He need not have troubled himself. Rodd knew all, and the two lads, on their way to the bank that morning, had been badgered out of such powers of observation as they possessed. They had been followed, cornered, snatched in this direction and that, rudely questioned, even threatened. Were they going to open? Where was the gaffer? Was he gone? They had been wellnigh bothered out of their lives, and more than once had been roughly handled. It seemed as if all Aldersbury was against them—and they did not like it. But Ovington had the knack of attaching men to him, the lads were loyal, and they had returned only hard words to those who waylaid them. Pay? They could pay all the dirty money in Aldersbury! Mr. Ovington? Well, they’d see. They’d see where he was, and be licking his boots in a week’s time. And they’d better take their hands off them! The stouter even threatened fisticuffs. A little more and he’d give his questioners a lick over the chops. Come now, give over, or he’d show them a trick of Dutch Sam’s they wouldn’t like. The two arrived at the bank, panting and indignant, their coats half off their backs; and Rodd, whose impeccable respectability no one had ventured to assail, had to say a few sharp words before they settled down and the counter assumed the calm and orderly aspect that, in his eyes, the occasion required. He was himself simmering with indignation, but he let no sign of it appear. He had made all his arrangements beforehand, seen every book in its place, and the cash where it could be handled—and a decent quantity, sufficient to impose on the vulgar—laid in sight. After a few words had been exchanged between him and Ovington, the latter retired to the desk behind the curtain, and the other three took their places. Nothing remained but to watch—the seniors with trepidation, the juniors with a not unpleasant excitement—the minute hand of the clock. It wanted three minutes of ten. And already, though from their places behind the counter the clerks could not see it, the watching groups before the bank had grown into a crowd. It lined the opposite pavement, it hung a fringe two-deep on the steps of the Butter Cross, it extended into the Market Place, it stretched itself half-way down the hill. And it made itself heard. The voices of those who passed along the pavement, the scraps of talk half caught, the sudden exclamation, merged in a murmur not loud but continuous, and fraught with something of menace. Once, on the fringe of the gathering, there was an outburst of booing, but it ceased as suddenly as it had risen, suppressed by the more sober element; and once a hand tried the doors, a voice surprisingly loud, cried, “They’re fast enough!” and footsteps retreated across the pavement. The driver of a cart descending the hill called to “Make way! Make way!” and that, too, reached those within almost as plainly as if it had been said in the room. Something, too, happened on it, for a shout of laughter followed.