“But, Mr. Anderson, how can I accept this? You must let me give you an acknowledgment. And then the interest----”
“Toots,” said the old man, “interest! what’s fifteen pounds to me? I hope I can live and enjoy myself without your fifteen pounds. Nonsense, minister! are you too proud to accept a kindly service, most kindly offered and from the heart, from an old man, that you have done both good and pleasure to many a day?”
“Oh, proud, no, not proud,” cried Buchanan, “unless it were proud of you, old friend, that have the heart to do such a blessed thing.”
“Hoot,” said the old man, “it’s nothing but filthy siller, as your good wife says.”
This had been the bargain, and it was a bargain which probably gave more pleasure to the lender than to the borrower. It redoubled the old gentleman’s interest in the family, and indeed made him take a personal share in their concerns, which pricked the parents a little, as if he felt a certain right to know all about Willie’s outfit and Marion’s plenishing. He gave his advice about the boy’s boxes, and his gun, and kindly criticised his clothes, and warned them not to pay too much for boots and shoes, and other outside articles, pressing certain makers upon them with almost too warm a recommendation. And he liked to see Marion’s sheets and her napery, and thought the damask tablecloths almost too fine for a country manse, where, except on a presbytery meeting or the Monday’s dinner after a sacramental occasion, there would be no means of showing them. But all this was very harmless, though it sometimes fretted the recipients of his bounty, who could not explain to their children the sudden access of interest on the part of old Anderson in all their concerns.
And now to think, while the first year had not more than passed, when William’s outfit had just been paid off to the utmost farthing, and Marion’s bill for her napery and her stock of personal linen, that the old man should die! I judge from Mr. Anderson’s reference to fifteen pounds (five per cent. being the usual interest in those days, though I am told it is much less now), that the sum that Mr. Buchanan had borrowed was three hundred pounds, for I presume he had certain urgent bills to provide for as well as Willie and May. Fifty pounds was still in the bank, which was a reserve fund for Marion’s gowns and her wedding expenses, etc. And to think that just at that moment, when as yet there had not been time to lay up a penny towards the repayment of the loan, that this whole house of cards, and their comfort and content in the smoothing away of their difficulties should, in a moment, topple about their ears! There seemed even some reason for the tone of exasperation which came into Mrs. Buchanan’s voice in spite of herself. Had he done it on purpose it could scarcely have been worse. And indeed it looked as if it had been done on purpose to drop them into deeper and deeper mire.