When, after dragging on far several weeks, the subscription list was
closed the sum collected only amounted to a little over six hundred
pounds.
George Boult had been ready to pledge himself that it would have risen to
a thousand. He had spared no trouble in the collection of the sum. The
list of subscribers hung in a conspicuous place in his shop. He never
failed to call to it the attention of his well-to-do customers. A case
more needing help was never before the public of Brockenham, he would
point out to them.
But the public of Brockenham, severely shocked by the tragic circumstances
of William Day's death, recovered quickly from the blow, to say that the
death had been the best thing which could happen to the family. To be rid
of such a man, to have no more attaching to them the reproach of a father
and husband in prison, removed half the woeful load of misfortune from the
case. That the children were mostly of an age to earn their own livings,
their mother still fairly young and strong, were facts also remembered.
Then the word began to be passed about from mouth to mouth--spoken in a
whisper at first, but presently a word which might be spoken without fear
of rebuke in any ear--that the Day family had always been eaten up with
pride, and that the lawyer's troubles had come about through the
extravagance of his wife.
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