In leaving the train Maggie had not yielded to a passing impulse. It was a deliberate act. David’s indifference to her happiness, his subordination of all her likes and dislikes, her time, and work, and hopes, to his own ambition shocked and pained her. She had spent the night in thought and had reached a decided conclusion. As they walked about the cathedral and college, and up and down the High Street, while she looked with shuddering horror on the squalid, hopeless poverty of the inhabitants of those localities, she asked her brother where the rich people lived.
“At the West End,” answered David. “On Sauchiehall Road, and the crescents further on, away maistly up to Kelvin Grove.” And later on, as they were passing down Buchanan Street, he pointed out the stages which ran constantly to these aristocratic quarters of the city, and asked, “if she wished to see them?”
“Ay, I wad like too, but there’s little time noo, it will do again.”
Yet she took good note of everything, and David Promoter, as he sat that night at his own fireside with his tea and books, little dreamed that his sister Maggie had found herself a home within an hour’s ride from the Candleriggs. It was not much of a home, but it satisfied the weary, heart-sore girl. A little back room on a fourth story, with a window looking into a small court; but it was clean and quiet, and the bit of fire burned cheerily, and the widow woman from whom she had rented it made her a refreshing cup of tea, and brought with it the good wheat loaf and the “powdered” butter for which Glasgow is famous; as well as a slice or two of broiled Ayrshire bacon. The food was cheap, and the ordinary food of the people, but it seemed a great treat to the fisher-girl, who had been used to consider wheat flour, fine butter, and bacon, very like luxuries.
And the peace! Oh how good, how good that was! No captious old woman flyting and complaining at every mouthful. No laughing noisy gossips. No irritating interferences. No constant demand on her attention or sympathy. She sat and drank and thanked God with every mouthful; and with grateful tears promised Him to live a good life, and do her honest, kindly duty every hour.
At last too, she could think of Allan without fear of any evil suspicious eye upon her. She had been in such excitement and anxiety for some days, that she had let him slip from her mind; for it was one of this loving woman’s superstitions, never to mix his memory with angry or sorrowful thoughts. But in the peace and stillness that followed her meal, she called him back to her. With closed eyes and folded hands she remembered the words he had said to her, remembered the strength and sincerity of his promise, the glow and tenderness of his handsome face, the truth in the firm clasp of his hands, the glance of commingled love and grief which had been his farewell. “I’ll never wrong him by a doubt. Never, never, never,” she whispered. “If God has willed him to me, there’s nane can keep him frae me. Oceans canna part us, nor gold, nor friends, nor time, nor death itself. Allan! Allan! Allan!”
At that moment Allan was in a pretty pleasure yacht idly drifting on the gulf of Mexico. Mardi Gras had taken him to New Orleans, and there he had hired the boat, and was leisurely sailing from one gulf town to another. The skipper was his only companion, but he was fore, and Allan lay under an awning, full of the afternoon’s lazy content. The scent of orange blossoms was blown from the shore, the blue waters dimpled in the sunshine, and the flop of their ripple in the clincher-landings was an old and pleasant music to him. Suddenly he sat erect and listened: “Maggie called me. Three times over she called me.” The impression upon his spiritual ear was so strong that ere he was aware he had answered the call.
He could dream no longer. His nobler part was on the alert. He was not, however, unhappy. The impression made upon him had been one of love and longing, rather than of distress. His eyes brightened, his face flushed, he walked rapidly about, like a man under a keener sense of life. Lovers see miracles, and believe in them. Allan thought it nothing extraordinary that Maggie’s soul should speak to his soul. And why should we doubt the greeting? Do we any of us know what subtle lines are between spirit and spirit? A few years since, who dreamed of sending a message through the air? Is it not more incredible that flesh and blood in New York should speak with flesh and blood in Washington, than that spirits, rare, rapid and vivid as thought, should communicate with each other, even though the circumference of the world be between them? Allan did not try to analyze the circumstance; he had a conviction, positive and delicious, and he never thought of reasoning it away.
With a sense of infinite comfort and content, Maggie read her evening portion, and went to rest. She had determined to enjoy that evening’s calm, without letting any thought of the future trouble her; and she awoke in the morning strong and cheerful, and quite ready to face the question of her support. She spoke first to her landlady. “Mistress Malcolm,” she said, “I’m a dressmaker, and I want wark. Will you gie me your advice, for I’m not used to city ways?”
“You hae come to the city in a good time though. In the spring there is aye work in plenty. Tak’ the ‘Herald’ and read the advertisements. I hae a paper ben the kitchen, I’ll get it for you. See here now! Nae less than nine dressmakers wanting help! The first call comes frae Bute Crescent; that isna ten minutes walk awa’. Go and see the lady.”