“Well, David?”
“I do not know if it is well or ill, Mr. Campbell, and I will not shake hands on uncertain grounds, sir. Ken you where my sister is?”
“How can you wrong me so, David Promoter? But that would be a small wrong in comparison—how can you shame Maggie by such a question of me? Since we parted in Pittenloch I have neither seen nor heard from her. Oh, Maggie! Maggie!”
He could control himself no longer. As he paced the small room, the tears stood in his eyes, and he locked and unlocked his hands in a passionate effort to relieve his emotion. David looked at him with a stern curiosity. “You are mair than needfully anxious, sir. Do you think Maggie Promoter has no brother? What is Maggie to you?”
“Everything! Everything! Life is hopeless, worthless, without Maggie. She is my promised wife. I would give every shilling I have in the world rather than lose her. I would throw the whole of my world behind me, and go into the fishing boats for her. I love her, sir, as you never can love any woman. Do you think I would have given Maggie a heartache, or let Maggie slip beyond my ken, for all the honor and glory in the world, or for a pulpit as high as the Tower of Babel?”
“Dinna confound things, Mr. Campbell. Maggie, and the pulpit, and the Tower o’ Babel are a’ different. If you love Maggie sae blindly as a’ that, whatna for did you leave her then? Why didn’t you speak to me anent the matter? Let me tell you, that was your plain duty, and you are noo supping the broo you hae brewed for yoursel’.”
David was under powerful emotion, and culture disappeared; “he had got to his Scotch;” for though a man may speak many languages, he has only one mother tongue; and when the heart throbs, and glows, and burns, he goes back to it. “Why didna you speak wi’ me?” he asked again, as he let his hand fall upon the table to emphasize the inquiry.
“I will tell you why. Because Maggie loved you, and thought for you, and would not put one dark drop into your cup of happiness. Because she was afraid that if you knew I loved her, you would think I had tried to help you from that motive, and so, refuse the help. Because the dear girl would not wound even your self complacency. Do not think I am ashamed of her, or ashamed of loving her. I told my father, I told the only female relative I have, how dear she was to me. My father asked me to test my love by two years’ travel and absence. I did so to convince him, not because I doubted myself. Do you know where Maggie is? If you do, tell me, I have a right to see her.”
David went to a big Bible lying on a small table, and took from among its leaves three letters. “I have had these from her at different times. Two you see are posted in Glasgow, the last received was posted three weeks ago, from Portree, in Skye. She says she is with friends, and doing well, and you have but to read the letters to understand she is with those who are more than kind to her. There are few women in Scotland that could write a letter like her last. It shows a mind well opened, and the pen o a ready writer.”
“May I have them?”