“You wad hae as much right to his purse as his room, if he had left his purse in your keeping. The room wasna yours to lend, Maggie.”
“And, Davie, I dinna like Angus Raith, and his mither is here the day lang, and till the late night; and Angus is aye to convoy her hame; and he sits in your chair, and glowers at me, or he says words I canna listen till, and I want nae love from him or any other man. If you will be a brither to me, and no let folks tread my gude name in the mire, I’ll aye be a true sister to you, Davie, and I’ll care for nane but you.”
“I’ll let nane say ill o’ you, if you dinna deserve it, Maggie. Folks should think shame o’ themselves to set on a lass without man or woman to stand by her.”
“I’m sure I aye said what I could wi’ truth for the lassie.”
“I dinna think it. And as for Maggie’s money, that is Maggie’s business and my business. Maggie’s money is clean money, every penny o’ it. There is my word for that. I am sure it was weel kent that fayther left money lying in Largo Bank; but I’ll gie accounts to nane; and I’ll not hae Maggie asked for them either. As for Angus Raith, he might hae taken his no’ before this. I’ll not blame Maggie for not liking him; and I wad be as weel pleased for Maggie to bide single, till I hae my ain manse to marry her from. Now I willna hae my life and prospects wrecked for women’s battlement and quarrels;” and then David very foolishly spoke of Dr. Balmuto’s coldness to him; and on this subject David got warm and eloquent, and Aunt Janet perceived that the minister was disposed to blame Maggie.
Before leaving for his classes again, he did what he thought was the prudent thing to do for all parties. He really satisfied no one. Maggie felt that he had been less kind to her in many ways than he ought to have been. The villagers resented the change in his manners and speech. Their affairs, never interesting to him, were now distasteful; he went little among them, but sat most of his time reading in his own cottage. If he walked down to the pier or the boat-house, he brought unavoidably a different element with him. The elder men disputed all he said, the younger ones took little notice of him. He might have understood from his own experience what Maggie was suffering; but David had his mind full of grand themes, and he brushed the opinions of a few fishermen off, as he brushed a fly from his open book. After he had returned to Glasgow, Aunt Janet said, with an air of wrong and offence—“Brither and sister sail in one boat;” and she had more sympathy for her opinion.
The dreariest part of the winter was to come. David was not to return home again until the end of July; perhaps not even then. He had been spoken to about spending the long vacation with Prof. Laird’s son in the Hebrides, as a kind of travelling tutor; and he hoped for the appointment. If he got it a whole year might pass before his next visit to Pittenloch. And Maggie’s position had not been in any respect bettered, either by the minister’s or David’s interference. Aunt Janet had received no special reproofs or threats for her encroachments on Maggie’s rights, and she made a point of extending them in many ways. Before March was over the girl was growing desperate.
Character is cumulative, and Maggie had been through these days of mean and bitter trials unconsciously gathering strength. She was not the same woman that had stood reproachful at destiny by the beached boat eleven months before. Yet even then she had nursed a rebellious thought against the hopelessness of Fate. She had refused to believe that the boat had been built and destined for death and destruction; if something had been done, which had not been done, it would have come safe to harbor. So also she would not believe that her own misery was beyond help, and that all that remained to her was a weary hoping and watching for Allan’s return.
She was just at the point when endurance is waiting for the last unendurable straw, when one morning Angus Raith called early, and asked permission to use the “Allan Campbell” for a day’s fishing. “Tak’ her and welcome,” answered Janet Caird, promptly.
“Aunt Janet, you hae nae right to lend what isna yours, nor ever like to be yours. David told you that plain as words could mak’ it.”