“There’s not a moment to lose, father. I don’t fancy they can keep on paying long. Half the town’s there.”
Without another word of delay, Mr. Hastings turned and sped along with a step nearly as fleet as Isaac’s. When he reached the Bank the shutters were being put up.
“The Bank has stopped,” said an officious bystander to the Rector.
It was even so. The Bank had stopped. The good old firm of Godolphin, Crosse, and Godolphin had—GONE!
CHAPTER XVIII.
MURMURS; AND CURIOUS DOUBTS.
We hear now and again of banks breaking, and we give to the sufferers a passing sympathy; but none can realize the calamity in its full and awful meaning, except those who are eye-witnesses of the distress it entails, or who own, unhappily, a personal share in it. When the Reverend Mr. Hastings walked into the Bank of Godolphin, Crosse, and Godolphin, he knew that the closing of the shutters, then in actual process, was the symbol of a fearful misfortune, which would shake to its centre the happy security of Prior’s Ash. The thought struck him, even in the midst of his own suspense and perplexity.
One of the first faces he saw was Mr. Hurde’s. He made his way to him. “I wish to draw my money out,” he said.
The old clerk shook his head. “It’s too late, sir.”
Mr. Hastings leaned his elbow on the counter, and approached his face nearer to the clerk’s. “I don’t care (comparatively speaking) for my own money: that which you have held so long; but I must have refunded to me what has been just paid in to my account, but which is none of mine. The nine thousand pounds.”
Mr. Hurde paused ere he replied, as if the words puzzled him. “Nine thousand pounds!” he repeated. “There has been no nine thousand pounds paid in to your account.”