“At once, most generously, most readily,” replied the young English Sahib; “nor do I believe that he would ever ask me for one rupee of the money again.”
“All is well, then, your excellency,” observed Hassan; “the Judge Sahib is rich, he needs not the money, the matter is no trouble to him.”
“But it has been a sore trouble to me,” cried the young Sahib quickly; “I could no more sit down quietly under that burden of debt, than I could calmly endure to wear a chain of iron around my neck. My life has been one perpetual effort to cast off that chain; link by link I have broken it away. I lived from the first on half my income—lived as no other English gentleman in my position would do. When my salary was increased, I did not increase my expenses. I have endured to be thought stingy and inhospitable, in a land where not to have the hand and the door open is esteemed a great reproach. I could not give alms or entertain guests on the money that was really another’s; it was better in man’s sight to be unjustly considered mean, than in the sight of God to be dishonest.”
“Dishonest!” exclaimed Hassan in astonishment; the word did not seem in his mind to be in the least suited for the occasion.
“Yes, dishonest,” repeated the Sahib; “money which we have borrowed is not really our own,—it belongs to the lender.”
“It was his pleasure to lend it,” observed Hassan.
“But not his pleasure that it should never be returned,” rejoined the Sahib with animation.
Still the moonshee did not appear persuaded that there could be any harm in incurring a debt to a man who was rich enough to spare the money.
Alton Sahib rose and went up to his table, on which lay a Bible. He turned over the pages, and then silently pointed out the text,—Owe no man anything, but to love one another (Rom. xiii. 8).
“I knew not that such a command was in the Bible,” observed the moonshee. “But the Sahib was under necessity to break it.”