of late, come to John Beaton. A debt long
due to his father had been paid to him, and the story which the debtor
had to tell was worth many times the money to John and his mother.

It was not the first good deed done in secret by the father which had
since his death come to the knowledge of the son. Other stories had
been told by friends and neighbours, and even by comparative strangers,
of kind words spoken by him, and generous help given, which had healed
sick hearts, and opened the way out of depths of despair to some who
were sinners, and to some who were only sufferers. And now this man
came to tell how he also had been helped--saved, he called it, and he
told it with tears in his eyes, though more than a generation had passed
since then.

David Cunningham was the son of the minister of the parish where the
first of the three Johns had lived, and where the second John and his
brothers and sisters had been born. He had fallen into foolish ways
first, and then into evil ways, and through some act of inexcusable
folly, or worse, had, it seemed, shut upon himself the last door of hope
for a life of well-doing. An offer of a clerkship in an East Indian
house had been given him by a friend of his family, and a sum sufficient
for his outfit had been advanced. This sum he had lost, or rather it
had been claimed for the payment of a debt which he could not have
confessed to his father without breaking the old man's heart. It would
have been utter ruin to the lad if John Beaton had not come to the
rescue.

This was before John was a rich man, or even had a prospect of riches,
but he gave the money willingly, even gladly, to save the son of his
father's friend.

"When you come home a rich man you can pay me, if I be living; and if I
be dead, you can pay it to them who may come after me," said he. And
now David Cunningham had come home to pay his debt.

"Every month from the very first," he told John, "I put something away
toward it, and a good many months passed before the full sum was saved.
Then, when I wrote to your father that it was ready for him, he told me
to invest it for him, and let it grow till I should come home again.
That was five-and-thirty years ago, and it has grown well since then.
It is yours now, and much pleasure and profit may you get out of it."

"There is no fear of that," said John.

"And I have a better wish than that for you," said Mr Cunningham
gravely. "May you have the chance an