A Daughter of Fife, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr [best classic literature .txt] 📗

the name among the list of students--David Promoter--he has done wondrously. The man is a miracle, he has taken every prize in his classes, I think."

"I'm right glad to hear tell o' it. I must aye wish weel--"

"_Well_, Maggie, not weel."

"Well, to the name."

It was true. David had overstepped even his own ambition. He had finished the term with an ovation from his fellows, and he had been urged to go with Prof. Laird's son to the outer Hebrides. And now that the strain of his study was over, and the goal, so far, nobly won, he could afford to remember his sister. Indeed David deserves more justice than these words imply. He had often thought of her since that March afternoon when he had put her into the train for Stirling. But he really believed that his first duty was to his studies, and he fully expected that his letter to Dr. Balmuto would be a sufficient movement to insure her welfare. Practically, he had thrown his own duty upon the minister's conscience, but he felt sure that the good man had accepted the obligation, for if not, he would certainly have written to him on the subject.

He sent the doctor the newspapers advertising his success, and a couple of days afterward went to Kinkell. Young Laird did not require his company for a week, and he thought well of himself for taking a journey to Fife merely to pleasure his sister, before he took his own pleasure. He had improved much in personal appearance during his residence in Glasgow. He was well dressed, and he had acquired an easy confidence of manner which rather took Dr. Balmuto by surprise. Perhaps it irritated him a little also; for he was not at all satisfied with David. The first words he said were not words of congratulation, they were a stern inquiry.

"David Promoter, where is your sister Maggie? Has she come back with you?"

"I came to ask you about Maggie, sir."

"Me! What way would you come to me? I have nothing to do with Maggie Promoter."

"Sir, when she left me last March, I gave her a letter to you, and put her in the train that was to bring her here."

"What did you write to me about?"

"I told you how unhappy and dissatisfied my sister was at Pittenloch; and I asked you to advise her to stay at Kinkell under your eye. Then none could speak ill o' her."

"Why under my eye? Are you not your sister's natural protector?"

"My studies--my college duties--"

"Your first duty was Maggie. You will be a miserable divine, let me tell you, if you have not plenty of humanity in you; and the kirk and the household are bound together with bands that cannot be broken. What is the worth of all the Greek you know, if you have forgotten your own flesh and blood? I'll not give you one word of praise, David, until you can tell me that Maggie is well and doing well."

"My God! Maggie not here! Where then is she? I must awa' to Pittenloch; maybe she is gone back there."

"No, she has not gone back. Poor girl! What would she go back there for? To be worried to death by a lad she hates, and a lot of women who hate her? I went to Pittenloch a week after she left, and I had a day of inquiries and examinations; and I can tell you Maggie has been sair wronged. That old woman in your house has the poison of hell under her tongue:--and the lifted shoulder and the slant eye, what woman can stand them? So she went to her brother, as a good girl past her wits would do, and her brother put her on the train and sent her back to her sorrow!"

"I sent her to you, sir. I thought I could trust in you--"

"Why to me, I ask again? You knew that I had spoken sharply to her at the New Year, how was she likely to come to me then? Where is your sister, David Promoter?"

"You should hae written to me, sir, when you found out that Maggie was gone from her hame."

"I thought, everyone thought, she was with you. I am shocked to find she is not. Whom else can she be with? Whom have you driven her to?"

"What do you mean, sir?"

"Where is Allan Campbell? That is what you must next find out."

David looked at the minister like one distraught.

"I can't understand--I can't believe--gie me a drink o' water, sir."

He was faint and sick and trembling. He drank and sat down a few minutes; but though the doctor spoke more kindly, and set clearly before him what was best to be done, he heard nothing distinctly. As soon as he was able, even while the doctor was speaking, he rose and went out of the house. Sorrow has the privilege to neglect ceremonies, and David offered no parting courtesy, but for this omission the minister was rather pleased than angry with him:

"The lad has some heart, God be thanked!" he muttered, "and the day will come when he will be grateful to me for troubling it."

David went with rapid steps down the rocks to Pittenloch. How hateful the place looked to him that afternoon! How dreary those few tossing boats! How mean the cottages! How vulgar the women in their open doors! How disagreeable the bare-footed children that recognized him and ran hither and thither with the news of his arrival.

He was full of shame and anger. Where was his praise, where was his honor, with this disgrace in his home? How could he show those newspapers extolling his diligence and attainments, when Maggie had made his very success a disgrace to him? Oh, how bitterly he felt toward her!

Mistress Caird met him at the door with her apron at her eyes: "Come in, sir," she said, with a courtesy, "though it is a sorrowfu' house you come to."

"Aunt Janet, you have been drinking. I smell the whiskey above everything. Ah, there is the bottle!" His sharp eyes had seen it behind the tea caddy on the mantelshelf. He took it and flung it upon the shingle as far as his arm could send it.

"That is my ain whiskey, David; bought wi' my ain siller, and the gude ken I need a wee drappie to keep my vera heart frae breaking wi' the sorrow I hae had."

"Say, wi' the sorrow you hae made. Pack your trunk, Aunt Janet. I'll take you to Dron Point in the morning."

He would talk no more to her. He let her rave and explain and scold, but sat silent on his hearth, and would go and see none of his old friends. But it did console him somewhat that they came crowding in to see him. That reaction which sooner or later takes place in favor of the injured had taken place in Maggie's favor since the minister's last visit. Mistress Caird felt that she was leaving Pittenloch something like a social criminal. No one came to bid her farewell. David and a boy he hired took her silently to her old home. She had sacrificed every good feeling and sentiment for popularity, and everyone spoke ill of her.

Getting near to Dron Point, she said to David, "You are a miserable set-up bit o' a man; but you'll pay me the L4 10s. you are owing me, or I'll send the constable and the sherra a' the way to Glasca' for it."

"I owe you nothing, woman."

"Woman, indeed! Maggie, the hizzy!--agreed to gie me five shillings weekly if I wad say the gude word for her she ne'er deserved, and I havna been paid for eighteen weeks. That mak's it L4 10s. Just hand o'er the siller and be done wi' it."

"It is a theft, an extortion;" but he took a L5 note from his pocket-book and gave her it. "That is a gratuity," he said, "a gratuity to help you until you find employment. I do not owe you a penny."

"There's nae gratuity in honest earned money; and if you wad gie me L50 it wad be too little to pay me for the loss o' health and time and gude name I hae made through you and yours. Set you up for a minister, indeed! Clean your ain door-stane before you speak o' other folks. I'm glad to be rid o' the sight and the hearing o' you."

That was the parting shot, and David could have very heartily returned it. But he heeded his Bible rule, and to her railing made no answer. Janet would rather have been sworn at. He left her bargaining with a man to take her blue kist to the village public, but he did not return to Pittenloch. He had given Elder Mackelvine the key of the cottage, and the elder had promised to find a proper woman to care for it. So he sent the boy back with the boat, and found the quickest way from Dron Point to Glasgow.

In his last interview with Allan Campbell, Allan had told him, if any difficulty arose about his money matters, or if he needed more money before he returned, to go to his father; and in view of such an emergency, had given David the address of Campbell & Co. He went there as soon as he arrived in Glasgow. It was in the middle of the afternoon and John Campbell had just gone to his house in Blytheswood Square. The young man who answered his inquiry was pleasant spoken, and trustworthy, and David said to him--"Where is Mr. Allan Campbell?"

"He is in the United States. I believe in New Orleans."

"When will he return?"

"It is very uncertain. Not for a year or more."

Then he concluded that Maggie had gone to him. That was the thing Dr. Balmuto feared. What a fool he had been not to suspect earlier what everyone else, doubtless, perceived. One hope yet remained. He wrote to the Largo Bank about the L50. If Maggie had lifted it, then he would feel certain she was doing honestly for herself, in some quiet village, or perhaps, even in Glasgow. But when he found the money had not been touched, he accepted without further hope the loss and the shame. It is so much easier to believe evil than good, even of those we love. Yet, how could David, knowing Maggie as he did, do her this shame? Alas! David Promoter thought very badly of the majority of men and women. It was his opinion that God had so made them, that they preferred evil to good, and only by some special kind of Divine favor and help--such as had been vouchsafed to himself--chose the right road.

He certainly grieved for Maggie; but oh! how bitterly he felt the wrong she had done him. For her own indulgence, how she would curtail and cramp all his future college course! He had hitherto dressed well, and been able to buy easily all the books he needed. For the future he would have to rely upon his own exertions; for his first decision had been to pay back the money he had taken from Allan's fund, and make the proceeds of his teaching defray his class fees. When he had done this, he had only L8 left, out of the L50 which his father had left accumulated; but he was to receive L25 from Prof. Laird