A Daughter of Fife | Page 3

the fire,
and hung the kettle upon it. Then with a light and active step she set
about toasting the oat cake and the haddie, and making the tea, and
setting the little round table. But her heart was heavy enough. Scarcely
a week before her father and three eldest brothers had gone out to the
fishing, and perished in a sudden storm; and the house place, so lately
busy and noisy with the stir of nearly half-a-dozen menfolk, was now
strangely still and lonely.
Maggie was a year older than her brother David, but she never thought
of assuming any authority over him. In the first place, he had the
privilege of sex; in the next, David Promoter was generally allowed to
be "extr'onar' wise-like and unwardly in a' his ways." In fact there had
been an intention of breaking through the family traditions and sending
him to the University of Aberdeen. Latterly old Promoter had smoked
his pipe very often to the ambitious hope of a minister in his family.
David's brothers and sister had also learned to look upon the lad as
destined by Providence to bring holy honors upon the household. No

thought of jealousy had marred their intended self-denial in their
younger brother's behalf. Their stern Calvinism taught them that
Jacob's and Jesse's families were not likely to be the only ones in which
the younger sons should be chosen for vessels of honor; and Will
Promoter, the eldest of the brothers, spoke for all, when he said, "Send
Davie to Aberdeen, fayther; gladly we will a' of us help wi' the fees;
and may be we shall live to see a great minister come oot o' the fishing
boats."
But though the intended sacrifice had been a sincerely pure and
unselfish one, it had nevertheless been refused. Why it had been
refused, was the question filling David's heart with doubt and despair,
as he sat with his head in his hands, gazing into the fire that March
afternoon. Maggie was watching him, though he did not perceive it,
and by an almost unconscious mental act was comparing him with his
dead brothers. They had been simply strong fair fishers, with that open
air look men get who continually set their faces to the winds and waves.
David was different altogether. He was exceedingly tall, and until years
filled in his huge framework of bone and muscle, would very likely be
called "gawky." But he had the face of a mediaeval ecclesiastic; spare,
and sallow, and pointed at the chin. His hair, black and exceeding fine,
hung naturally in long, straggling masses; his mouth was straight and
perhaps a little cruel; his black, deep set eyes had the glow in them of a
passionate and mystical soul. Such a man, if he had not been reared in
the straitest sect of Calvinism, would have adopted it--for it was his
soul's native air.
That he should go to the university and become a minister seemed to
David as proper as that an apple tree should bear an apple. As soon as it
was suggested, he felt himself in the moderator's chair of the general
assembly. "Why had such generous and holy hopes been destroyed?"
Maggie knew the drift of his thoughts, and she hastened her
preparations for tea; for though it is a humiliating thing to admit, the
most sacred of our griefs are not independent of mere physical comforts.
David's and Maggie's sorrow was a deep and poignant one, but the
refreshing tea and cake and fish were at least the vehicle of consolation.
As they ate they talked to one another, and David's brooding despair

was for the hour dissipated.
During the days of alternating hope and disappointment following the
storm in which the Promoters perished, they had not permitted
themselves to think, much less to speak of a future which did not
include those who might yet return. But hope was over. When
Promoter's mates beached his boat, both David and Maggie understood
the rite to be a funeral one. It was not customary for women to go to
funerals, but Maggie, standing afar off, amid the gray thick fog, had
watched the men drag the unfortunate craft "where a boat ought never
to be;" and when they had gone away, had stood by the lonely degraded
thing, and felt as sad and hopeless, as if it had been the stone at a
grave's mouth.
All the past was past; they had to begin a life set to new methods and
motives: "and the sooner the better," thought Maggie, "if fayther were
here, he wad say that."
"Davie?"
"Weel?"
"Is the tea gude? And the fish, and the cake?"
"Ay, they're gude. I didna think I was sae hungry. I'm maist 'shamed to
enjoy them