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.