Jack admitted that they were—indeed!
The day after his arrival, Jack hied him to the portals of the enchanted castle, at which he had so confidently blown the horn in the days of careless youth. Changed, alas! was the Knight; dimmed was his armour; hacked his morion; and shorn the waving plume that had nodded to the breeze. After entering the antechamber he was compelled to wait. That purgatorial apartment was tenanted by an elderly man of the squatter persuasion, as Jack could see at a glance. He, doubtless, was awaiting his turn in the folter-kammer, and by the fixed and anxious look of the worn face his anticipations were strongly tinged with evil. A different species of pioneer this from Jack, from Stangrove, from Hugh Brass, from Tunstall. He was more akin to the Ruggie M‘Alister type. His sinewy hand and weather-beaten frame were those of a man who by long years of every kind of toil, risk, and privation had built up a modest property—a home and a competency—no more. He was the father of a family, possibly with boys at school receiving a better education than their parent, a brood of merry girls disciplined by a much-enduring governess. There would be an ancient orchard at such a man’s homestead—no doubt it was in or near the settled districts—and a large “careless-ordered” flower-garden in which the masses of bloom compensated in picturesqueness and splendour for lack of neatness. Jack could have sworn he had only incurred debt by compulsion to buy a few thousand acres immediately round his house, when the free-selectors came swarming over the flats he had discovered in old dangerous days, and ridden over as his own, winter and summer, for twenty years. He had trusted (so he told Jack) to a good season or two pulling him through, whereas now, the strong man’s voice trembled as he said—
“If they sell me up, I shall have to go out a beggar. Yes, a beggar, sir, after thirty years’ work. I could bear it, very like; but my wife and the children. Great God! what will become of us?”
Out of the inner room came a plump, well-shaven townsman. He was evidently in good spirits; he hummed a tune, rubbed his hands, looked benevolently at Jack and the older bushman, and passed forth into the atrium. He was a stockbroker; his paper was all right till the fourth of next month. What could man wish for more? It was an eternity of safety. What changes in the market might take place by that time! He lit a cigar, looked at his watch, and lounging over to the café, ordered a somewhat luxurious lunch, to which, and to a bottle of iced moselle, he did full and deliberate justice. About the time when the broker had finished his soup, and was dallying with his amontillado, the door of the bank sanctum opened, and forth walked, or rather staggered, the pioneer squatter, with clenched teeth and features so ghastly in their expression of hopeless woe that Jack involuntarily rushed to his aid, as to a man about to fall down in a fit. The old man looked at him with eyes so awful in their despair that he shuddered—his lips moved, but no sound came from them. Waving his hand, with a gesture as deprecating remark, the unhappy man, like one in his sleep, passed on.
Jack walked in with a quick, resolute step, and an appearance of composure he was far from feeling, and saluted the man of doom.
There was a flavour of bygone cordiality in Mr. Shrood’s greeting, but his face instantly assumed an expression of decorous gravity, mingled with the stern resolution of irresponsible power. Jack at once crossed swords, so to speak, by producing the fatal letter. “I received this from you a week since, Mr. Shrood. What am I to understand from it?”
Before this momentous interview proceeds further we may let our readers into a secret which was necessarily hidden from John Redgrave and the outside world—as the discussions of the terrible conclave preceding the dread fiat at the Vehmegericht.
The bank directors had held a general meeting, with the president in the chair, having in view the circumstances of the country and the securities and liabilities of the bank. Among those present were some of the best financial intelligences of the day, men of ripe experience, keen calculation, and sound logical habit of mind. Many were the pros and cons. There was some difference of opinion as to the mode of operation; none whatever as to the fact of the danger of the position. One of the oldest directors had opened the proceedings. He asserted that never before in the history of the colony had the indebtedness of all classes of constituents been so large. It had coincided with an altogether unparalleled period of financial loss and depression in England—he might add, in Europe; and, with a heavy fall in the price of wool, stock, and stations, a war of stupendous magnitude in the new world had not been without effect upon previous monetary relations. From all these causes had the great pastoral interest of Australia suffered, and the suffering was more intensified by the operation of a drought, still unbroken, and of a severity unknown for thirty years. He felt the deepest sympathy for the pastoral interest, for the gentlemen who had invested their capital—he might almost say their lives—in these mighty and fascinating adventures. He trusted he might not be accused of sentimentalism—but the pastoral tenants had paid in health, strength, and all the powers of manhood, to the credit of this account, and spent their blood freely in its support.
He knew that the liability of the bank connected with the indebtedness of this class of constituents—was very great. But so, likewise, were the resources of their old, stable, and securely-founded establishment. The squatters had, on the whole, been their best, their most solvent customers. Let all be helped now, in their hour of need, except those who were manifestly unreliable, incapable, or too deeply involved. A favourable change might take place within the year. If so, the bank would always receive the praise of having stood firm in danger, and having helped to save from ruin a deserving, an honourable, and an indispensable class of producers. Here Mr. Oakleigh paused, and a murmur as nearly resembling approbation as could be expected to emanate from the august assembly, came from the listeners. One would have concluded that the advocate of mercy and continuous accommodation had carried his point. But a still more reverend senior, no other than the president himself, during the debate, left his place with the deliberation of age, and, adjusting his spectacles, thus spoke:
“He had listened with great pleasure to the lucid statement of facts presented to the Board by their friend and valued director, Mr. Oakleigh. His suggestions did him honour. They might congratulate themselves upon the possession of such an intellect, so high a tone of feeling, in their council. But,” and here the speaker changed his position, and inserted one hand into his ample white waistcoat, “he must be pardoned for representing to gentlemen present that the laws which governed sound banking institutions, such as their own, did not admit of consideration for individuals or for classes of constituents, however deserving of sympathy. The logic of banking was inexorable. Economic laws were unvarying; they had stood the test of years, of generations. By them, and them only, could he consent to be governed.” Here he applied himself to his snuff-box, and proceeded. “It would be clearly apparent to all now present that the liabilities of the bank were unusually large; they were daily increasing. The reserve fund was being seriously, he might say dangerously, lowered. If such a course were persevered with, in the present state of the money market, but one result could be looked for. The credit of the bank would be endangered; even worse might follow, to which he would not at present allude. Such being the case, and it could not in his opinion be denied, what was their plain, undoubted, inevitable course of action? He had had many years of experience as a merchant, and as director and president of the Bank of New Holland, which latter position he had had the honour to hold for a term exceeding the lifetime of some present. From the teaching of these long and chequered years, not unmarked by financial tempests, such as they were now contending with, he submitted his opinion, which was fixed and unalterable. The bank must close all pastoral accounts under a certain amount. They must realize upon such securities promptly, and without respect to persons. It would be for the directors to fix the sums, but obviously the larger accounts must be called in. But this course, once decided upon, must be inflexibly adhered to. Cases of great individual hardship would occur; it was unavoidable in the operation of all such acts of policy. No one, speaking as an individual, felt more deeply such consequences of a protective policy than he himself. But he would remind gentlemen present that they owed a justice to families of shareholders in the bank, rather than what might be considered mercy to those who had assumed a voluntary indebtedness. The action he had indicated comprehended safety to the bank, to the shareholders, and to the more important constituents. Temporizing would, in his opinion, involve the bank and all concerned in eventual ruin.”