.o.dolphin," said he.

"You can see him, sir, of course," was Mr. Hurde's answer. Mr. Hastings was different from the mob just got rid of. He had, so to say, a right of admittance to the presence of the princ.i.p.als in a three-fold sense: as a creditor, as their spiritual pastor, and as a near connexion; a right which Mr. Hurde would not presume to dispute.

"Mr. G.o.dolphin will see you, I am sure, sir," he continued, leading the way from the room towards Thomas G.o.dolphin's. "He would have seen every soul that asked for him, of those now gone out. I knew that, and that's why I wouldn't let messages be taken to him. Of what use, to-day?"

Thomas G.o.dolphin was sitting alone, very busily occupied, as it appeared, with books. Mr. Hastings cast a rapid glance round the room, but George was not in it.

It was not two minutes ago that George had left it, and Mr. Hastings had escaped seeing him by those two minutes. George had stood there, condoling with Thomas upon the untoward event of the day, apparently as perplexed as Thomas was, to account for its cause: and apparently as hopeful; nay, as positive; that ample funds would be down, ere the day should close, to set all things right.

"Mr. G.o.dolphin, I have been asking Hurde for my money," were the first words uttered by the Rector. "Will you not give it me?"

Thomas G.o.dolphin turned his earnest eyes, terribly sad then, on Mr.

Hastings, a strangely yearning look in their light. "I wish I could," he answered. "But, even were it possible for us to do so--to give you a preference over others--it is not in our power. All funds in hand are paid out."