And now this high occasion was to be celebrated by a ’meat-tea,’ for the Reverend Andrew was no stingy person, though his wife had sighed and sighed again over the bringing into the house of a new mouth to feed. Maggie came downstairs, accompanied by the other members of the family; Mr. M’Lachlan was invited to sit at his hostess’s right hand; the others of them took their seats in due course; and the minister pronounced a long and formal blessing, which was not without a reference or two to the special circumstances of their being thus brought together. And if the good man spoke apparently under the assumption that the Deity had a particular interest in this tea-meeting in Abbotsford Place, it was assuredly without a thought of irreverence; to himself the occasion was one of importance; and the way of his life led him to have continual—and even familiar—communion with the unseen Powers.
But it was not Ronald’s affairs that were to be the staple of conversation at this somewhat melancholy banquet. It very soon appeared that Mr. M’Lachlan was an elder—and a ruling elder, unmistakably—of Andrew Strang’s church, and he had come prepared with a notable proposal for wiping off the debt of the same.
’Ah’m not wan that’ll gang back from his word,’ he said, in his pompous and raucous voice, and he leaned back in his chair, and crossed his hands over his capacious black satin waistcoat, and gazed loftily on his audience. ’Wan hundred pounds—there it is, as sure as if it was in my pocket this meenit—and there it’ll be when ye get fower ither members o’ the congregation to pit doon their fifty pounds apiece. Not but that there’s several in the church abler than me to pit doon as much; but ye ken how it is, Mr. Strang, the man makes the money and the woman spends it; and there’s mair than one family we ken o’ that should come forrit on an occasion like this, but that the money rins through the fingers o’ a feckless wife. What think ye, noo, o’ Mrs. Nicol setting up her powny-carriage, and it’s no nine years since Geordie had to make a composition? And they tell me that Mrs. Paton’s lasses, when they gang doon the waiter—and not for one month in the year will they let that house o’ theirs at Dunoon—they tell me that the pairties and dances they have is jist extraordinar’ and the wastry beyond a’ things. Ay, it’s them that save and scrimp and deny themselves that’s expected to do everything in a case like this—notwithstanding it’s a public debt—mind, it’s a public debt, binding on the whole congregation; but what ah say ah’ll stand to—there’s wan hundred pounds ready, when there’s fower ithers wi’ fifty pounds apiece—that’s three hundred pounds—and wi’ such an example before them, surely the rest o’ the members will make up the remaining two hundred and fifty—surely, surely.’