“Not thousands,” said the minister, “not thousands. A few hundreds perhaps, but not more.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Mrs. Mowbray. “I have heard there was one that got four hundred out of him; at interest and compound interest, what does that come to by this time? Not much short of thousands, Mr. Buchanan, and there may be many more.”
“Did Morrison tell you that?” he asked hastily.
“No matter who told me. How am I to get at that man? I should make him pay up somehow, oh trust me for that, if I could only make out who he was.”
“There was no such man,” said the minister. There breathed across his mind, as he spoke, the burden of the parable: “Take now thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fourscore.” “I have not heard of any of Mr. Anderson’s debtors who had got so large a loan as that: but Morrison expressly said that it was in the will he had freely forgiven them all.”
“I should not forgive them,” cried the lady, harshly. “Get me a list of them, Mr. Buchanan, give me a list of them, and then we shall see what the law will say. Get me a list of them, Mr. Buchanan! I am sure that you must know them all.”
“I don’t know that I could tell you more than one of them.”
“That will be the four hundred man!” cried Mrs. Mowbray. “Tell me of him, tell me of him, Mr. Buchanan, and I shall always be grateful to you. Tell me the one you know.”
“I must first think it over—and—take counsel,” the minister said.