The Master of Greylands: A Novel

Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: Google Books /https://books.google.com/books? id=K7A2AQAAMAAJ Volume 8 of Mrs. Wood's Novels, (R. Bentley, 1880) (the University of California).
Stilborough. An old-fashioned market-town of some importance in its district, but not the chief town of the county. It was market-day: Thursday: and the streets wore an air of bustle, farmers and other country people passing and repassing from the corn-market to their respective inns, or perhaps from their visit, generally a weekly one, to the banker's.
In the heart of the town, where the street was wide and the buildings were good, stood the bank. It was nearly contiguous to the town-hall on the one hand, and to the old church of St. Mark on the other, and was opposite the new market-house, where the farmers' wives and daughters sat with their butter and poultry. For in those days--many a year ago now--people had not leaped up above their sphere; and the farmers' wives would have thought they were going to ruin outright had anybody but themselves kept market. A very large and handsome house, this bank, the residence of its owner and master, Mr. Peter Castlemaine.
No name stood higher than Mr. Peter Castlemaine's. Though of sufficiently good descent, he was, so to say, a self-made man. Beginning in a small way in early life, he had risen by degrees to what he now was--to what he had long been--the chief banker in the county. People left the county-town to bank with him; in all his undertakings he was supposed to be flourishing; in realized funds a small millionaire.
The afternoon drew to a close; the business of the day was over; the clerks were putting the last touches to their accounts previously to departing, and Mr. Peter Castlemaine sat alone in his private room. It was a spacious apartment, comfortably and even luxuriously furnished for a room devoted solely to business purposes. But the banker had never been one of those who seem to think that a hard chair and a bare chamber are necessary to the labour that brings success. The rich crimson carpet with its soft thick rug threw a warmth of colouring on the room, the fire flashed and sparkled in the grate: for the month was February and the weather yet wintry.