`Why, there's this to be thought on, Mrs Moss,' said Mr Glegg, `and it's right to warn you. If Tulliver's made a bankrupt, and he's got a note-of-hand of your husband's for three hundred pounds, you'll be obliged to pay it: th'assignees 'ull come on you for it.'
`O dear, O dear!' said Mrs Tulliver, thinking of the bankruptcy, and not of Mrs Moss's concern in it. Poor Mrs Moss herself listened in trembling submission, while Maggie looked with bewildered distress at Tom to see if he showed any signs of understanding this trouble, and caring about poor aunt Moss. Tom was only looking thoughtful with his eyes on the table-cloth.
`And if he isn't made bankrupt,' continued Mr Glegg, `as I said before, three hundred pounds 'ud be a little fortin' for him, poor man. We don't know but what he may be partly helpless, if he ever gets up again. I'm very sorry if it goes hard with you, Mrs Moss - but my opinion is, looking at it one way, it'll be right for you to raise the money; and looking at it th' other way, you'll be obliged to pay it. You won't think ill o' me for speaking the truth.'
`Uncle,' said Tom, looking up suddenly from his meditative view of the table-cloth, `I don't think it would be right for my aunt Moss to pay the money, if it would be against my father's will for her to pay it, would it?'
Mr Glegg looked surprised for a moment or two before he said, `Why, no, perhaps not, Tom; but then he'd ha'destroyed the note you know. We must look for the note. What makes you think it 'ud be against his will?'
`Why,' said Tom, colouring, but trying to speak firmly in spite of a boyish tremor, `I remember quite well, before I went to school to Mr Stelling, my father said to me one night, when we were sitting by the fire together and no one else was in the room... '
Tom hesitated a little, and then went on,
`He said something to me about Maggie, and then he said, `I've always been good to my sister, though she married against my will; and I've lent Moss money, but I shall never think of distressing him to pay it: I'd rather lose it: my children must not mind being the poorer for that.' And now my father's ill and not able to speak for himself, I shouldn't like anything to be done contrary to what he said to me.'
`Well, but then, my boy,' said uncle Glegg, whose good feeling led him to enter into Tom's wish, but who could not at once shake off his habitual abhorrence of such recklessness as destroying securities or alienating anything important enough to make an appreciable difference in a man's property, `we should have to make away wi' the note, you know, if we're to guard against what may happen, supposing your father's made bankrupt... '
`Mr Glegg,' interrupted his wife, severely. `Mind what you're saying. You're putting yourself very forrard in other folk's business. If you speak rash, don't say it was my fault.'
`That's such a thing as I never heared of before,' said uncle Pullet, who had been making haste with his lozenge, in order to express his amazement, `making away with a note: I should think anybody could set the constable on you for it.'
`Well but,' said Mrs Tulliver, `if the note's worth all that money, why can't we pay it away and save my things from going away? We've no call to meddle with your uncle and aunt Moss, Tom, if you think your father 'ud be angry when he gets well.'
Mrs Tulliver had not studied the question of exchange and was straining her mind after original ideas on the subject.