"Brown shell first for the butterfly
And a bright wing by and by.
Butterfly good-bye to your shell,
And, bright wings, speed you well"
In leaving the train Maggie had not yielded to a passing impulse. It was a
deliberate act. David's indifference to her happiness, his subordination
of all her likes and dislikes, her time, and work, and hopes, to his own
ambition shocked and pained her. She had spent the night in thought and
had reached a decided conclusion. As they walked about the cathedral and
college, and up and down the High Street, while she looked with shuddering
horror on the squalid, hopeless poverty of the inhabitants of those
localities, she asked her brother where the rich people lived.
"At the West End," answered David. "On Sauchiehall Road, and the crescents
further on, away maistly up to Kelvin Grove." And later on, as they were
passing down Buchanan Street, he pointed out the stages which ran
constantly to these aristocratic quarters of the city, and asked, "if she
wished to see them?"
"Ay, I wad like too, but there's little time noo, it will do again."
Yet she took good note of everything, and David Promoter, as he sat that
night at his own fireside with his tea and books, little dreamed that his
sister Maggie had found herself a home within an hour's ride from the
Candleriggs. It was not much of a home, but it satisfied the weary,
heart-sore girl. A little back room on a fourth story, with a window
looking into a small court; but it was clean and quiet, and the bit of
fire burned cheerily, and the widow woman from whom she had rented it made
her a refreshing cup of tea, and brought with it the good wheat loaf and
the "powdered" butter for which Glasgow is famous; as well as a slice or
two of broiled Ayrshire bacon. The food was cheap, and the ordinary food
of the people, but it seemed a great treat to the fisher-girl, who had
been used to consider wheat flour, fine butter, and bacon, very like
luxuries.
And the peace! Oh how good, how good that was! No captious old woman
flyting and complaining at every mouthful. No laughing noisy gossips. No
irritating interferences. No constant demand on her attention or sympathy.
She sat and drank and thanked God with every mouthful; and with grateful
tears promised Him to live a good life, and do her honest, kindly duty
every hour.
At last too, she could think of Allan without fear of any evil suspicious
eye upon her. She had been in such excitement and anxiety for some days,
that she had let him slip from her mind; for it was one of this loving
woman's superstitions, never to mix his memory with angry or sorrowful
thoughts. But in the peace and stillness that followed her meal, she
called him back to her. With closed eyes and folded hands she remembered
the words he had said to her, remembered the strength and sincerity of his
promise, the glow and tenderness of his handsome face, the truth in the
firm clasp of his hands, the glance of commingled love and grief which had
been his farewell. "I'll never wrong him by a doubt. Never, never, never,"
she whispered. "If God has willed him to me, there's nane can keep him
frae me. Oceans canna part us, nor gold, nor friends, nor time, nor death
itself. Allan! Allan! Allan!"