"And when you return? What then?"
"I have decided to go Westward."
"I am glad of it. Boston! New York! Baltimore! Charleston! New Orleans!
Why the very names are epics of enterprise! Old as I am, if I could win
away from my desk, I would take a year or two to read them."
They parted pleasantly with a lingering handclasp, and words of "good
speed;" and though Allan was going to bid Maggie a long farewell, he was
light-hearted, for it was not a hopeless one. If she loved him, and could
have patience for two years, he would be free to make her his wife. And he
intended to give her this hope to share with him.
When he arrived in Edinburgh, the city was all astir with moving
regiments, and the clear, crisp autumn air thrilling with military music--
that admirable metallic music so well disciplined, so correct, and yet all
the more ardent and passionate for its very restraint. It typified to him
the love he had for Maggie Promoter. Its honorable limitations, the
patience and obedience by which it was restricted, only made it stronger;
and he understood how in order to love a woman well, truth and honor must
be loved still better.
The first person he saw upon Leith pier was Willie Johnson. "Willie!" he
cried, laughing outright in his pleasured surprise; "have you come to take
me to Pittenloch? I want to go there."
"Hech! but I'm glad to see you, Master Campbell, I'll put to sea noo. I
cain' awa in spite o twaill signs, and the wind turned wrang, and my feesh
all spoiled, and I hae had a handfu' o bad luck. Sae I was waiting for the
luck tide to turn, and there is nane can turn it sae weel as yoursel'
We'll be awa' hame noo, and we'll hae wind and water with us "Sing wo and well a day but still
May the good omens shame the ill," said Allan gayly, and the old classical couplet sent his thoughts off to
the Aegean sea and the Greek fishermen, and the superstitions which are
the soul alphabet of humanity.
Johnson had very little news for him. "There's few wonderfu' to see, or
hear tell o', in Pittenloch, sir. The Promoters were you asking for? Ay
they are well, and doing well, and like to do better still. They say that
David is quite upsetten wi his good luck and keeps himsel mair from folk
than need be But a fu' cup is hard to carry.
"They are mistaken, Johnson, I am sure David Promoter has not a pennyworth
of personal pride in him He is studying hard, and books--"
"Books' sir, he's got a boat fu' o' them. It isn't vera kindly taken, his
using a boat for kirk business. Some think it willna be lucky for the
rest."