It was one of those letters which we have forgotten how to write—large letter cap, folded within itself, and sealed with scarlet wax. It was, “Dearest Maggie! Sweetest Maggie! Best beloved of women!” It was full of tenderness, and trust, and sorrow, and undying affection. Maggie’s tears washed it like a shower of rain. Maggie’s kisses sealed every promise, and returned to the writer ten-fold every word of its passionate mournful devotion.
She did not now regret her journey. Oh, she would most gladly have walked every mile of the way, to have found that letter at the end of it. “He’ll come back here,” she thought; “love will bring him back, and I know by myself how glad he will be to hae a word from me.” In the drawer of the table in Allan’s room there was some paper and wax. Allan’s letter had been written with his pocket pencil, but she found among David’s old papers the remains of several pencils, and with some little difficulty she made them sufficiently sharp to express what she wished to say.
She told him everything—where she had spent the time since they parted —how good Miss Campbell had been to her—how impossible it would have been to desert her in an hour of such need and peril—how much she had suffered in her broken tryst, and how longingly and lovingly she would wait for him at Drumloch, though she waited there until the end of her life. “And every year,” she added, “I’ll be, if God let me, in Pittenloch on the 29th of August, dear Allan;” for she thought it likely he might come again at that time next year.
Into Mysie’s hand this letter was given with many injunctions of secrecy and care. And then Maggie sat down to eat, and to talk over the minor details of David’s and Allan’s visits; and the changes which had occurred in her native village since she left it. “I dinna want you to say I hae been here, Mysie. I’ll get awa’ at the dinner hour, and nane will be the wiser. I can do nae gude to any one, and I’ll maybe set folks wondering and talking to ill purpose.”
“I can hold my whist, Maggie; if it’s your will, I’ll no speak your name. And I hope I hae keepit a’ things to your liking in the cottage. If sae, you might gie me a screed o’ writing to your brither, sae that when he comes again, he’ll be contented, and willing to let me bide on here.”
“I’ll do that gladly, Mysie. Hoo is a’ wi’ you anent wark and siller?”
“I get on, Maggie; and there’s a few folk do mair than that; forbye, Maister Campbell’s five pounds will get me many a bit o’ comfort this winter.”
“Hoo much weekly does Davie allow you for the caretaking?”
“He didna speak to me himsel’. He left Elder Mackelvine to find some decent body wha wad be glad o’ the comfortable shelter, and the elder gied me the favor.”
“Dinna you hae some bit o’ siller beside frae Davie?”