CHAPTER XVI - “Owd Sammy” in Trouble
“Craddock is in serious trouble,” said Mr. Barholm to his wife and daughter.
“'Owd Sammy' in trouble,” said Anice. “How is that, papa?”
The Reverend Harold looked at once concerned and annoyed. In truth he had cause for irritation. The laurels he had intended to win through Sammy Craddock were farther from being won to-day than they had ever been. He was beginning to feel a dim, scarcely developed, but sore conviction, that they were not laurels for his particular wearing.
“It is that bank failure at Illsbery,” he answered. “You have heard of it, I dare say. There has been a complete crash, and Craddock's small savings being deposited there, he has lost everything he depended upon to support him in his old age. It is a hard business.”
“Have you been to see Craddock?” Mrs. Barholm asked.
“Oh! yes,” was the answer, and the irritation became even more apparent than before. “I went as soon as I heard it, last night indeed; but it was of no use. I had better have stayed away. I don't seem to make much progress with Craddock, somehow or other. He is such a cross-grained, contradictory old fellow, I hardly know what to make of him. And to add to his difficulties, his wife is so prostrated by the blow that she is confined to her bed. I talked to them and advised them to have patience, and look for comfort to the Fountain-head; but Craddock almost seemed to take it ill, and was even more disrespectful in manner than usual.”
It was indeed a heavy blow that had fallen upon “Owd Sammy.” For a man to lose his all at his time of life would have been hard enough anywhere; but it was trebly hard to meet with such a trial in Riggan. To have money, however small a sum, “laid by i' th' bank,” was in Riggan to be illustrious. The man who had an income of ten shillings a week was a member of society whose opinion bore weight; the man with twenty was regarded with private awe and public respect. He was deferred to as a man of property; his presence was considered to confer something like honor upon an assembly, or at least to make it respectable. The Government was supposed to be not entirely oblivious of his existence, and his remarks upon the affairs of the nation, and the conduct of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, were regarded as having something more than local interest. Sammy Craddock had been the man with twenty shillings income. He had worked hard in his youth and had been too shrewd and far-sighted to spend hard. His wife had helped him, and a lucky windfall upon the decease of a parsimonious relative had done the rest. The weekly deposit in the old stocking hidden under the mattress had become a bank deposit, and by the time he was incapacitated from active labor, a decent little income was ready. When the Illsbery Bank stopped payment, not only his daily bread but his dearly valued importance was swept away from him at one fell blow. Instead of being a man of property, with a voice in the affairs of the nation, he was a beggar. He saw himself set aside among the frequenters of The Crown, his political opinions ignored, his sarcasms shorn of their point. Knowing his poverty and misfortune; the men who had stood in awe of him would begin to suspect him of needing their assistance and would avoid him accordingly.
“It's human natur',” he said. “No one loikes a dog wi' th' mange, whether th' dog's to blame or no. Th' dog may ha' getten it honest. Tis na th' dog, it's the mange as foakes want to get rid on.”