Part 91 (1/2)

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.