The president took off his spectacles, wiped them carefully with a spotless handkerchief, and sat solemnly down. His arguments were felt to be incontrovertible. His great age, his long experience, his unfailing success in the management of all affairs with which, for half a century, he had been connected, his high character, added weight to his arguments, of themselves not easily to be controverted. But little more was said, and that chiefly in a conversational manner. Before the Board separated, a motion was carried that the manager be instructed to close all pastoral accounts under thirty-five thousand pounds. In the event of non-payment to realize upon securities without delay.
Such had been the preliminary debate—such had been the bill before the oligarchs of the Council of Currency—the potentates who coerce kings and resist nations, who render war possible or truce compulsory—with whom peace and prosperity or “blood and iron” are matters of exchange.
Such was the court, such the gravely-debated proposition, such the irreversible verdict arrived at, before Jack reached Melbourne. All “unconscious of his doom,” though full of intuitive dread, did he then demand of Mr. Mildmay Shrood what he was to understand by the letter he had received. That gentleman might have saved many words, and some anxiety to his interlocutor, by simply replying “Ruin!?”—but an answer so laconic would not have justified the reputation for politeness which the manager of the Bank of New Holland, in common with managers of banks generally deservedly held.
He used no insincerity when he answered that it gave him much pain to be compelled to state that the bank felt it necessary to call upon him to reduce, or indeed, to extinguish his liability to them without delay.
“And, if I am unable—in the teeth of this detestable season and this infernal panic, which the London money-mongers seem to have got up on purpose to take away our last chance, what then?” demanded Jack, commencing to boil over.
“I must again express my unfeigned regret,” said Mr. Shrood, “but I cannot disguise from you that the bank will at once realize upon the security which it holds for your advances.”
“In plain words, your bank, without warning of any kind, demands a very large sum of money, advanced during several years, and sells me up without mercy, in the midst of a grass famine and a money famine.”
“I am afraid, though you put it strongly, and perhaps not altogether fairly as regards the bank, that your view of their action as regards yourself is correct.”
“And can you talk of fairness?” said Jack with quivering lip and blazing eyes, as he stood up and faced the calm, decorous man of business. “Was I not led to imagine when this money was advanced with such apparent willingness, that I should have time, accommodation, all reasonable assistance if required, for the repayment? All the money has been faithfully invested in stock and permanent improvements. No run in the country, at this moment, is in better order or more cheaply managed. Can any one say that I have been extravagant in my personal expenses? It is hard—devilish hard—and unfair to boot.”
Mr. Shrood was quite of the same opinion. He was a man of kindly though disciplined impulses, and what men call “a good fellow,” underneath his armour of caution and official reserve. He did not intend to explain the policy of the bank. It was his to obey, and not to criticize, though within certain well defined limits he had much discretionary power. But he had always liked Jack, and was as sorry as he could afford to be, with so many unpleasantnesses of similar character to deal with, for his gravitation towards the bad, which he doubted could not be arrested.