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.
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