But the week Allan had allowed himself nearly passed and he had not been able to say a word to Mary on the subject pressing him so closely. He felt that he must have more time, and he went into Glasgow to see David. He found him in Professor Laird’s study hard at work; and he saw at a glance the easy attitude of the young man among his new surroundings. When the servant said, “Here is a gentleman to call on you, Mr. Promoter,” David rose without the slightest embarrassment to welcome his visitor; though when the door was closed, he said with a smile, “I let them call me Mister Promoter;’ I must consider the office I’m seeking and gie it honor; but it sounds unca strange, sir. Whiles, I feel as if I wad be glad to hear somebody say ‘David’ to me.”
“Well, David, have you had a good week?”
“A week fu’ o’ grand promises, sir. I hae had a glint inside spacious halls o’ delightfu’ stillness and wonderfu’ wisdom. I’ll ne’er forget the joy o’ it.”
“We promised Maggie to return in seven days. I shall not be able to keep my promise, but I think it will be right for you to do so.”
“I wad be glad if you were going wi’ me.”
“I shall follow ere long; and even if I should never see you again, David, I think your future is assured. Would you like me to go with you as far as Edinburgh?”
“I wad like it, but there is nae occasion for it. The city doesna fright me noo. If I couldna find my way to Pittenloch wi’ a gude Scot’s tongue in my mouth, and siller in my purse, I wad hae little hope of ever finding my way into a pulpit. Thank you kindly, sir.”
“Then good-bye for the present, Davie, and give my regards to your sister.”
He felt like a traitor to Maggie and to his own heart, but what was there else for him to say. When he reached the street the whole atmosphere of life seemed to have changed. A sudden weariness of the placid existence at Meriton attacked him. Was he to go on, year after year, dressing and visiting, and taking little rows in land-locked bays, and little rides and drives with Mary Campbell? “I would rather fling a net in the stormiest sea that ever roared, for my daily bread,” he said. Yet he went on dressing, and rowing, and riding, and visiting for many more weeks; sometimes resenting the idle, purposeless life as thoroughly enervating; more frequently, drifting in its sunshiny current, and hardly caring to oppose it, though he suspected it was leading him to Drumloch.
What curious “asides” and soliloquies of the soul are dreams! Perhaps if we cared to study them more conscientiously they would reveal us to ourselves in many startling ways. The deep, real feelings which we will not recognize while awake, take possession of us when we sleep; and the cup-bearer who was slain for dreaming that he poisoned the king was, very likely, righteously slain. The dream had but revealed the secret thought of his soul. “We sleep, but our heart waketh,” and though