“They mean a great deal,” replied Mr. Buchanan. “They mean that her mind is troubled about you and your future, Frank.”
“Without any reason, I think,” said Frank. “I am not very clear about money; I have always left it in my mother’s hands. She thought it would be time enough to look after my affairs when I attained my Scotch majority. But I don’t think I need trouble myself, for there must be plenty to go on upon. She says the Scotch estate is far less than was thought, and indeed she wanted me to come to you about some debts. She thinks half St. Rule’s was owing money to old Uncle Anderson. And he kept no books, or something of that sort. I don’t understand it very well; but she said you understood everything.”
“There was no question of books,” said Mr. Buchanan. “Mr. Anderson was kind, and helped many people, not letting his right hand know what his left hand did. Some he helped to stock a shop: some of the small farmers to buy the cattle they wanted: some of the fishers to get boats of their own. The money was a loan nominally to save their pride, but in reality it was a gift, and nobody knew how much he gave in this way. It was entered in no book, except perhaps,” said the minister, with a look which struck awe into Frank, and a faint upward movement of his hand “in One above.” After a minute he resumed: “I am sure, from what I know of you, you would not disturb these poor folk, who most of them are now enjoying the advantage of the charity that helped them rather to labour than to profit at first.”
“No, sir, no,” cried Frank, eagerly. “I am not like that, I am not a beast; and I am very glad to hear Uncle Anderson was such a good man. But,” he added after a pause, with a little natural pertinacity, “there were others different from that, or else my mother had wrong information—which might well be,” he continued with a little reluctance. He was open to a generous impulse, but yet he wished to reserve what might be owing to him on a less sentimental ground.
“Yes, there are others different from that. There are a few people of a different class in St. Rule’s, who are just as good as anybody, as people say; you will understand I am speaking the language of the world, and not referring to any moral condition, in which, as we have the best authority for saying, none of us are good, but God alone. As good as anybody, as people say—as good blood so far as that counts, as good education or better, as good manners: but all this held in check, or indeed made into pain sometimes, by the fact that they are poor. Do you follow what I mean?”
“Yes, sir, I follow,” said Frank: though without the effusiveness which he had shown when the minister’s talk was of the actual poor.
“A little money to such people as these is sometimes almost a greater charity than to the shopkeepers and the fishermen. They are far poorer with their pride, and the appearance they have to keep up, than the lowest. Mind I am not defending pride nor the keeping up of appearances. I am speaking just the common language of the world. Well, there were several of these, I believe, who had loans of money from Mr. Anderson.”
“I think,” said Frank, respectfully, yet firmly too, “that they ought to pay, Mr. Buchanan. They have enjoyed the use of it for years, and people like that can always find means of raising a little money. If it lies much longer in their hands, it will be lost, I am told, by some Statute of—of Limitation I think it is. Well then, nobody could force them in that case; but I think, Mr. Buchanan, as between man and man, that they ought to pay.”
“I think,” said the minister, in a voice which trembled a little, “that you are right, Frank: they ought to pay.”
“That is certainly my opinion,” said Frank. “It would not ruin them, they could find the money: and though it might harass them for the moment, it would be better for them in the end to pay off a debt which they would go on thinking must be claimed some time. And especially if the estate is not going to turn out so good as was thought, I do think, Mr. Buchanan, that they should pay.”