A Daughter of Fife Part 8

"A puir body, sir, a puir body at a sermon. I like a gun and a minister to shoot close. Dr. MacDonald is an awfu' scattering man. He'll be frae Genesis to Revelations in the same discourse, sir."

They were pa.s.sing between plantations of young larch; the great hills rose behind them, the songs of a mult.i.tude of birds filled the warm, sweet air.

The horses tossed their heads, and lifted proudly their prancing feet.

Allan had a keen sense of the easy, swift motion through the balmy atmosphere. As he leaned back against the comfortably cushioned vehicle, he could not help contrasting the circ.u.mstances with the h.o.a.ry sea-shattering rocks of Fife, the tossing ocean, the tugging oars, and the fisherman's open boat. He did not try to decide upon the merits of the different situations; he simply realized the present, and enjoyed it.

The great doors of Meriton House stood open, and a soft-treading footman met him with bows and smiles, and lifted his cloak and luggage, and made him understand that he had again entered a life in which he was expected to be unable to wait upon himself. It gave him no trouble to accept the conditions; he fell at once into the lofty leisurely way of a man accustomed to being served. He had dismissed his valet in Edinburgh, when he determined to go to Pittenloch, but he watched his father's servant brushing his dinner suit, and preparing his bath and toilet, without one dissenting feeling as to the absolute fitness of the attention. The lofty rooms, the splendor and repose, the un.o.btrusive but perfect service, were the very antipodes of the life he had just left. He smiled to himself as he lazily made contrasts of them. But Fife and the ways of Fife seemed far away. It was like a dream from which he had awakened, and Meriton was the actual and the present.

He knew that he would meet Mary Campbell very soon, and he was not indifferent to the meeting. He could not help glancing with complaisance at the new evening suit he had brought with him; and looking a little ruefully at his browned and hardened hands, and the tan of wind and weather on his face. He hoped he would meet Mary before his father's arrival; so that he could get accustomed to the situation before he had to exhibit himself in it to those keen and critical observers, the servants.

He went early into the dining-room, and found Mary already there. She had some ferns and roses in her hands, and was mingling them, for the adornment of the dinner table. She put them down, and went to meet him with a smile like sunshine. Her small, slender figure clothed in white India mull had a peculiarly fragile appearance; but Allan watched her, as she glided about the room filling the crystal vases, with a restful content. He thought how intelligent her face is! How graceful her diction, how charming her low, sweet voice!

The dinner was a kind of festival. Mac Roy made every one feel so, when he served with careful and elaborate ceremonies the famous wine. Allan felt almost pained by the significance given to his return. It roused the first feeling of opposition in him. "I will not float with the current unless I wish to do so," was his mental determination; "and I will not have it supposed that my return home is a surrender of my inclinations."

Unfortunately John Campbell regarded it as such; and his desire was to adequately show his appreciation of the concession. Before Allan had been at home three days, he perceived that his father was restless and impatient. He had watched and waited so long, he could not help feeling that Allan was unkind to keep a question of such importance in abeyance and uncertainty.

But the week Allan had allowed himself nearly pa.s.sed 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 att.i.tude 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 embarra.s.sment 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 s.p.a.cious 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 a.s.sured. 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

"Calm and still may be the sleeping face In the moonlight pale, The heart waketh in her secret place Within the veil.

And agonies are suffered in the night; Or joys embraced too keen for waking sight."

One morning, just at the gray dawn, Allan had a dream of this kind. He saw Maggie on the sea alone, and he was sailing away from her. She stood upright in a little open boat, which the waves tossed to and fro:--a speechless, woe-stricken woman, who watched him with sorrow-haunted eyes, but neither by word, look, nor movement called him to her.

He awoke, and could sleep no more. The dream had revealed him to himself.

Who was there in all the world as dear to him as Maggie was? He felt that she was wretched, and he hated himself for having made her so. That very hour he wrote to David, and said all that he might say, to give her hope and comfort, and over and over he declared his purpose of being in Pittenloch, before David left it for Glasgow. How soon David might get the letter was a very uncertain thing, but still he could not rest until he had written it.

He was dull and silent at breakfast, and hid himself and his moody temper behind his favorite newspaper. Mary had often noticed that men like to be quiet in the early morning; she gave them naturally all the benefit they claim from the pressure of unread mails and doubtful affairs. If her cousin was quiet and sombre, he might have half-a-dozen innocent reasons for the humor; when he felt more social, he would be sure to seek her. And when she saw him sauntering toward her favorite retreat she was nothing astonished. It was the fulfillment of as natural an expectation as that the clock should strike at the full hour.

"I am glad to see you, Allan," she said, with a charming serenity of manner. "We shall not now have many days as fair as this one is." She wore a gown of pale blue lawn, and had a great cl.u.s.ter of scarlet fuchsias in her hand. Behind the garden bench on which she sat, there was a hedge of fuchsias seven feet high and very thick. Her small dark head rested against its green and scarlet ma.s.ses. The little bay tinkled and murmured among the pebbles at her feet. She had a book, but she was not reading.

She had some crochet, but she was not working. Allan thought he had never seen her look so piquant and interesting: but she had no power to move him. The lonely, splendid beauty of the woman he had seen in his morning vision filled his heart. He sought Mary that hour only for Maggie's sake.

While he was wondering how he could best introduce the conversation he desired, Mary broke the silence by a sudden question. "Cousin Allan, where were you this spring? I have often wanted to ask you."

"Why did you not ask me? I wish you had, I should like to have talked on that subject. I was in the Fife fishing district."

"Oh!"

"Why do you feel curious, Mary?"

"I have always thought there was something singular about that journey.

What took you to Fife? I never heard you speak of Fife before."

"It was an accident. My hat blew off, a Fife fisherman got it for me. I liked the man, and went back to Fife with him."

"Accidents open the door to Fate. Now then, what singular thing happened to you in Fife?"

"Nothing unusual happened. Is this my catechism or yours, Mary?"

"We can divide it. It is your turn to question."

"Do you know why I left home?"

"You had a 'difference' with Uncle John."

"What about?"

"Money, I dare say. I feel sure you were very extravagant while you were abroad."

"It was not about money."

"About going into business then? You ought to do something, Allan. It is a shame for you to be so lazy."

"It was not about business. It was about you."

"Me!"

"My dear Mary, for what I am going to say, I beg your pardon in advance, for I feel keenly the position in which I must appear before you. You know that the welfare of Drumloch has been my father's object by day, and his dream by night. He cannot bear to think of a stranger or a strange name in its old rooms. Long ago, when we were little children, our marriage was planned, and when the place was clear, and you had grown to a beautiful womanhood, and I had completed my education, father longed to see us in Drumloch. There were points we could not agree upon. He was angry, I was obstinate--Mary, I know not how to tell you; how to ask you--"

"Allan, my dear brother Allan, spare yourself and me any more words." She looked up with clear, candid eyes, and laid her hand upon his. "Uncle is not unjust in his expectations. His outlay, his cares, his labor, have saved Drumloch to the family. It is as much his purchase as if he had bought every acre at public roup. And he has been a second father to me; kind, generous, thoughtful. It is hard enough for him that his plans must fail; it would be cruel indeed if he were parted from a son he loves so tenderly as he loves you, Allan. Let me bear the blame. Let it be my fault his hopes cannot be realized."

"Can they not be realized, Mary?"

"Do you mean by that question to offer me your hand, Allan? At any rate I will consider it a fulfillment of your father's desire. No, they cannot be realized. You are to me as a brother. I distinctly refuse to accept you as a husband. Uncle John is a gentleman; he will consider my 'no' as final; and he is too just to blame you, because I decline to be your wife. Nor shall we be any worse friends, Allan, for this honest talk, I am sure of that." She smiled bravely in his face, and he did not suspect how deeply both her affections and her pride had been wounded.

"Let us go back to the house; the air is heavy and hot, we may have a storm."

Allan was thoroughly miserable and unsettled. As soon as Mary had so positively refused him, he began to have doubts and longings. "Drumloch was a fine estate--the name was old and honorable, and in a fair way for greater honors--Mary was sweet and sensible, and a woman to be desired above all other women--except Maggie. Yet, after all, was he not paying a great price for his pearl?" Mary and Maggie were both difficult to resign.

He began to grumble at events and to blame every one but himself. "If his father had not been so unreasonable, he never would have gone to Edinburgh at the time he did--never would have gone to Pittenloch--never would have met Maggie Promoter."

John Campbell came home in unusually high spirits. He had made a profitable contract, and he had done a kindness to an old friend. Both circ.u.mstances had been mental tonics to him. He felt himself a happy man.

The atmosphere of the dinner table chilled him a little, but for once the subject on which he was always hoping and fearing did not enter his mind.

When Mary left the room, he said cheerfully, "We will be with you anon, dearie, and then you shall sing for us, '_The La.s.s O' Gowrie_,'" and he began to hum the pretty melody as he poured out for himself another gla.s.s of port. "Help yourself, Allan. You do not seem very bright to-night."