Before leaving for his classes again, he did what he thought was the
prudent thing to do for all parties. He really satisfied no one. Maggie
felt that he had been less kind to her in many ways than he ought to have
been. The villagers resented the change in his manners and speech. Their
affairs, never interesting to him, were now distasteful; he went little
among them, but sat most of his time reading in his own cottage. If he
walked down to the pier or the boat-house, he brought unavoidably a
different element with him. The elder men disputed all he said, the younger
ones took little notice of him. He might have understood from his own
experience what Maggie was suffering; but David had his mind full of grand
themes, and he brushed the opinions of a few fishermen off, as he brushed
a fly from his open book. After he had returned to Glasgow, Aunt Janet
said, with an air of wrong and offence--"Brither and sister sail in one
boat;" and she had more sympathy for her opinion.
The dreariest part of the winter was to come. David was not to return home
again until the end of July; perhaps not even then. He had been spoken to
about spending the long vacation with Prof. Laird's son in the Hebrides,
as a kind of travelling tutor; and he hoped for the appointment. If he got
it a whole year might pass before his next visit to Pittenloch. And
Maggie's position had not been in any respect bettered, either by the
minister's or David's interference. Aunt Janet had received no special
reproofs or threats for her encroachments on Maggie's rights, and she made
a point of extending them in many ways. Before March was over the girl was
growing desperate.
Character is cumulative, and Maggie had been through these days of mean
and bitter trials unconsciously gathering strength. She was not the same
woman that had stood reproachful at destiny by the beached boat eleven
months before. Yet even then she had nursed a rebellious thought against
the hopelessness of Fate. She had refused to believe that the boat had
been built and destined for death and destruction; if something had been
done, which had not been done, it would have come safe to harbor. So also
she would not believe that her own misery was beyond help, and that all
that remained to her was a weary hoping and watching for Allan's return.
She was just at the point when endurance is waiting for the last
unendurable straw, when one morning Angus Raith called early, and asked
permission to use the "Allan Campbell" for a day's fishing. "Tak' her and
welcome," answered Janet Caird, promptly.