When the persons most interested differ vitally, it is hard to decide; however, the result of it all was, that when Hurst, Robinson, and Co. stopped payment in London, Constable failed for upwards of a quarter of a million, and the Ballantynes were also bankrupt to the extent of £88,607 19_s._ 9_d._ It was in the middle of January, 1826, that the actual crash came. Splendid and magnificent to the very last, Constable rushed off to town as fast as post-horses could carry him. He drove straight to Lockhart’s house, “and asked me,” says that gentleman, “to accompany him as soon as he could get into his carriage to the Bank of England, and support him (as a confidential friend of the author of the ‘Waverley Novels’) in his application for a loan of £100,000 to £200,000 on the security of the copyrights in his possession”--a proposal that would have rather startled the old lady of Threadneedle-street, who was, at that time of unparalleled panic, according to Mr. Huskisson’s subsequent confession in the House, on the very verge of suspending payment herself. When Lockhart refused--and, of course, without direct instructions from Sir Walter, he could not hazard such a step--Constable became livid with rage, stamped on the ground, and swore that he could and would go alone. How Scott bore the blow, and, what he dreaded infinitely more than the mere loss of money--the exposure it entailed of his connection with the printing house, we all know; how he declined to accept any compromise; how he sold off his Abbotsford estate, which he had devoted all the efforts of his genius to acquire, and which he loved so well; how he slaved and toiled until the incredible sum was repaid--but, alas! at the expense of a life more precious than all the lucre of creditors; and how his last words on his death-bed were his best epitaph:--“My dear, be a good man, be virtuous, be religious--be a good man! Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here.” Our matter, however, is with Constable. He saw his fortunes--the strong up-buildings of a gloriously successful lifetime--dashed to the ground at one blow. With a young family growing up around him, sick in body and weary in soul, he too had to begin life afresh. All his “sunshine” friends fell off, Scott was alienated, and his stock, which he had been wont to contemplate as a mine of wealth, was sequestered, and sold for a tithe of its value.[13] Cadell, his late partner, purchased the copyrights of the “Waverley Novels” for £8,500, and, securing Scott’s countenance, set up as a fortunate rival.