Then was unfolded, out of many a little scrap of paper, the reserved sum of fifteen shillings, which Janet had treasured for twenty years and upwards.
"Here they are," she said, in honest triumph, "just the same I was holding out to ye when ye ran as if ye had been fey.

Shanet has had siller, and Shanet has wanted siller, mony a time since that.

And the gauger has come, and the factor has come, and the butcher and baker--Cot bless us just like to tear poor auld Shanet to pieces; but she took good care of Mr.Croftangry's fifteen shillings." "But what if I had never come back, Janet ?" "Och, if Shanet had heard you were dead, she would hae gien it to the poor of the chapel, to pray for Mr.Croftangry," said Janet, crossing herself, for she was a Catholic, "You maybe do not think it would do you cood, but the blessing of the poor can never do no harm." I agreed heartily in Janet's conclusion; and as to have desired her to consider the hoard as her own property would have been an indelicate return to her for the uprightness of her conduct, I requested her to dispose of it as she had proposed to do in the event of my death--that is, if she knew any poor people of merit to whom it might be useful.
"Ower mony of them," raising the corner of her checked apron to her eyes--"e'en ower mony of them, Mr.Croftangry.Och, ay.

'There is the puir Highland creatures frae Glenshee, that cam down for the harvest, and are lying wi' the fever--five shillings to them; and half a crown to Bessie MacEvoy, whose coodman, puir creature, died of the frost, being a shairman, for a' the whisky he could drink to keep it out o' his stamoch; and--" But she suddenly interrupted the bead-roll of her proposed charities, and assuming a very sage look, and primming up her little chattering mouth, she went on in a different tone--"But och, Mr.Croftangry, bethink ye whether ye will not need a' this siller yoursel', and maybe look back and think lang for ha'en kiven it away, whilk is a creat sin to forthink a wark o' charity, and also is unlucky, and moreover is not the thought of a shentleman's son like yoursel', dear.

And I say this, that ye may think a bit, for your mother's son kens that ye are no so careful as you should be of the gear, and I hae tauld ye of it before, jewel." I assured her I could easily spare the money, without risk of future repentance; and she went on to infer that in such a case "Mr.Croftangry had grown a rich man in foreign parts, and was free of his troubles with messengers and sheriff-officers, and siclike scum of the earth, and Shanet MacEvoy's mother's daughter be a blithe woman to hear it.