"Why under my eye? Are you not your sister's natural protector?"
"My studies--my college duties--"
"Your first duty was Maggie. You will be a miserable divine, let me tell
you, if you have not plenty of humanity in you; and the kirk and the
household are bound together with bands that cannot be broken. What is the
worth of all the Greek you know, if you have forgotten your own flesh and
blood? I'll not give you one word of praise, David, until you can tell me
that Maggie is well and doing well."
"My God! Maggie not here! Where then is she? I must awa' to Pittenloch;
maybe she is gone back there."
"No, she has not gone back. Poor girl! What would she go back there for?
To be worried to death by a lad she hates, and a lot of women who hate
her? I went to Pittenloch a week after she left, and I had a day of
inquiries and examinations; and I can tell you Maggie has been sair
wronged. That old woman in your house has the poison of hell under her
tongue:--and the lifted shoulder and the slant eye, what woman can stand
them? So she went to her brother, as a good girl past her wits would do,
and her brother put her on the train and sent her back to her sorrow!"
"I sent her to you, sir. I thought I could trust in you--"
"Why to me, I ask again? You knew that I had spoken sharply to her at the
New Year, how was she likely to come to me then? Where is your sister,
David Promoter?"
"You should hae written to me, sir, when you found out that Maggie was
gone from her hame."
"I thought, everyone thought, she was with you. I am shocked to find she
is not. Whom else can she be with? Whom have you driven her to?"
"What do you mean, sir?"
"Where is Allan Campbell? That is what you must next find out."
David looked at the minister like one distraught.
"I can't understand--I can't believe--gie me a drink o' water, sir."
He was faint and sick and trembling. He drank and sat down a few minutes;
but though the doctor spoke more kindly, and set clearly before him what
was best to be done, he heard nothing distinctly. As soon as he was able,
even while the doctor was speaking, he rose and went out of the house.
Sorrow has the privilege to neglect ceremonies, and David offered no
parting courtesy, but for this omission the minister was rather pleased
than angry with him: "The lad has some heart, God be thanked!" he muttered, "and the day will
come when he will be grateful to me for troubling it."