The Powers
Behind the world that make our griefs our gains.
The small town of Somarsh, in Suffolk, consists of one street running up from the so-called harbour. At one end is the railway-station; at the other the harbour and the sea, and that is Somarsh. There are records that in days gone by--in the days of east coast prosperity - there was a Mayor of Somarsh, or Southmarsh, as it was then written. But Ichabod!
All Somarsh was in the street one morning after Fitz had gone to sea again, and those of the women who were not talking loudly were weeping softly. The boats were not in yet, but the weather was fine, and the still, saffron sea was dotted with brown sails. There was nothing wrong with the boats.
No; the trouble was on shore, as it mostly is. It came not from the sea, but from men. It was pinned upon the door of Merton’s Bank in the High Street. Its form was unintelligible, for the wording of the notice was mostly outside the Suffolk vocabulary. There was something written in a clerkly hand about the withdrawal of “financial facilities necessitating a stoppage of payment pending reconstruction.”
But the people in the street were saying that Merton’s was “broke.” The constable said so, and he was a recognised authority on matters pertaining to dry land and the law. The door was locked on the inside, the shutters were up, the blinds down, as if mourning the death of a good East county credit.
“And them a drivin’ behind their two horses,” said one old weather-beaten fisherman, who was suspected of voting on the wrong side at electioneering time.
Some shook their heads, but the word went no farther, for the man who does his business on the great waters has a vast respect for ancient institutions. And Merton’s had been a good bank for many generations.
“P’raps,” said an old woman who had nothing to lose--for the sea had even kept her corpses from her--“p’raps what they say ’bout reconstruction may be all right. But here comes the capt’n.”
The crowd turned like one man and watched the advent of Captain Bontnor.
The old man was dressed in his best pilot cloth suit. He had worn it quite recklessly for the last month, ever since Eve had come to live with him. He had been interrupted in his morning walk - his quarter-deck tramp--forty times the length of his own railing in front of Malabar Cottage. The postman bringing letters for Eve, had told him that there was trouble down in the town, and that he would likely be wanted.