A Daughter of Fife

She smiled and laid the little volume down. "The tide has turned," she thought, "and many an ill wind has driven a ship into a good harbor. I wonder what was the matter with me this morning!" And she sat quiet with a new sense of peace in her heart, until the moon was low in the west, and the far hills stood clear and garish in the cold white light of morning. Then Mary called her again. There was a look of pitiful anxiety on her face; she grasped Maggie's hand, and whispered "The 29th? Is it come?"

"Yes, dear."

"Your tryst, Maggie?"

"I will keep it some other time."

"Now, Maggie. To-day. At once. Oh Maggie! Go, go, go! I shall be ill again if you do not."

It was useless to reason with her. She began to cry, to grow feverish.

"I will go then."

"And you will come back?"

"In three or four days."

"Spare no money. He will be waiting. I know it. Haste, Maggie! Oh dear, you don't know—oh, be quick, for my sake."

Then Maggie told Mrs. Leslie such facts as were necessary to account for Mary's anxiety, and she also urged her to keep the appointment. "Better late than ever," she said, "and you may not be too late; and anyhow the salt air will do you good, and maybe set you beyond the fit o' sickness you look o'er like to have."

So within an hour Maggie was speeding to the coast of Fife, faintly hoping that Allan might still be there; "for he must ken by his own heart," she thought, "that it would be life or death, and naething but life or death, that could make me break a promise I had made to him."

CHAPTER XIV

THE MEETING PLACE

"Love's a divinity that speaks
'Awake Sweetheart!' and straightway breaks
A lordlier light than sunshine's glow,
A sweeter life than mortals know.
I bow me to his fond command,
Take life's great glory from his hand;
Crowned in one moment's sweet surprise,
When Somebody and I—changed eyes."

Maggie had very little hope of meeting Allan, and yet he might have lingered. Judging him by her own heart, she thought he would have done so, unless circumstances of which she had no knowledge made waiting impossible. It was this faint hope that made her wear the costume most becoming to her—a gown and mantle of dark blue cashmere and velvet, and a white straw bonnet with bands and strings of blue velvet and one drooping plume of the same tint. Mary looked at her critically, and said, "You do me great credit, Maggie, I expect some one to be very pleased with me. Kiss me, dear, and be sure and bring good news back with you."

Late that night Maggie reached Kinkell. She rested at its small inn until daylight, then, ere any one was astir, she took the familiar path down the rocks. Perhaps she ought to have had a great many fine thoughts, and grateful emotions, on that walk; but people cannot feel to order, and Maggie's mind was wholly bent upon Allan and herself. She was also obliged to give much of her attention to her feet. The shelving narrow path, with its wide fissures and slight foothold, had become really dangerous to her. There were points at which she almost feared, and she felt more vividly than ever she had done before how far the old life had slipped behind her. She had become unfit for it; she shrank from its dangers; and when she came in sight of the cottages, and remembered the narrow orbit of life within them, she shrank even from its comforts and pleasures.

From her own cottage the smoke was rising in plentiful volume through the white wide chimney. She did not know of Janet Caird's removal, and supposed she would have to parry all her old impertinences and complaints. When she opened the door Mysie, who was stooping over the fire toasting a cake, turned her head; then she lifted herself and dropped a courtesy.

"I am only Maggie Promoter, Mysie. Is Janet Caird sick?"

"Why, Maggie! I'd never hae kent you, lassie! Come to the fire, for it is raw and cold—I'm glad I had the fire kindled, and the kettle boiling—you can hae your breakfast as soon as you like it."

"I'll hae it the noo, Mysie." She fell at once into her old speech, and as she removed her bonnet and mantle asked again, "Is Aunt Janet sick?"

"I dinna ken, nor I dinna care much, either. She's gane awa' frae Pittenloch, and Pittenloch had a gude riddance o' her."

"Gane!"

"Ay; when your brother Davie cam' here, mair than a year syne, he just bid her pack her kist, and he and Troll Winans took her at daylight next morn to whar' she cam' frae. Elder Mackelvine made a grand exhort in the next meeting anent slandering folks; for Janet Caird was a gude text for it; and Kirsty Buchan said, it was a' the gude Pittenloch e'er got oot o' her."

"David was here then?"

"Ay, he was here. Didna ye ken that?"

"Was there ony ither body here?"

"Ay, there was. A week syne here comes that bonnie young Allan Campbell that was aye sae fond o' your brither Davie."

"Did he stay here wi' you?"

"Ay, for sure he did. For three days he stayed; and he just daundered roun' the boats and the beach, and lookit sae forlorn, wanting Davie and the bonnie boat that had gane to the bottom, that folks were sorry for him. He gied Elder Mackelvine twenty pounds for the widows o' Pittenloch, and he gied me mysel' a five pound note; and I could hae kissed the vera footmarks he made, he was that kindly and sorrowfu'."

"Did he name my name, Mysie?"

"Ay, he did that. He sat in Davie's chair every night, and talked to me anent you a' the time maistly; and he said, 'Mysie, she'll maybe come back some day; and if ever she does, you'll tell her I was here, and that I missed her sairly; and he left a bit of paper for you wi' me. I'll get it for you, when we hae had our breakfast."

"Get it the noo, Mysie. I'm fain to see it; and I dinna want my breakfast much—and shut the door, and run the bolt in, Mysie; I'm no caring to see folk."

It was one of those letters which we have forgotten how to write—large letter cap, folded within itself, and sealed with scarlet wax. It was, "Dearest Maggie! Sweetest Maggie! Best beloved of women!" It was full of tenderness, and trust, and sorrow, and undying affection. Maggie's tears washed it like a shower of rain. Maggie's kisses sealed every promise, and returned to the writer ten-fold every word of its passionate mournful devotion.

She did not now regret her journey. Oh, she would most gladly have walked every mile of the way, to have found that letter at the end of it. "He'll come back here," she thought; "love will bring him back, and I know by myself how glad he will be to hae a word from me." In the drawer of the table in Allan's room there was some paper and wax. Allan's letter had been written with his pocket pencil, but she found among David's old papers the remains of several pencils, and with some little difficulty she made them sufficiently sharp to express what she wished to say.

She told him everything—where she had spent the time since they parted —how good Miss Campbell had been to her—how impossible it would have been to desert her in an hour of such need and peril—how much she had suffered in her broken tryst, and how longingly and lovingly she would wait for him at Drumloch, though she waited there until the end of her life. "And every year," she added, "I'll be, if God let me, in Pittenloch on the 29th of August, dear Allan;" for she thought it likely he might come again at that time next year.

Into Mysie's hand this letter was given with many injunctions of secrecy and care. And then Maggie sat down to eat, and to talk over the minor details of David's and Allan's visits; and the changes which had occurred in her native village since she left it. "I dinna want you to say I hae been here, Mysie. I'll get awa' at the dinner hour, and nane will be the wiser. I can do nae gude to any one, and I'll maybe set folks wondering and talking to ill purpose."

"I can hold my whist, Maggie; if it's your will, I'll no speak your name. And I hope I hae keepit a' things to your liking in the cottage. If sae, you might gie me a screed o' writing to your brither, sae that when he comes again, he'll be contented, and willing to let me bide on here."

"I'll do that gladly, Mysie. Hoo is a' wi' you anent wark and siller?"

"I get on, Maggie; and there's a few folk do mair than that; forbye, Maister Campbell's five pounds will get me many a bit o' comfort this winter."

"Hoo much weekly does Davie allow you for the caretaking?"

"He didna speak to me himsel'. He left Elder Mackelvine to find some decent body wha wad be glad o' the comfortable shelter, and the elder gied me the favor."

"Dinna you hae some bit o' siller beside frae Davie?"

"Na, na; I dinna expect it. The hame pays for the care o' it."

"But I'll hae to pay you for the care o' my letter, Mysie, for I can weel afford it. I'll gie you two pounds for the next three months; and at the beginning o' every quarter you'll find the two pounds at the minister's for you. He'll gie it, or he'll send it to you by the elder."

"I dinna like to be paid for a kindness, Maggie. The young man was gude to me, and I'd do the kind turn to him gladly."