"I'll let nane say ill o' you, if you dinna deserve it, Maggie. Folks should think shame o' themselves to set on a lass without man or woman to stand by her."
"I'm sure I aye said what I could wi' truth for the lassie."
"I dinna think it. And as for Maggie's money, that is Maggie's business and my business. Maggie's money is clean money, every penny o' it. There is my word for that. I am sure it was weel kent that fayther left money lying in Largo Bank; but I'll gie accounts to nane; and I'll not hae Maggie asked for them either. As for Angus Raith, he might hae taken his 'no' before this. I'll not blame Maggie for not liking him; and I wad be as weel pleased for Maggie to bide single, till I hae my ain manse to marry her from. Now I willna hae my life and prospects wrecked for women's battlement and quarrels;" and then David very foolishly spoke of Dr. Balmuto's coldness to him; and on this subject David got warm and eloquent, and Aunt Janet perceived that the minister was disposed to blame Maggie.
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.