"Can't say as I'm satisfied," said Mr. Nagle, brass founder. "The debtor takes an expensive house without any warranty, and he cannot expect much consideration. I must have ten shillings now. Times are bad for us as well as for him." Mr. Furze turned very white and rose to speak, but Mr. Askew pulled him down. "I beg, gentlemen, you will not take extreme measures. Ten shillings now would mean a sale of furniture, and perhaps ruin. My client has been a good customer to you." "I am inclined to agree with Mr. Nagle," said Mr. Crook. "Sentiment is all very well, but I do not see why we should make the debtor a present of half a crown for a couple of years. For my own part, if I want to be generous with my money, I have plenty of friends of my own to whom to give it." There was a pause, but it was clear that Mr. Nagle's proposal would be carried. "I am authorised," said a tall gentleman at the back of the room, whom Mr. Askew knew to be Mr. Carruthers, of Cambridge, head of the firm of Carruthers, Doubleday, Carruthers and Pearse, one of the most respectable legal firms in the county, "to offer payment in full at once." "It is a pity," said Mr. Nagle, "that this offer could not have been made before. We might have been saved the trouble of coming here." "Pardon me," replied Mr. Carruthers; "my client has been abroad for some time, and did not return till last night." The February in which the meeting of Mr. Furze's creditors took place was unusually wet. There had been a deep snow in January, with the wind from the north-east. The London coaches had, many of them, been stopped both on the Norwich, Cambridge, and Great North roads. The wind had driven with terrible force across the flat country, piling up the snow in great drifts, and curling it in fantastic waves which hung suspended over the hedges and entirely obliterated them. Between Eaton Socon and Huntingdon one of the York coaches was fairly buried, and the passengers, after being near death's door with cold and hunger, made their way to a farmhouse which had great difficulty in supplying them with provisions. Coals rose in Abchurch and Eastthorpe to four pounds a ton, and just before the frost broke there were not ten tons in both places taken together. Suddenly the wind went round by the east to the south-west, and it began to rain heavily, not only in the Eastern Midlands, but far away in the counties to the west and south-west through which the river ran. The snow and ice melted very quickly, and then came a flood, the like of which had not been seen in those parts before. The outfall has been improved since that time, so that in all probability no such flood will happen again. The water of course went all over the low-lying meadows. For miles and miles on either bank it spread into vast lakes, and the only mark by which to distinguish the bed of the stream was the greater rush and the roar. Cottages were surrounded, and people were rescued by boats.