But, though the pot was boiling in Aldersbury as elsewhere, it did not at once boil over. The day passed without any serious run on either of the banks. Men were alarmed, they got together in corners, they whispered, they marked with jealous eyes who entered and who left the banks. They muttered much of what they would do on the morrow, or when the London mail came in, or when they had made up their minds. But to walk into Ovington’s and face the clerks and do the deed required courage; and for the most part they were not so convinced of danger, or fearful of loss, as to be ready to face the ordeal. They might draw their money and look foolish afterwards. Consequently they hung about, putting off the act, waiting to see what others would do. The hours slipped by and the excitement grew, but still they waited, watching their neighbors and doing nothing, but prepared at any moment to rush in and jostle one another in their panic. “By G—d, I’ll see I get my money!” said one. “You wait, Mr. Lello! You wait and——” In another part, “I’d draw it, I’d draw it, Tom, if I were you! After all, it’s your own money. Why, confound it, man, what are you afraid of?” “I ain’t afraid of anything,” Tom replied surlily. “But Ovington gave me a leg-up last December, and I’m hanged if I like to go in and——” “And ask for your own? Well, you are a ninny!” “Maybe. May—be,” jingling the money in his fob. “But I’ll wait. I’ll wait till to-morrow. No harm done afore then!” A third had left Dean’s under a cloud, and if he quarrelled with Ovington’s, where was he to go? While a fourth had bills falling due, and did not quite see his way. He might be landing a trout and losing a salmon. He would see how things went. Plenty of time! But though this was the general attitude, and the Monday passed without a run of any consequence, a certain number of accounts were closed, and the excitement felt boded ill for the morrow. It waxed rather than waned as the day went on, and Ovington’s heart would have been heavy and his alarm keen if the one had not been lightened and the other dispersed by the good news which Arthur had brought from Garth that morning—the almost incredibly good news!