“So much for popular gratitude, my Lord,” said Dunn, as he handed the slip of paper to the Earl. “Fortunately, it was never the prize on which I had set my heart. Mr. Hankes,” said he, in a bland, calm voice, “the crowd seems scarcely diminished outside. Will you kindly affix a notice on the door, to state that, to convenience the public, the Bank will on this day continue open till five o'clock?”
“By Heaven! they don't deserve such courtesy!” cried the old Lord, passionately. “Be as just as you please, but show them no generosity. If it be thus they treat the men who devote their best energies, their very lives, to the country, I, for one, say it is not a land to live in, and I spurn them as countrymen!”
“What would you have, my Lord? The best troops have turned and fled under the influence of a panic; the magic words, 'We are mined!' once routed the very column that had stormed a breach! You don't expect to find the undisciplined masses of mankind more calmly courageous than the veterans of a hundred fights.”
A wild hoarse cheer burst forth in the street at this moment, and drowned all other sounds.
“What is it now? Are they going to attack us here?” cried the Earl.
The cry again arose, louder and wilder, and the shouts of “Dunn forever! Dunn forever!” burst from a thousand voices.
“The placard has given great satisfaction, sir,” said Hankes, reappearing. “Confidence is fully restored.”
And, truly, it was strange to see how quickly a popular sentiment spread its influence; for they who now came forward to exchange their notes for gold no longer wore the sturdy air of defiance of the earlier applicants, but approached half reluctantly, and with an evident sense of shame, as though yielding to an ignoble impulse of cowardice and fear. The old Earl's haughty stare and insolent gaze were little calculated to rally the diffident; for with his double eyeglass he scanned each new-comer with the air of a man saying, “I mark, and I 'll not forget you!”
What a contrast was Dunn's expression,—that look so full of gentle pity and forgiveness! Nothing of anger, no resentfulness, disfigured the calm serenity of his pale features. He had a word of recognition—even a smile and a kind inquiry—for some of those who now bashfully tried to screen themselves from notice. The great rush was already over; a visible change had come over that vast multitude who so lately clamored aloud for gold. The very aspect of that calm, unmoved face was a terrible rebuke to their unworthy terror.
“It's nigh over, sir,” whispered Hankes to his chief, as he stood with his massive gold watch in the hollow of his hand. “Seven hundred only have been paid out in the last twelve minutes. The battle is finished!”