“I am very sorry,” he said; “I am afraid that perhaps none of us thought of that. But it is all past--I don’t know what I could do, what you would wish me to do.”
“I would wish you,” cried Mrs. Mowbray, “to talk to them about it. Ah! I knew I should not speak in vain when I spoke to you. It is a shameful thing, is it not, to defraud a truthful, inexperienced boy, one that knows nothing about money nor how to act in such circumstances. If he had not his mother to speak for him, what would become of Frank? He is so young and so peace-making. He would say don’t bother if he heard me speaking about it. He would be content to starve himself, and let other people enjoy what was his. I thought you would tell me perhaps who were the defaulters.”
“No, I certainly could not do that,” he said harshly, with a sound in his voice which made him not recognise it for his. He had a momentary feeling that some one else in the room, not himself, had here interposed and spoken for him.
“You could not? you mean you would not. And you the clergyman, the minister that should protect the orphan! Oh, Mr. Buchanan, this is not what I expected when I braced up my nerves to speak to you. I never thought but that you would take up my cause. I thought you would perhaps go round with me to tell them they must pay, and how badly my poor boy had been left: or that at least you would preach about it, and tell the people what was their duty. He must have lent money to half St. Rule’s,” cried Mrs. Mowbray; “those people that all look so decent and so well-dressed on Sunday at church. They are all as well-dressed (though their clothes are not well made) as any one need wish to be: and to think they should be owing us hundreds, nay, thousands of money! It is a dreadful thing for my poor Frank.”
“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.”