As it happened, he just missed it; but it was Maggie’s own fault. If she had trusted it to the Drumloch mail-bag and servant it would have reached Dalry on the twenty-ninth; and on that day Willie Johnson was in the post-village, and received several letters lying there for himself and others in Pittenloch. But when, in our anxiety, we trust to our own judgment, instead of to that something which, for lack of a better name, we call good fortune, we are usually, and perhaps justly, deserted by good fortune. Maggie feared the footman would shirk her solitary letter, and perhaps keep it until his regular visit to the post the following day; so she gave it to the doctor, earnestly asking him to post it as he passed through the town. And the doctor fully intended to do so, but he was met by an urgent call for help; he forgot it then; he did not pass near the post-office for two days, and the two days might as well have been two months, for it was fully that time before Willie Johnson received his next letters.
Mary was exceedingly ill on the twenty-ninth. Her soul had reached the very border-land of being. In the dim, still room she lay, painfully breathing, faintly murmuring words unintelligible and very far away. But as Maggie sat motionless beside her, sometimes hopelessly watching, sometimes softly praying, she could not help thinking of the beach at Pittenloch, of the fresh salt air, and the sea coming in with the wind, and the motion and sparkle and sunshine, and the tall, handsome man she loved looking with sorrowful longing for her. And though she never grudged Mary one moment of the joy she was sacrificing, yet her tears dropped upon the clay-like hands she clasped in her own; for human love and human hopes are very sweet, never perhaps more sweet than in the very hour in which we yield them up to some noble duty, or some cruel fatality.
And Maggie mourned most of all, because Allan would think her faithless; would judge her from the wicked, envious tongues that had driven her from her home; and it is always the drop of injustice in sorrow that makes sorrow intolerable. Only, Maggie trusted! In spite of many a moment’s fear and doubt she trusted! Trusted God, and trusted Allan, and trusted that somehow out of sorrow would come joy; and as she stepped softly about her loving cares, or watched, almost breathlessly, Mary passing Death’s haggard hills, she often whispered to herself part of a little poem they had learned together:
“I will try to hope and to trust in God!
In the excellent Glory His abode
Hath been from of old; thence looketh He,
And surely He cannot help seeing me.
And I think perhaps He thinks of me;
For my heart is with Him continually.”
In the meantime, Allan, like all true lovers, had outrun the clock to keep his tryst. On the evening of the 28th of August a small steamer cast anchor at Pittenloch pier. She had one passenger, Allan Campbell. He had been waiting two days in Leith, but no boat from Pittenloch having arrived during that time, he had hired a small steamer to run up the coast with him. He landed in the evening, just about the time the lamps in the cottages were being lit; and he looked eagerly toward the Promoter cottage for some such cheering sign. As he looked, the window became red, and he leaped off the boat in a fever of joyful expectation. Surely Maggie would be watching! The arrival of a strange steamer must have told her who was coming. Every moment he expected to see her at the open door. As he neared it, the turfs sent up a ruddy glow, and touched the whole interior with warm color. The entrance was light, but the house place was empty. Smiling to himself, he went in, and stood upon the snow-white hearth, and glanced round the dear, familiar room. Nothing was changed. In a moment or two he heard a step; he looked eagerly toward it, and a very pleasant-looking old woman entered.
“I thocht it wad be you, Maister Campbell. Welcome hame, sir! I’ll mak you a cup o’ tea anon, for the kettle’s boiling, and a’ things ready.”
“Thank you. I don’t remember—I suppose Mistress Caird has left?”
“Sent awa’, sir—not before she deserved it.”
“And you are in her place? I think I have seen you before?”
“Nae doot, sir. I’m Mysie Jardine—the Widow Jardine, sir.”