But David had marked out his course, and he was not the man to permit any
woman to seriously interfere with his plans. He put down with a mighty
will his grief and disappointment, and shame, and went off to the Hebrides
with his pupil. But in spite of himself, Maggie went with him. He was
compelled to be very economical, and he could not quite get rid of
anxiety, and of planning for the future, which the change in his money
affairs forced upon him. And it was all Maggie's fault. "Her weakness,
her craving 'to be made of,' and to be happy, her inability to bear a
little feminine gossip, her longing after the companionship of himself
--or another." Maggie, after all, spoiled the trip to which he had looked
forward for half a year with longing and delight.
When he returned to the Candleriggs, the first thing he saw was a letter
from Maggie. It had been lying upon his table for some weeks. In fact
Maggie had written it soon after her removal to Drumloch, but she did not
wish to post it from so small a place, and she therefore waited until her
first visit to Glasgow, which occurred early in August. She had remembered
the time when it was possible that David might go to Pittenloch, and she
feared that he would be very miserable when he found out that she had
never returned to Kinkell. Without revealing her own location or
circumstances, she wished to satisfy him as far as possible of her
innocence and welfare; so she had thus written-"Dear Davie. I am feared you will not get this, ere you find out I did not
go back yonder day you sent me. I have met with good friends, and am
living honest and happy. Have no fear anent me. I will do right, and do
well. Where I am there is no ill can be said of me, and no ill can come to
me. I was glad beyond telling to read of your well-doing. You'll win to
the top of the tree, Davie, I aye thought that. Some day, you will find it
in your heart to love Maggie, and to forgive her, that she was forced to
lay an anxious thought on you. Your true, loving sister, Maggie Promoter."
The letter was a comfort to him, and for a moment or two a great surprise.
The writing was Maggie's writing, but much improved, the spelling was
correct. It was evident that she was trying to teach herself, and it
pleased him somewhat; although he was far from considering education as a
necessity for women. "To think of Maggie reading the newspapers!" he
exclaimed; "but then," he reflected, "she had doubtless been looking for a
word about him," and with this thought, he became just, even tender, to
her memory. As he folded away the letter, he said, "I was wrong to think
wrong of her. She was always a good girl, and very fond of me. It would be
long ere she would do aught to hurt my good name. It's no to be thought
of." So with a lighter heart he went bravely to work again, and the weeks
and months in their busy monotony passed wisely and quickly away.