Ovington's Bank

by Stanley John Weyman

One morning as he stood there he saw a man turn off the road and come shambling towards him. It was Pugh, the man-of-all-work at the Cottage, and in his disgust at things in general, the Squire cursed him for a lazy rascal. “I suppose they’ve nothing to do,” he growled, “that they send the rogue traipsing the roads at this hour!” Aloud, “What do you want, my man?” he asked.

Pugh quaked under the Squire’s hard eyes. “A letter from the mistress, your honor.”

“Any answer?”

Reluctantly Pugh gave up the hope of beer with Calamy the butler. “I’d no orders to wait, sir.”

“Then off you go! I’ve all the idlers here I want, my lad.”

The Squire had not his glasses with him, and he turned the letter over to no purpose. Returning to his room he could not find them, and the delay aggravated a temper already oppressed by the weather. He shouted for his spectacles, and when Miss Peacock, hurrying nervously to his aid, suggested that they might be in the Prayer Book from which he had read the psalm that morning, he called her a fool. Eventually, it was there that they were found, on which he dismissed her with a flea in her ear. “If you knew they were there, why did you leave them there!” he stormed. “Silly fools women be!”

But when he had read the letter, he neither stormed nor swore. His anger was too deep. Here was folly, indeed, and worse than folly, ingratitude! After all these years, after forty years, during which he had paid them their five per cent. to the day, five per cent. secured as money could not be secured in these harum-scarum days—to demand their pound of flesh and to demand it in this fashion! Without warning, without consulting him, the head of the family! It was enough to make any man swear, and presently he did swear after the manner of the day.

“It’s that young fool,” he thought. “He’s written it and she’s signed it. And if they have their way in five years the money will be gone, every farthing, and the woman will come begging to me! But no, madam,” with rising passion, “I’ll see you farther before I’ll pay down a penny to be frittered away by that young jackanapes! I’ll go this moment and tell her what I think of her, and see if she’s the impudence to face it out!”

He clapped on his hat and seized his cane. But when he had flung the door wide, pride spoke and he paused. No, he would not lower himself, he would not debate it with her. He would take no notice—that, by G—d, was what he would do. The letter should be as if it had not been written, and as to paying the money, why if they dared to go to law he would go all lengths to thwart them! He was like many in that day, violent, obstinate men who had lived all their lives among dependents and could not believe that the law, which they administered to others, applied to them. Occasionally they had a rude awakening.

But the old Squire did not lack a sense of justice, which, obscured in trifles, became apparent in greater matters. This quality came to his rescue now, and as he grew cooler his attitude changed. If the woman, silly and scatterbrained as she was, and led by the nose by that impudent son of hers—if she persisted, she should have the money, and take the consequences. The six thousand was a charge; it must be met if she held to it. Little by little he accustomed himself to the thought. The money must be paid, and to pay it he must sell his cherished securities. He had no more than four hundred, odd—he knew the exact figure—in the bank. The rest must be raised by selling his India Stock, but he hated to think of it. And the demand, made without warning, hurt his pride.