Mr. Anderson!” he said, in a surprised and troubled tone.
“So they say. The Lord help us, what shall we do? Willie’s outfit just paid for, and not a penny to the fore. Oh, my poor man!”
“It’s very serious news,” their father said; “but let us hope that both for his sake and our own it may not be true.”
“Ill news is aye true,” said Mrs. Buchanan, with a sound of something like a sob.
Why should mamma be so troubled about old Mr. Anderson, the children said to themselves, giving each other a look?
“That is just want of faith, my dear,” he replied.
“Oh, I’ve no doubt it’s want of faith! it’s all in God’s hands, and He can bring light out of darkness, I know; but oh! William, it’s not always that He thinks fit to do that! You know as well as me. And if this time it should not be His will?”
“Mary,” he said, “let us not forestall the evil; perhaps it will never come; perhaps there will be a way out of it—at the worst we must just bear it, my dear.”
“Oh, I know that, I know that!” she cried, with a sound of tears in her voice. “You gave your word to pay it if he died, immediately thereafter, that there might be no talking. Wasn’t that the bargain?”
“That was the bargain,” he said.
“But we never thought it was to come like this, at the worst moment, just after the siller is gone for Willie’s outfit.”
“Mary, Mary, it is worse for him than for us.”
“Do you think so, do you think so?” she cried, “and you a minister! I do not think that. He is an old man, and a good man, and if all we believe is true, it will be a happy change for him. Who has he to leave behind him? Na, he will be glad to go. But us with our young family! Oh, the power of that filthy siller; but for that, what happier folk could be, William, than just you and me?”
“We must be thankful for that, Mary,” said the minister, with a quiver. “We might have had worse things than the want of money; we might have had sickness or trouble in our family, and instead of that they’re all well, and doing well.”
“Thank God for that!” mamma said, fervently, and then there was a pause.
“I will have to go at once to the man of business, and tell him,” father said; “that was in the bargain. There was no signing of paper, but I was to go and tell; that was part of the bargain.”
“And a very hard part,” his wife cried, with a long sigh. “It is like sharpening the sword to cut off your own head. But, maybe,” she said, with a little revival of courage, “Mr. Morrison is not a hard man; maybe he will give you time.”
“Maybe our old friend will pull through,” papa said, slowly.
“That would be the best of all,” she said, but not in a hopeful tone. And presently they heard her shut the door of the study, and go down-stairs again, with something very different from the flying step with which she came.
The children did not stir, they did not even turn the leaf; they felt all at once that it was better that their presence there should not be known. They had heard such consultations before, and sometimes had been auditors of things they were not desired to hear; but they had never, they thought, heard anything so distinctly before, nor anything that was of so much importance. They were very much awe-stricken to hear of this thing that troubled father so, and made mother cry, without understanding very well what it was—old Mr. Anderson’s illness, and Willie’s outfit, and something about money, were all mixed up in their minds; but the relations between the one and the other were not sufficiently clear.
Presently they heard papa get up and begin to walk about the room. He did this often when he was deep in thought, composing his sermon, and then he would often say over and over his last sentence by way of piecing it on, they supposed to the next. So that it did not trouble, but rather reassured them, to hear him saying something to himself, which gave them the idea that he had returned to his work, and was no longer so much disturbed about this new business. When they heard him say, “no signing of papers, no signing of papers, but to go and tell,” they were somewhat disturbed, for that did not sound like a sermon. But, presently, he sat down again and drew a book towards him, and they could hear him turning over the leaves. It was, there could be no doubt, the large Bible—large because it was such big print, for father’s eyes were beginning to go—which always lay on his table. He turned over the leaves as they had so often heard him doing; no doubt it was some reference he was looking up for his sermon. He must have found what he wanted very soon, for there was a little silence, and then they heard him say, with great emphasis—“Then the Lord commended the unjust steward.” He said it very slowly, pausing upon almost every word. It was the way he said over his text when he was pondering over it, thinking what he was to say. Then he began to read. It was to be a long text this time; Rodie tried to whisper in his sister’s ear, but Elsie stopped him, quietly, with emphatic signs and frowns.
“He called every one of his Lord’s debtors and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my Lord? And he said an hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill and sit down quickly and write fifty.” Then there was another pause. And again father spoke, so clearly, with such a distinct and emphatic voice that they thought he was speaking to them, and looked at each other fearfully. “The Lord commended the unjust steward.” There was something awful in his tone: did he mean this for them, to reprove them? But they had done nothing, and if the Lord commended that man, surely there could be nothing to be so severe upon.
Elsie and Rodie missed everything that was pleasant that afternoon. It was thought they were on the hills, or on the sands, and nobody knew they were shut up there in the turret, now thoroughly alarmed, and terrified to change their position, or make themselves audible in any way, or to turn a leaf of their book, or to move a finger. In all their experience—and it was considerable—father had never been like this before. After a while, he began again, and read over the whole parable: and this he repeated two or three times, always ending in that terrible tone, which sounded to the children like some awful sentence, “The Lord commended the unjust steward”—then they would hear him get up again, and pace about the room, saying over and over those last words; finally, to their unspeakable relief, he opened the door, and went slowly down-stairs, so slowly that they sat still, breathless, for two minutes more, until his footsteps had died away.
Then the two children sprang up from their imprisonment, and stretched their limbs, which were stiff with sitting on the floor. They rushed out of the room as quickly as possible, and got out into the garden, from whence there was an exit toward the sea. The one thing which, without any consultation, they were both agreed upon, was to keep out of sight of father and mother, so that nobody might divine in what way they had been spending the afternoon. They did not, however, say much to each other about it. When they had got quite clear, indeed, of all possible inspection, and were out upon the east sands, which were always their resort when in disgrace or trouble, Rodie ventured to hazard an opinion on the situation.
“Papa’s text is an awfu’ kittle one to-day,” he said. “I wonder if he’ll ding it out.”
“Oh, whisht!” said Elsie, “yon’s not his text; he was never like that before.”
“Then what is it?” said Rodie; but this was a question to which she would give no reply.
As they returned home, towards the twilight, they passed old Mr. Anderson’s house, a large, old-fashioned mansion in the High Street, and gazed wistfully at the lights which already appeared in the upper windows, though it was not dark, and which looked strange and alarming to them as if many people were about, and much going on in this usually silent house.
“Does he need so many candles to die by?” said Rodie to his sister.
“Oh, perhaps he is better, and it’s for joy,” said Elsie, taking a more hopeful view.
Their father came out from the door, as they gazed, awe-stricken, from the other side of the street. His head was sunk upon his breast; they had never seen him so cast down