“It’s not so much a question of what is to become of us—of you and me, Squire,” said Duffham, philosophically, “as of those who had invested with him their all. We can bear the loss: you can afford it without much hurt; I must work a few years longer, Heaven permitting me, than I had thought to work. That’s the worst of us. But what will those others do? What will be the worst for them?”
Mr. Brandon nodded approvingly from his saddle.
“Coming home last night from Duck Lane—by the way, there’s another infant at John Mitchel’s, because he had not enough before—the blacksmith accosted me, saying Clement-Pell was reported to be in a mess and to have run off. The thing sounded so preposterous that I thought at first Dobbs must have been drinking; and told him that I happened to know Clement-Pell was only off to a relative’s death-bed. For on Sunday morning, you see——”
A crush and rush stopped Duffham’s narrative, and nearly knocked us all down. Ball the milkman had come bumping amongst us in a frantic state, his milk-cans swinging from his shoulders against my legs.
“I say, Ball, take care of my trousers. Milk stains, you know.”
“Master Ludlow, sir, I be a’most mad, I think. Folks is saying as Mr. Clement-Pell and his banks have busted-up.”
“Well? You have not lost anything, I suppose?”
“Not lost!” panted poor Ball. “I’ve lost all I’ve got. ’Twere a hundred pound, Mr. Johnny, scraped together hard enou’, as goodness knows. Mr. Clement-Pell were a-talking to me one day, and he says, says he, Ah, says he, it’s difficult to get much interest now; money’s plentiful. I give eight per cent., says he; most persons gets but three. Would ye take mine, sir, says I; my hundred pound? If you like, he says. And I took it to him, gentlemen, thinking what luck I was in, and how safe it were. My hundred pound!”—letting the cans down with a clatter. “My hundred pound that I’d toiled so hard for! Gentlefolk, wherever be all the money a-gone?”
Well, it was a painful scene. One we were glad to get out of. The Squire, outrageously angry at the way he had been done out of his money, insisted on going to Parrifer Hall. Mr. Brandon rode his cob; Duffham stepped into his surgery to get his hat.
One might have fancied a sale was going on. The doors were open: boxes belonging to some of the servants were lying by the side-entrance, ready to be carted away; people (creditors and curiosity-mongers) stood about. Sam Rimmer’s master, the butcher, came out of the house as we went in, swearing. Perkins had not been paid for a twelvemonth, and said it would be his ruin. Miss Phebus was in the hall, and seemed to have been having it out with him. She was a light-haired, bony lady of thirty-five, or so, and had made a rare good gipsy that day in the tent. Her eyes were peculiar: green in some lights, yellow in others: a frightfully hard look they had in them this morning.