Title: Shenac's Work at Home
Author: Robertson, Margaret M. (Margaret Murray), 1821-1897
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Shenac's Work at Home" ***


Shenac's Work at Home

By Margaret Murray Robertson
________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
SHENAC'S WORK AT HOME

BY MARGARET MURRAY ROBERTSON



CHAPTER ONE.

A long time ago, something very sad happened in one of the districts of
Scotland.  I cannot tell you how it all came about, but a great many
people were obliged to leave their homes where they and their
forefathers had lived for many generations.  A few scattered themselves
through other parts of the country; a few went to the great towns to
seek for a livelihood; but by far the greater number made up their minds
to leave for ever the land of their birth, and rose in the new, strange
world beyond the sea a home for themselves and their children.

I could never make you understand what a sorrowful time that was to
these poor people, or how much they suffered in going away.  For some of
the old left children behind them, and some of the young left their
parents, or brothers, or sisters; and all left the homes where they had
lived through happy years, the kirks where they had worshipped God
together, and the kirkyards where lay the dust of the dear ones they had
lost.

And, besides all this, they knew little of the land to which they were
going, and between them and it lay the great ocean, with all its
terrors.  For then they did not count by days, as we do now, the time
that it took to cross the sea, but by weeks, or even by months; and many
a timid mother shrank from the thought of all her children might have to
suffer ere the sea was passed.  Even more than the knowledge of the many
difficulties and discouragements which might await them beyond it, did
the thought of the dangers of the sea appal them.  And to all their
other sorrows was added the bitter pain of saying farewell for ever and
for ever to Scotland, their native land.  It is true that not among all
her hills or valleys, or in all her great and prosperous towns, could be
found room for them and theirs; it is true that a home in the beloved
land was denied them: but it was their native land all the same, and
eyes that had refused to weep at the last look of dear faces left
behind, grew dim with tears as the broken outline of Scotland's hills
faded away in the darkness.

But out of very sorrowful events God oftentimes causes much happiness to
spring; and it was so to these poor people in their banishment.  Into
the wide Canadian forests they came, and soon the wilderness and the
solitary place were glad for them; soon the wild woods were made to
rejoice with the sound of joyful voices ringing out from many a happy
though humble home.  And though there were those among the aged or the
discontented who never ceased to pine for the heather hills of the old
land, the young grew up strong and content, troubled by no fear that,
for many and many a year to come, the place would become too strait for
them or for their children.

They did not speak English these people, but a language called Gaelic,
not at all agreeable to English ears, but very dear to the heart of the
Scottish Highlander.  It is passing somewhat out of use now; but even at
this day I have heard of old people who will go many miles to hear a
sermon preached in that language--the precious gospel itself seeming
clearer and richer and more full of comfort coming to them in the
language which they learned at their mother's knee.

"It was surely the language first spoken on earth, before the beguiling
serpent came to our mother," once said an old man to me; "and maybe
afterwards too, till the foolish men on the plain of Shinar brought
Babel on the earth.  And indeed it may be the language spoken in heaven
to-day, so sweet and grand and fit for the expression of high and holy
thoughts is it."

It is passing out of use now, however, even among the Highlanders
themselves.  Gaelic is the household language still, where the father
and mother are old, or where the grand-parents live with the rising
generation; but English is the language of business, of the newspapers,
and of all the new books that find their way among the people.  It is
fast becoming the language in which public worship is conducted too.
There are very few books in the Gaelic.  There are the Bible and the
Catechism, and some poems which they who understand them say are very
grand and beautiful; and there are a few translations of religious
books, such as "The Pilgrim's Progress," and some of the works of such
writers as Flavel and Baxter.  But though there are not many, they are
of a kind which, read often and earnestly, cannot fail to bring wisdom;
and a grave and thoughtful people were they who made their homes in this
wilderness.

Among those who were most earnest in overcoming the difficulties which
at every step meet the settler in a new country were two brothers, Angus
and Evan MacIvor.  Their farms lay next to each other.  They were
fortunate in securing good land, and they were moderately successful in
clearing and cultivating it.  They lived to a good old age, and the
youngest son of each succeeded him in the possession of the land.  It is
about the families of these two sons that my story is to be told.

The two cousins bore the same name, Angus MacIvor; but they were not at
all alike either in appearance or character.  The one was fair, with
light hair and bright blue eyes; and because of this he was called Angus
Bhan, or Angus the fair, to distinguish him from his cousin, who was
very dark.  He had a frank, open face and kind manner; and if anyone in
the neighbourhood wanted a favour done, his first thought was sure to be
of Angus Bhan.

His cousin Angus Dhu, or Angus the black, had a good reputation among
people in general.  He was honest and upright in his dealings, his word
could be relied on; but his temper was uncertain, and his neighbours
called him "close," and few of them would have thought of looking to
Angus Dhu when they wanted a helping hand.

When these two began life they were very much in the same circumstances.
Their farms were alike as to the quality of the soil and as to the
number of acres cleared and under cultivation.  They were both free from
debt, both strong men accustomed to farm-work, and both, in the opinion
of their neighbours, had a fair chance of becoming rich, according to
the idea of wealth entertained by these people.

But when twenty years had passed away the affairs of the two men stood
very differently.  Angus Dhu had more than realised the expectations of
his neighbours.  He was rich--richer even than his neighbours supposed.
More than half of his farm of two hundred acres was cleared and under
cultivation.  It was well stocked, well tilled, and very productive.
Near the site of the log-house built by his father stood a comfortable
farm-house of stone.  All this his neighbours saw, and called him a
prosperous man; and now and then they speculated together as to the
amount of bank-stock to which he might justly lay claim.

The world had not gone so well with Angus Bhan.  There was not so much
land under cultivation, neither was what he had so well cultivated as
his cousin's.  He had built a new house too, but he had been unfortunate
as to the time chosen to build.  Materials were dear, and a bad harvest
or two put him sadly back in the world.  He was obliged to run into
debt, and the interest of the money borrowed from his cousin was an
additional burden.  He was not successful in the rearing of stock, and
some heavy losses of cattle fell on him.  Worse than all, his health
began to fail, for then his courage failed too; and when there came to
that part of the country rumours of wonderful discoveries of the
precious metals in the western parts of the continent, he only faintly
withstood the entreaties of his eldest son that he might be permitted to
go away and search for gold among the mountains of California.  His
going away nearly broke his mother's heart; and some among the
neighbours said it would have been far wiser for young Allister to stay
at home and help his father to plough and sow and gather in the harvest,
than to go so far and suffer so much for gold, which might be slow in
coming, and which must be quick in going should sickness overtake him in
the land of strangers.  But the young are always hopeful, and Allister
was sure of success; and he comforted his mother by telling her that in
two or three years at most he could earn money enough to pay his
father's debt to Angus Dhu, and then he would come home again, and they
would all live happily together as before.  So Allister went away, and
left a sorrowful household behind.

And there was another sorrowful household in Glengarry about that time.
There was only _sorrow_ in the hearts of Angus Bhan and his wife when
their first-born son went away; for he went with their consent, and
carried their blessing with him.  But there were sorrow and bitter anger
in the heart of Angus Dhu when he came to know that his son had also
gone away.  He was not a man of many words, and he said little to anyone
about his son; but in his heart he believed that he had been beguiled
away by the son of Angus Bhan, and bitter resentment rose within him at
the thought.

A few months passed away, and there came a letter from Allister, written
soon after his arrival in California.  His cousin Evan Dhu was with him.
They had done nothing to earn money as yet, but they were in high
spirits, and full of hope that they would do great things.  This letter
gave much comfort to them all; but it was a long time before they heard
from the wanderers again.

In the meantime the affairs of Angus Bhan did not grow more prosperous.
It became more and more difficult for him to pay the interest of his
debt; and though his cousin seldom alluded in words to his obligation,
he knew quite well that he would not abate a penny either of principal
or interest when the time of payment came.

A year passed away.  No more letters came from Allister, and his
father's courage grew fainter and fainter.  There seemed little hope of
his ever being able to pay his debt; and so, when Angus Dhu asked him to
sell a part of his farm to him, he went home with a heavy heart to
consult his wife about it.  They agreed that something must be done at
once; and so it was arranged that if Allister was not heard from, or if
some other means of paying at least the interest did not offer before
the spring, the hundred acres of their land that lay next to the farm of
Angus Dhu should be given up to him.  It was sad enough to have to do
this; but Angus Bhan said to his wife,--

"If anything were to happen to me, you and the children would be far
better with half the land free from debt, than with all burdened as it
must be till Allister comes home."

They did not say much to each other, but their hearts were very sore--
his, that he must give up the land left to him by his father; hers, for
his sake, and also for the sake of her first-born son, a wanderer far
away.

That autumn, when the harvest was over, the second son, Lewis, set off
with some young men of the place to join a company of lumberers, who
were, as is their custom, to pass the winter in the woods.  It was a
time of great prosperity with lumber-merchants then, and good wages
could be earned in their service.  There was nothing to be done at home
in the winter which his father, with the help of the younger children,
could not do; and Lewis, who was eighteen, was eager to earn money to
help at home, and eager also to enter into the new and, as he thought,
the merry life in the woods.  So Lewis went away, and there were left at
home Hamish and Shenac, who were twins, Dan, Hugh, Colin, and little
Flora, the youngest and dearest of them all.  The anxieties of the
parents were not suffered to sadden the lives of the children, and the
little MacIvors Bhan were as merry young people as one could wish to
see.

Though they were not so prosperous, they were a far happier household
than the MacIvors Dhu.  There was the same number of children in each
family; but Angus Dhu's children were most of them older than their
cousins, and while Angus Bhan had six sons and two daughters, Angus Dhu
had six daughters and two sons.  "His cousin should have been a far
richer man than he, with so many sons," Angus Dhu used to say grimly.
But three of the boys of Angus Bhan were only children still, and one of
them was a cripple.  And as for the daughters of Angus Dhu, they had
been as good as sons even for the farm-work, labouring in the fields, as
is the custom for young women in this part of the country, as
industriously and as efficiently as men--far more so, indeed, than their
own brother Evan did; for he was often impatient of the closeness with
which his father kept them all at work, and it was this, quite as much
as his love of adventure and his wish to see the world, that made him go
away at last.  The two eldest daughters were married, and the third was
living away from home; so, after Evan left, there were four in their
father's house--three girls and Dan, the youngest of the family, who was
twelve years of age.  The children of these two families had always been
good friends.  Indeed, the younger children of Angus Dhu had more
pleasure in the house of their father's cousin than in their own home;
and many a winter evening they were in the habit of passing there.

They had a very quiet winter after Lewis went away.  There was less
visiting and going about in the moonlight evenings than ever before; for
the boys were all too young to go with them except Hamish, and he was a
cripple, and not so well as usual this winter, and though the girls were
quite able to take care of themselves, they had little pleasure in going
alone.  So Angus Dhu's girls used to take their knitting and their
sewing to the other house, and they all amused themselves in the
innocent, old-fashioned ways of that time.

Shenac seldom went to visit her cousins; for, besides the fact that her
father's house was the pleasantest meeting-place, her brother Hamish
could not often go out at night, and she would rarely consent to leave
him; and no one added so much to the general amusement as Hamish.  He
was very skilful at making puzzles and at all sorts of arithmetical
questions, and not one of them could sing so many songs or tell so many
stories as he.  He was very merry and sweet-tempered too.  His being a
cripple, and different from all the rest, had not made him peevish and
difficult to deal with as such misfortunes are so apt to do, and there
was no one in all the world that Shenac loved so well as her
twin-brother Hamish.

I suppose I ought to describe Shenac more particularly, as my story is
to be more about her than any of the other MacIvors.  A good many years
after the time of which I am now writing; I heard Shenac MacIvor--or, as
English lips made it, Jane MacIvor--spoken of as a very beautiful woman
(the Gaelic spelling is Sinec); but at this time I do not think it ever
came into the mind of anybody to think whether she was beautiful or not.
She had one attribute of beauty--perfect health.  There never bloomed
among the Scottish hills, which her father and mother only just
remembered, roses and lilies more fresh and fair than bloomed on the
happy face of Shenac, and her curls of golden brown were the admiration
and envy of her dark haired cousins.  They called little Flora a beauty,
and a rose, and a precious darling; but of Shenac they said she was
bright and good, and very helpful for a girl of her age; and her brother
Hamish thought her the best girl in the world--indeed, quite without a
fault, which was very far from being true.

For Shenac had plenty of faults.  She had a quick, hot temper, which,
when roused, caused her to say many things which she ought not to have
said.  Hamish thought all those sharp words were quite atoned for by
Shenac's quick and earnest repentance, but there is a sense in which it
is true that hasty and unkind words can never be unsaid.

Shenac liked her own way too in all things.  This did not often make
trouble, however; for she had learned her mother's household ways, and,
indeed, had wonderful taste and talent for these matters.  Being the
only daughter of the house, except little Flora, and her mother not
being very strong, Shenac had less to do in the fields than her cousins,
and was busy and happy in the house, except in harvest-time, when even
the little lads, her brothers, were expected to do their part there.

Hamish and Shenac were very much alike, as twins very often are--that
is, they were both fair, and had the same-coloured hair and eyes.  But,
while Shenac was rosy and strong, the very picture of health, her
brother was thin and pale, and often of late there had been a look of
pain on his face that it made his mother's heart ache to see.  They were
all in all to each other--Shenac and Hamish.  They missed Lewis less on
this account, and they knew very little of the troubles that so often
made their father and mother anxious; and the first months of winter
passed happily over them after Lewis went away.

Christmas passed, and the new year came in.  A few more pleasant weeks
went by, and then there came terrible tidings to the house of Angus
Bhan.  Far away, on one of the rapids of the Grand River, a boat had
been overturned.  Three young men had been lost under the ice.  The body
of one had been recovered: it was the body of Lewis MacIvor.

"We should be thankful that we can at least bring him home," said Angus
Bhan to his wife, while she made preparations for his sad journey.  But
he said it with very pale, trembling lips, and his wife struggled to
restrain the great burst of weeping that threatened to have way, that he
might have the comfort of thinking that she was bearing her trouble
well.  But when she was left alone all these sad days of waiting, she
was ready to say, in the bitterness of her heart, that there was no
sorrow like her sorrow.  One son was a wanderer, another was dead, and
on the face of the dearly-beloved Hamish was settling the look of
habitual suffering, so painful to see.  Her cup of sorrow was full to
the brim, she declared, but she knew not what she said.

For, when a few days had passed, there were brought home for burial two
dead bodies instead of one.  Her husband was no more.  He had nearly
accomplished his sorrowful errand, when death overtook him.  He had
complained to the friend who was with him of feeling cold, and had left
the sleigh to walk a mile or two to warm himself.  They waited in vain
for him at the next resting-place, and when they went back to look for
him they found him lying with his face in the snow, quite dead.  He had
not died from cold, the doctor said, but from heart-disease, and
probably without suffering; and this comfort the bereaved widow tried to
take to herself.

But her cup of sorrow was not full yet.  The very night before the
burial was to be, the house caught fire and burned to the ground.  It
was with difficulty that the few neighbours who gathered in time to help
could save the closed coffins from the flames; and it seemed a small
matter, at the time, that nearly all their household stuff was lost.

The mother's cup _did_ seem full now.  I do not think that the coming of
any trouble, however great, could at this time have added to her grief.
She had striven to be submissive under the repeated strokes that had
fallen upon her, but the horrors of that night were too much for her,
weakened as she was by sorrow.  For a time she was quite distracted,
heeding little the kind efforts of her neighbours to alleviate her
distress and the distress of her children.  All that kind hearts and
willing hands could do was done for them.  The log house which their
grandfather had built still stood.  It was repaired, and filled with
gifts from every family in the neighbourhood, and the widow and her
children found refuge there.

"Oh, what a sad beginning for a story!"  I think some of my young
readers may say, in tones of disappointment.  It is indeed a sad
beginning, but every sorrowful word is true.  Every day there are just
such sorrowful events happening in the world, though it is not often
that trouble falls so heavily at once on any household.  I might have
left all this out of my story; but then no one could have understood so
well the nature of the work that fell to Shenac, or have known the
difficulties she had to overcome in trying to do it well.



CHAPTER TWO.

It was May-day.  Oftentimes in the northern country this month is
ushered in by drizzling rain, or even by the falling snow; but this year
brought a May-day worthy of the name--clear, mild, and balmy.  There was
not a cloud in all the sky, nor wind enough to stir the catkins hanging
close over the waters of the creek.  The last days of April had been
warm and bright, and there was a tender green on the low-lying fields,
and on the poplars that fringed the wood; and the boughs of the
maple-trees in the sugar-bush looked purple and brown over the great
grey trunks.

There is never a May-day when some flowers cannot be found beneath these
trees, and in the warm hollows along the margin of the creek; but this
year there were more than a few.  Besides the pale little "spring
flower," which hardly waits for the snow to go away before it shows
itself, there were daffodils and anemones and wake-robins, and from the
lapful which little Flora MacIvor sat holding on the bank close beside
the great willow peeped forth violets, blue and white.  There were
lady-slippers too somewhere not far away, Flora was sure, if only Dan or
Hughie could be persuaded to look for them a little farther down the
creek, in the damp ground under the cedars, where she had promised her
mother she would not go.

But the lads had something else to do than to look for flowers for
Flora.  Down the creek, which was broad and full because of the melting
snow, a number of great cedar chips were floating.  Past the
foot-bridge, and past the eddy by the great rock, and over the pool into
which the creek widened by the old ashery, the mimic fleet sailed
safely; while the lads shouted and ran, and strove by the help of long
sticks to pilot them all into the little cove by the willow where little
Flora was sitting, till even the flower-loving little maiden forgot her
treasures, and grew excited like the rest.

You would never have thought, looking at those bright faces, that heavy
trouble had been in their home for months.  Listening to their merry,
voices, you would never have imagined that there were, in some hearts
that loved them, grave doubts whether for the future they were to have a
home together or no.  But so it was.

Higher up the bank, where the old ashery used to stand, Shenac and
Hamish were sitting.  The triumphant shout with which the last and
largest of the boats was landed, startled them out of the silence in
which they had been musing, and the girl said sadly,--

"Children forget so soon!"

Hamish made no answer.  He was not watching the little sailors.  His
face was quite turned away from them, and looked gloomy and troubled
enough.  The girl watched a moment anxiously; and then turning her eyes
where his had been for some time resting, she cried passionately,--

"I wish a fire would break out and burn it to ashes, every stick!"

"What would be the good of that?  Angus Dhu would put it all up again,"
said Hamish bitterly.  "He might save himself the trouble, though.  He
means to have _all_ the land shortly."

They were watching the progress of a fence of great cedar rails which
three or four men were building; and no wonder they watched it with
vexation, for it went from line to line, dividing in two parts the land
that had belonged to their father.  He was dead now, and their brother
Allister was far away, they knew not where, in search of gold; and there
was no one now, besides themselves, except their mother, and the little
ones who were so thoughtless, making merry with the great cedar chips
which Angus Dhu sent, floating down the stream.

"Nobody but you and me to do anything; and what can _we_ do?" continued
the lad with a desponding gesture.  "And my mother scarcely seems to
care to try."

"Whisht, Hamish dear; there's no wonder," said Shenac in a low voice.
"But about the land.  Angus Dhu can never get it surely!"

"He has gotten the half of it already.  Who is to hinder his getting the
rest?" said Hamish.  "And he might as well have it.  What can _we_ do
with it?"

"Was it wrong for him to take it, do you think, Hamish?" asked Shenac
gravely.

"Not in law.  Angus Dhu would never do what is unlawful.  But he was
hard on my father, and he says--"

Hamish paused to ask himself whether it was worth while to vex Shenac
with the unkind words of Angus Dhu.  But Shenac would not be denied the
knowledge.

"What was it, Hamish?  He would never dare to say a light word of our
father.  Did you not then and there show him the door?"

Shenac's blue eye flashed.  She was quite capable of doing that and more
to vindicate her father's memory.

"Whisht, Shenac," said Hamish.  "Angus Dhu loved my father, though he
was hard on him.  There were tears in his eyes when he spoke to my
mother about him.  But he says that the half of the land is justly his,
for money that my father borrowed at different times, and for the
interest which he could not pay.  And he wants to buy the other half;
for he says we can never carry on the farm, and I am afraid he is
right," added the lad despondingly.

"And what would become of us all?" asked Shenac, her cheeks growing pale
in the pain and surprise of the moment.

"He would put out the money in such a way that it would bring an income
to my mother, who could live here still, with Colin and little Flora.
He says he will take Dan to keep till he is of age, and Elder McMillan
will take Hugh.  You are old enough to do for yourself, he says; and as
for me--" He turned away, so that his sister might not see the working
of his face.  But Shenac was thinking of something else, and did not
notice him.

"But, Hamish, we have written to Allister, and he will be sure to come
home when he hears what has happened to us."

Hamish shook his head.

"Black Angus says Allister will never come back.  He says he was an
unsettled lad before he went away.  And, Shenac, he says our Allister
beguiled Evan, or he never would have left home.  He looked black when
he said it.  He was angry."

Shenac's eyes blazed again.

"Our Allister unsettled--he that went away for our father's sake, and
for us all!  Our Allister to beguile Evan, that wild lad!  And you sat
and heard him say it, Hamish!"

"What else could I do?" said Hamish bitterly.

"And my mother?" said Shenac.

"She could only cry, and say that Allister had always been a good son to
her and to my father, and a dear brother to us all."

There was a long pause.  Shenac never removed her eyes from the men, who
were gradually drawing nearer and nearer, as one after another of the
great cedar rails was laid on the foundation of logs and stones already
prepared for them along the field; and anger gathered in her heart and
showed itself in her face as she gazed.  Hamish had turned quite away
from the fence and from his sister, towards the creek where his brothers
were still shouting at their play.  But he was not thinking of his
brothers; he did not see them, indeed.  He made an effort to keep back
the tears, which, in spite of all he could do, would flow.  If Shenac
had spoken to him, they must have gushed out; but he had time to force
them back before Shenac turned away with an angry gesture.

"It's of no use, Shenac," he said then.  "There's reason in what Angus
Dhu says.  We will have to give up the farm."

"Hamish, that shall never be done!" said Shenac.  "It would break my
mother's heart."

"It seems broken already," said Hamish hoarsely.  "And it is easy to say
the land must be kept.  But what can we do with it?  Who is to work it?"

"You and I and the little lads," cried Shenac.  "There is no fear.  God
will help us," she added reverently--"the widow and orphan's God.
Hamish, don't you mind?"

Hamish had no voice with which to answer for a moment; but in a little
while he said with some difficulty,--

"It is easy for _you_ to say what you will do, Shenac--you who are
strong and well; but look at me!  I am not getting stronger, as we
always hoped.  What could I do at the plough?  I had better go to some
town, as Angus Dhu advised my mother, and learn to make shoes."

"Oh, but he's fine at making plans, that Angus Dhu," said Shenac
scornfully.  "But we'll need to tell him that we're for none of his
help.  Hamish," she added, suddenly stooping down over him, "do you
think any plan made to separate you and me will prosper?  I think I see
black Angus coming between you and me with his plans."

Her words and her caress were quite too much for Hamish, and he
surprised himself and her too by a sudden burst of tears.  The sight of
this banished Shenac's softness in a moment.  She raised herself from
her stooping posture with an angry cry.  Separated from the rest of the
fence-makers, and approaching the knoll where the brother and sister
had, been sitting, were two men.  One was Angus Dhu, and the other was
his friend, and a relation of his wife, Elder McMillan.  He was a good
man, people said, but one who liked to move on with the current,--one
who went for peace at all risks, and so forgot sometimes that purity was
to be set before even peace.  There was nothing in Shenac's knowledge of
the man to make her afraid of him, and she took three steps towards
them, and said,--

"Angus Dhu, do you mind what the Bible says of them that oppress the
widow and the fatherless?  Have you forgotten the verse that says,
`Remove not the ancient land-mark'?"

She stopped, as if waiting for an answer.  The two men stood still from
sheer surprise, and looked at her.  Shenac continued:--

"And do you mind what's said of them that add field to field? and--"

"Shenac, my woman," said the elder at last, "it's no becoming in you to
speak in that kind of a way to one older than your father was.  I doubt
you're forgetting--"

But Shenac put his words aside with a gesture of indifference.

"And to speak false words of our Allister to his mother in her trouble
as though he had led your wild lad Evan astray.  You little know what
our Allister saved him from more than once.  But that is not for to-day.
I have this to, say to you, Angus Dhu: you must be content with the
half you have gotten; for not another acre of my father's land shall
ever be yours, though all the elders in Glengarry stood at your back.--I
will not whisht, Hamish.  He is to know that he is not to meddle between
my mother and me.  It's not or the like of Angus Dhu to say that my
mother's children shall be taken from her in her trouble.  Our affairs
may be bad enough, but they'll be none the better for your meddling in
them."

"Shenac," entreated Hamish, "you'll be sorry for speaking that way to
our father's cousin."

"Our father's oppressor rather," she insisted scornfully.  But she had
said her say; and, besides, the lads and little Flora had heard their
voices, and were drawing near.

"Children," said Shenac, "you are to come home.  And mind, you are not
to set foot on this bank again without our mother's leave.  It's Angus
Dhu's land now, he says, and not ours."

The creek--that part of it near which the willows grew, and where the
old ashery used to stand--had been their daily resort every summer-day
all their lives; and they all looked at her with astonishment and
dismay, but none of them spoke.

"Come home to our mother, boys.--Flora, come home."  And Shenac lifted
her little sister over the foundation of great stones, and beckoned to
the boys to follow her.

"Come, Hamish, it's time we were home."  And Hamish obeyed her as
silently as the rest had done.

"Hamish," said the elder, "speak here, man.  You have some sense, and
tales such as yon wild girl is like to tell may do your father's cousin
much harm."

In his heart Hamish knew Shenac to be foolish and wrong to speak as she
had done, but he was true to her all the same, and would hold no parley
with the enemy.  So he gave no heed to the elder's words, but followed
the rest through the field.  Shenac's steps grew slower as they
approached the house.

"Hamish," she said a little shamefacedly, "there will be no use vexing
our mother by telling her all this."

"That's true enough," said Hamish.

"But mind, Hamish, I'm not sorry that I said it.  I have aye meant to
say something to Angus Dhu about the land; though I daresay it would
have been as well to say it when that clattering body, Elder McMillan,
was out of hearing."

"And John and Rory McLean," murmured Hamish.

"Hamish, man, they never could have heard.  Not that I am caring,"
continued Shenac.  "It's true that Angus Dhu has gotten half our
father's land, and that he is seeking the other half; but _that_ he'll
never get--_never_!"  And she flashed an angry glance towards the spot
where the men were still standing.

Hamish knew it was always best to leave his sister till her anger
cooled, so he said nothing in reply.  He grieved for the loss of the
land as much as Shenac did, but he did not resent it like her.  Though
he believed that Angus Dhu had been hard on his father, he did not
believe that he had dealt unjustly by him.  And he was right.  Even in
taking half the land he had taken only what he believed to be his due,
and in wishing to possess himself, of the rest, he believed he was about
to do a kindness to the widow and children of his dead cousin.  He
believed they could never get their living from the land.  They must
give it up, he thought; and it was far better that it should fall into
his hands than into the hands of a stranger.  Had his cousin lived, he
would never have wished for the land; and he said to himself that he
would do much for them all, and that the widow and orphans should never
suffer while he could befriend them.

At the same time, he could not deny that he would be glad to get the
land.  When Evan came home, it might keep the lad near him to have this
farm ready for him.  He had allowed himself to think a great deal about
this of late.  He would not confess to himself that any part of the
uncomfortable feelings that Shenac's outbreak had stirred within him
sprang from disappointment.  But he was mistaken.  For when the girl
planted her foot on the other side of the new fence, and looked back at
him defiantly, he felt that she would make good her word, and hold the
land, at least, until Allister came home.

He did not care much what the neighbours might say about him; but he
told Elder McMillan that he cared, and that doubtless yon wild girl
would have plenty: to say about things she did not understand, and that
she would get ill-minded folks enough to hearken to her and to urge her
on.  And he tried to make himself believe that it was this, and nothing
else, that vexed him in the matter.

"And what's to be done?" asked the elder uneasily, as Shenac and the
rest disappeared.

"Done!" repeated his friend angrily.  "_I_ shall do nought.  If they can
go on by themselves, all the better.  I shall be well pleased.  Why
should I seek to have the land?"

"Why, indeed?" said the elder.

"I shall neither make nor meddle in their affairs, till I am asked to do
it," continued Angus Dhu; but the look on his face said, as plainly as
words could have done, "and it will not be very long before that will
happen."

But he made a mistake, as even wise men will sometimes do.



CHAPTER THREE.

I am glad to say that Shenac did not let the sun go down on her wrath.
Indeed, long before sunset she was heartily ashamed of her outbreak
towards Angus Dhu, and acknowledged as much to Hamish.  Not that she
believed he had acted justly and kindly in his past dealings with her
father; nor was she satisfied that the future interests of the family
would be safe in his hands.  Even while acknowledging how wrong and
foolish she had been in speaking as she had done, she declared to Hamish
that Angus Dhu should neither "make nor meddle" in their affairs.  They
must cling together, and do the best they could, till Allister should
come home, whatever Angus Dhu might say.

That her mother might yield to persuasion on this point, she thought
possible; for the widow had lost courage, and saw only the darker side
of their affairs.  But Shenac stoutly declared that day to Hamish that
no one should be suffered to persuade her mother to the breaking of her
heart.  No one had a right to interfere in their affairs further than
should be welcome to them all.  For her part, she was not afraid of
Angus Dhu, nor of Elder McMillan, nor of any one else, when it came to
the question of breaking up their home and sending them, one here and
another there, away from the mother.

Shenac felt very strong and brave as she said all this to Hamish; and
yet when, as it was growing dark that night, she saw Elder McMillan
opening their gate, her first impulse was to run away.  She did not,
however, but said to herself, "Now is the time to stand by my mother,
and help her to resist the elder's efforts to get little Hugh away from
us."  Besides, she could not go away without being seen, and it would
look cowardly; so she placed herself behind the little wheel which the
mother had left for a moment, and when the elder came in she was as busy
and as quiet as (in his frequently-expressed opinion) it was the bounden
duty of all young women to be.

Now, there was nothing in the whole round of Shenac's duties so
distasteful to her as spinning on the little wheel.  The constant and
unexciting employment for hands and mind that spinning afforded, and
perhaps the pleasant monotony of the familiar humming of the wheel,
always exerted a soothing influence on the mother; and one of the first
things that had given them hope of her recovery after the shock of the
burning of the house was her voluntary bringing out of the wheel.  But
it was very different with Shenac.  The strength and energy so
invaluable to her in her household work or her work in the fields were
of no avail to her here.  To sit following patiently and constantly the
gradual forming and twisting of the thread, did not suit her as it did
her mother; and watchful and excited as she was that night, she could
hardly sit quiet while the elder went through his usual salutations to
her mother and the rest.

He was in no haste to make known his errand, if he had one, and he was
in no haste to go.  He spoke in slow, unwilling sentences, as he had
done many times before, of the mysterious dealings of Providence with
the family, making long pauses between.  And through his talk and his
silence the widow sat shedding a few quiet tears in the dark, and now
and then uttering a word of reply.

What was the good of it all Shenac would have liked to shake him, and to
bid him "say his say" and go; but the elder seemed to have no say, at
least concerning Hugh.  He went slowly through his accustomed round of
condolence with her mother and advice to the boys and Shenac, and, as he
rose to go, added something about a bee which some of the neighbours had
been planning to help the widow with the ploughing and sowing of her
land, and then he went away.

"Some of the neighbours," repeated Shenac in a whisper to her brother.
"That's the elder's way of heaping coals on my head--good man!"

"What do you suppose the elder cares about a girl like you, or Angus Dhu
either?" asked Hamish with a shrug.

Shenac laughed, but had no time to answer.

"I was afraid it might be about wee Hughie that the elder wanted to
speak," said the mother with a sigh of relief as she came in from the
door, where she had bidden the visitor good-night.

"And what about Hughie?" asked Shenac, resuming her spinning.  She knew
very well what about him; but her mother had not told her, and this was
as good a way as any to begin about their plans for the summer.

Instead of answering her question, the mother said, after a moment's
silence,--

"He's a good man, Elder McMillan."

"Oh yes, I daresay he's a good man," said Shenac with some sharpness;
"but that's no reason why he should want to have our Hughie."

The little boys were all in bed by this time, and Hamish and Shenac were
alone with their mother.  After a little impatient twitching of her
thread, Shenac put aside her wheel, swept up the hearth, and moved about
putting things in order in the room, and then she came and sat down
beside her mother.  She did not speak, however; she did not know what to
say.  Any allusion to the summer's work was almost surer to make her
mother shed tears, and Shenac could not bear to grieve her.  She darted
an impatient glance at Hamish, who seemed to have no intention of
helping her to-night.  He was sitting with his face upon his hands, just
as he had been sitting through the elder's visit, and Shenac could not
catch his eye.  It seemed wrong to risk the bringing on of a wakeful,
moaning, miserable night to her mother; and she was thinking she would
say no more till morning, when her mother spoke again.

"Yes, Elder McMillan is a good man.  I would not be afraid for Hugh, and
he would be near at hand."

"Yes," said Shenac, making an effort to speak quietly, "if Hugh must go,
he might as well go to Elder McMillan's as anywhere--" She stopped.

"And Dan needs a firm hand, they say," continued the mother, her voice
breaking a little; "but I'm afraid for him.  Angus Dhu is a stern man,
and Dan has been used to a hand gentle as well as firm.  But he would
not be far away."

Shenac broke out impatiently,--

"Angus Dhu's hand was not firm enough to keep his own son at home, and
he could never guide our Dan.  Mother, never heed them that tell you any
ill of Dan.  Has he ever disobeyed you once since--since then?"
Shenac's voice failed a little, then she went on again, "Why should Dan
go away, or any of us?  Why can't we bide all together, and do the best
we can, till Allister comes home?"

"But that must be a long time yet, if he ever comes," said the mother,
sighing.

"Yes, it may be long," said Shenac eagerly.  "Of course it cannot be for
the spring work, and maybe not for the harvest, but he's sure to come,
mother; and think of Allister coming and finding no home!  Yes, I know
you are to bide here; but the land would be gone, and it would be no
home long to Allister or any of us without the land.  Angus Dhu should
be content with what he's got," continued Shenac bitterly.  "Allister
will never be content to let my father's land go out of our hands; and
Angus Dhu promised my father to give it up to Allister.  Mother, we must
do nothing till Allister comes home.--Hamish, why don't you tell my
mother to wait till Allister comes home?"

"Till Allister comes home!  When Allister comes home!"  This had been
the burden of all Shenac's comforting to her mother, even when she could
take no comfort from it herself.  For a year seemed a long time to
Shenac; but three months of the year had passed already, and surely,
surely Allister would come.

Hamish raised his face as Shenac appealed to him, but it was anything
but a hopeful face, and Shenac was glad that her mother was looking the
other way.

"But what are we to do in the meantime?" he asked, and his voice was as
little hopeful as his face.  For a moment Shenac was indignant at her
brother.  It would need the courage of both to make the future look
otherwise than dark to their mother, and she thought Hamish was going to
fail her.  She was growing very eager; but she knew that the quick, hot
words that might carry Hamish with her would have no force with her
mother, and she put a strong restraint on herself, and said quietly,--

"We can manage through the summer, mother.  The wheat was sown in the
fall, you know, and the elder said we were to have a bee next week for
the oats, and we can do the rest ourselves--Hamish and Dan and I--till
Allister comes home."

"It would be a hard fight for you all," said the mother despondingly.

"You should say Dan and you and little Hugh and Colin," said Hamish
bitterly.  "They could help far more than I can, unless I am much better
than I am now."  And then he dropped his head on his hands again.

Shenac rose suddenly and placed herself between him and her mother, and
then she said quietly,--

"And, mother, the elder thinks we can do it, or he wouldn't have spoken
about the bee.  Nobody can think it right that Angus Dhu should take our
father's land from us; and the elder said nothing about Hugh; and Dan
would never bide with Angus Dhu and work our father's land for him.
Never! never!  Mother, we must try what we can do till Allister comes
home."

There was not much said after that.  There was no decision in words as
to their plans, but Shenac knew they were to make a trial of the
summer's work--she and her brothers--and she was content.

There were but two rooms downstairs in the little log house, and the
mother and Flora slept in the one in which they had been sitting.  So
when Hamish came back from looking whether the gates and barn-doors were
safely shut, he found Shenac, who had much to say to him, waiting for
him outside.

"Hamish," she said eagerly, "what ails you?  Why did you not speak to my
mother and tell her what we ought to do?  Hamish," she added, putting
out her hand to detain him as he tried to pass her--"Hamish, speak to
me.  What ails you to-night, Hamish?"

"What right have I to tell my mother--I, who can do nothing?"

He shook off her detaining hand as if he was angry; but there was a
sound of tears in his voice, and Shenac's momentary feeling of offence
was gone.  She would not be shaken off, and putting her arms round his
neck she held him fast.  He did not try to free himself after the first
moment, but he turned away his face.

"Hamish," she repeated, "what is it?  Don't you think we can manage to
keep together till Allister comes home?  Is it that, Hamish?  Tell me
what you think it is right for us to do."

"It is not that, Shenac; and I have no right to say anything--I, who can
do nothing."

"Hamish!" exclaimed his sister, in a tone in which surprise and pain
were mingled.

"If I were like the rest," continued Hamish--"I, who am the eldest; but
even Dan can do more than I can.  You must not think of me, Shenac, in
your plans."

For a moment Shenac was silent from astonishment; this was so unlike the
cheerful spirit of Hamish.  Then she said,--

"Hamish, the work is not all.  What could Dan or any of us do without
you to plan for us?  We are the hands, you are the head."

Hamish made an impatient movement.  "Allister would be head and hands
too," he said bitterly.

"But, Hamish, you are not Allister; you are Hamish, just as you have
always been.  You are not surely going to fail our mother now--you, who
have done more than all of us put together to comfort her since then?"

Hamish made no answer.

"It is wrong for you to look at it in that way, Hamish," continued
Shenac.  "I once heard my father say that though you were lame, God
might have higher work for you to do than for any of the rest of us.  I
did not know what he meant then, but I know now."

"Hush! don't, Shenac," said Hamish.

"No; I must speak, Hamish.  It is not right to fret because the work you
have to do is not just the work you would choose.  And you'll break my
heart if you vex yourself about--because you are not like the rest.  Not
one of us all is so dear to my mother and the rest as you are; you know
_that_, Hamish.  And why should you think of this now, more than
before?"

"Shenac, I have been a child till now, thinking of nothing.  My looking
forward was but the dreaming of idle dreams.  I have wakened since my
father died--wakened to find myself useless, a burden, with so much to
be done."

"Hamish," said Shenac gravely, "that is not true, and it's foolish,
besides.  If you _were_ useless--blind as well as lame--if you were as
cankered and ill to do with as you are mild and sweet, there would be no
question of burden, because you are one of us, our own.  If you were
thinking of Angus Dhu, you might speak of burdens; but it is nonsense to
say that to me.  You know that you are more to my mother than any of us,
and you are more to me than all my brothers put together; but I need not
tell you _that_.  Hamish, if it had not been for you, I think my mother
must have died.  What is Dan, or what am I, in comparison to you?
Hamish, you must take heart and be strong, for all our sakes."

They were sitting on the doorstep by this time, and Shenac laid her head
on her brother's shoulder as she spoke.

"I know I am all wrong, Shenac.  I know I ought to be content as I am,"
said Hamish at last, but he could say no more.

Shenac's heart filled with love and pity unspeakable.  She would have
given him her health and strength, and would have taken up his burden of
weakness and deformity to bear them henceforth for his sake.  But she
did not tell him so; where would have been the good?  She sat quite
still, only stroking his hand now and then, till he spoke again.

"Perhaps I am wrong to speak to you about it, Shenac, but I seem to
myself to be quite changed; I seem to have nothing to look forward to.
If it had been me who was taken instead of Lewis."

"Hamish," said Shenac gravely, "it is not saying it to me that is wrong,
but thinking it.  And why should you have nothing to look forward to?
We are young.  A year seems a long time; but it will pass, and when
Allister comes home, and we are prosperous again, it will be with you as
it would have been if my father had lived.  You will get to your books
again, and learn and grow a wise man; and what will it signify that you
are little and lame, when you have all the honour that wisdom wins?  Of
course all these sad changes are worse for you than for the rest.  _We_
will only have to work a little harder, but your life is quite changed;
and, Hamish, it will only be for a little while, till Allister comes
home."

"But, Shenac," said Hamish eagerly, "you are not to think I mind _that_
most; I am not so bad as that.  If I were strong--if I were like the
rest--I would like nothing so well as to labour always for my mother and
you all; but I can do little."

"Yes, I know," said Shenac; "but Dan can do that, and so can I But your
work will be different--far higher and nobler than ours.  Only you must
not be impatient because you are hindered a little just now.  Hamish,
bhodach, what is a year out of a whole lifetime?  Never fear, you will
find your true work in time."

"Bhodach" is "old man" in the language in which these children were
speaking.  But on Shenac's lips it meant every sweet and tender name;
and, listening to her, Hamish forgot his troubles, or looked beyond
them, and his spirit grew bright and trustful again--peaceful for that
night at least.  The shadow fell on him many a time again; but it never
fell so darkly but that the sunshine of his sister's face had power to
chase it away, till, by-and-by, there fell on both the light before
which all shadows for ever and for ever flee away.



CHAPTER FOUR.

And so, with a good heart, they began their work.  I daresay it would be
amusing to some of my young readers if I were to go into particulars,
and tell them all that was done by each from day to day; but I have no
time nor space for this.

The bee was a very successful one.  As everybody knows, a bee is a
collection of the neighbours to help to do in one day work which it
would take one or two persons a long time to do.  It is not usually to
do such work as ploughing or sowing that bees are had; but all the
neighbours were glad to help the Widow MacIvor with her spring work, and
so two large fields, one of oats and another of barley, were in those
two days ploughed and harrowed, and sowed and harrowed again.

Shenac was not quite at her ease about the bee, partly because she
thought it had been the doing of Angus Dhu and the elder, and partly
because she felt if they were to be kept together they must depend, not
on their neighbours, but upon themselves.  But it was well they had this
help, for the young people were quite inexperienced in such work as
ploughing and sowing, and the summers are so short in Canada that a week
or two sooner or later makes a great difference in the sowing of the
seed.

There was enough left for Shenac and her brothers to keep them busy from
sunrise to sunset, during the months of May and June.  There was the
planting of potatoes and corn, and the sowing of carrots and turnips;
and then there was the hoeing and keeping them all free from weeds.
There was also the making of the garden, and the keeping of it in order
when it was made.  This had always been more the work of Hamish than of
any of the rest, and he made it his work still; and though he was not so
strong as he used to be, there never had been so much pains taken with
the garden before.  Everybody knows what comfort for a family comes out
of a well-kept garden, even though there may be only the common
vegetables and very little fruit in it; and Hamish made the most of
theirs that summer, and so did they all.

It must not be supposed that because Shenac was a girl she had no part
in the field-work.  Even now, in that part of the country, the wives and
daughters of farmers help their fathers and brothers during the busy
seasons of spring and harvest; and for many years after the opening up
of the country the females helped to clear the land, putting their hands
to all kinds of out-door work as cheerfully as need be.  As for Shenac,
she would have scorned the idea that there was any work that her
brothers could do for which they had not the strength and skill.

Indeed, Shenac had her full share of the field-work, and much to do in
the house besides.  The mother was not strong yet, either in mind or
body: she would never be strong again, Shenac sometimes feared, and she
must be saved as far as possible from all care and anxiety.  So the
heaviest of the household work fell to Shenac.  They had not a large
dairy, and never could have again; for the greater part of their pasture
and mowing land lay on the wrong side of the high cedar fence so hotly
resented by the children.  But the three cows which they had were her
peculiar care.  She milked them morning and evening, and, when the days
were longest, at noon too; and though her mother prepared the dishes for
the milk and skimmed the cream, Shenac always made the butter, because
churning needed strength as well as skill; and oftener than otherwise it
was done before she called her brothers in the morning.

Much may be accomplished in a short time by a quick eye and a ready
hand, and Shenac had both.  The minutes after meal-time which her
brothers took for rest, or for lingering about to talk together, she
filled with the numberless items of household work which seem little in
the doing, but which being left undone bring all things into disorder.

When any number of persons are brought together in circumstances where
decision and action become necessary, the leadership will naturally fall
on the one among them who is best fitted by natural gifts or acquired
knowledge to assume responsibility.  It is the same in families where
the head has been suddenly removed.  Quite unconsciously to herself,
Shenac assumed the leadership in the household; and it was well for her
brothers that she had duties within-doors as well as in the fields.
There were days in these months of May and June which were not half long
enough for the accomplishment of her plans and wishes.  I am afraid that
at such times the strength of Hamish and the patience of Dan must have
given out before she found it too dark to go on with their labours.  But
the thought of the mother, weary with the work at home, made her shorten
the day to her brothers and lengthen it to herself.

One of Shenac's faults was a tendency to go to extremes in all things
that interested her.  She had made up her mind that the summer's work
must be successful; and to insure success all other things must be made
to yield.  It was easy for her to forget the weakness of Hamish, for he
was only too willing to forget it himself; and as for Dan, though there
was some truth in Angus Dhu's assertion to his mother that "he was a
wild lad, and needed a firm hand to guide him," he gave no tokens of
breaking away as yet.  Shenac had so impressed him with the idea that
they must keep the farm as their own, and show the neighbours that they
could keep it in order, that to him every successful day's work seemed a
triumph over Angus Dhu as well as over circumstances.  His industry was
quite of his own free will, as he believed, and he gave Shenac none of
the credit of keeping him busy, and indeed she took none of the credit
to herself.  In her determination to do the most that could be done, she
might have forgotten her mother's comfort too; but this was not
permitted.  For if the mother tired herself with work, or if she saw
anything forgotten or neglected in the house, she became fretful and
desponding, and against this Shenac always strove to guard.

If Shenac were ever so tired at night, it rested her to turn back to
look over the fields beginning to grow green and beautiful under their
hands.  They worked in those days to some purpose, everybody
acknowledged.  In no neighbourhood, far or near, were the fields better
worth looking at than those that had been so faithfully gone over by
Shenac and her brothers.  Many a farmer paused, in passing, to admire
them, saying to himself that the Widow MacIvor's children were a credit
to her and to themselves; and few were so churlish as to refrain from
speaking a word of encouragement to them when an opportunity came.

Even Angus Dhu gave many a glance of wonder and pleasure over his cedar
rails, and gave them credit for having done more than well.  He was very
glad.  He said so to himself, and he said so to his neighbours.  And I
believe he was glad, in a way.  He was too good a farmer not to take
pleasure in seeing land made the most of; and I think he was glad, too,
to see the children of his dead friend and cousin capable of doing so
well for themselves.

It is just possible that deep down in his heart, unknown or
unacknowledged to himself, there lurked a hope that when Shenac should
marry, as he thought she was sure to do, and when wild Dan should have
gone away, as his brothers had done before him, those well-tilled fields
might still become his.  Perhaps I am wrong, and hard upon him, as
Shenac was.

She gave him no credit for his kind thoughts, but used to say to her
brothers, when she caught a glimpse of his face over the fence,--

"There stands Angus Dhu, glowering and glooming at us.  He's not praying
for summer rain on our behalf, I'll warrant.--Oh well, Angus man, we'll
do without your prayers, as we do without your help, and as you'll have
to do without our land.  Make the most of what you have got, and be
content."

"Shenac," said Hamish on one of these occasions, "you're hard on Angus
Dhu."

"Am I, Hamish?" said Shenac, laughing.  "Well, maybe I am; but it will
not harm him, I daresay."

"But it may harm yourself, Shenac," said Hamish gravely.  "I think I
would rather lose all the work we have done this spring than have it
said that our Shenac was bearing false witness against our neighbour,
and he of our own kin, too."

"Nobody would dare to say that of me," said Shenac, reddening.

"But if it is true, what is the difference whether it is said or not?"
said Hamish.  "You seem more glad of our success because you think it
vexes Angus Dhu, than because it pleases our mother and keeps us all at
home together.  It does not vex him, I'm sure of that; and, whether it
does or not, it is wrong for you always to be thinking and saying it.
You are not to be grieved or angry at my saying it, Shenac."

But both grieved and angry Shenac was at her brother's reproof.  She did
not know which was greater, her anger or her grief.  She did not trust
herself to answer him, and in a little time Hamish spoke again:--

"It cannot harm him--at least, I think it cannot really harm him, though
it may vex him; and I'm sure it must grieve the girls to hear that you
say such things about their father.  But that is not what I was thinking
about.  It must harm yourself most.  You are growing hard and bitter.
You are not like yourself, Shenac, when you speak of Angus Dhu."

The sting of her brother's words was in the last sentence, but it was
the first part that Shenac answered.

"You know very well, Hamish, that I never speak of Angus Dhu except to
you--not even to my mother."

"You have spoken to Dan--at least, you have spoken in his hearing.  What
do you think I heard him saying the other day to Shenac yonder?"

"Shenac yonder" was the youngest daughter of Angus Dhu, so called by the
brothers to distinguish her from their sister, who was "our Shenac" to
them.  Other people distinguished between the cousins as they had
between the fathers.  One was Shenac Bhan; the other, Shenac Dhu.

"I don't know," said Shenac, startled.  "What was it?"

"Something like what you were saying to me just now.  You may think how
Shenac's black eyes looked when she heard him."

Shenac was shocked.

"She would not mind what Dan said."

"No.  It was only when Dan told her that _you_ said it that she seemed
to mind," said Hamish gravely.

"Dan had no business to tell her," said Shenac hotly; then she paused.

"No," said Hamish; "I told him that."

"I'll give him a hearing," began Shenac.

"I think, Shenac, you should say nothing to Dan about it," said Hamish.
"Only take care never to say more than you think before the little ones,
or indeed before any one again.  You may vex Angus Dhu, and Shenac
yonder, and the rest, but the real harm is done to us at home, and
especially to yourself, Shenac; for you no more believe that Angus Dhu
is a robber--the oppressor of the widow and the fatherless--than I do."

Shenac uttered an exclamation of impatience.

"I shall give it to Dan."

"No, Shenac, you will not.  Dan must be carefully dealt with.  He has a
strong will of his own, and if it comes into his mind that you or any
one, except our mother, is trying to govern him, he'll slip through our
fingers some fine day."

"You've been taking a leaf out of Angus Dhu's book.  There's no fear of
Dan," said Shenac.

"There's no fear of him as long as he thinks he's pleasing himself, and
that his sister is the best and the wisest girl to be found," said
Hamish.  "But if it were to come to a trial of strength between you, Dan
would be sure to win."

Shenac was silent.  She knew it would not be well to risk her influence
over Dan by a struggle of any sort.  But she was very angry with him.

"He might have had more sense," she said, after a moment.

"And indeed, Shenac, so might you," said Hamish gravely.  "There should
be no more said about Angus Dhu, for his sake and ours.  He has been
very friendly to us this summer, considering all things."

"Considering what I said to him, you mean," said Shenac sharply.  "I was
sorry for that as soon as I said it.  But, Hamish, if you think I'm
going down on my knees to Angus Dhu to tell him so, you're mistaken.  He
may not be a thief and a robber, but he's a dour carle, though he is of
our own kin, and as different from our father as the dark is different
from the day.  And I can say nothing else of him, even for your sake,
Hamish."

"It is not for my sake that I am speaking, Shenac, but for your own.
You are doing yourself a great wrong, cherishing this bitterness in your
heart."

Shenac was too much grieved and too angry to speak.  She knew very well
that she was neither very good nor very wise; but it had hitherto been
her great pleasure in life to know that Hamish thought her so, and his
words were very painful to her.  She was vexed with him, and with Dan,
and with all the world.  Above all, she was vexed with herself.

She would not confess it, but in her heart she knew that a little of the
zest would be taken from their labours if she were sure that their
success would not be a source of vexation to Angus Dhu.  And then Hamish
had said she was injuring Dan--encouraging him in what was wrong--
perhaps risking her influence for good over him.

The longer she thought about all this, the more unhappy she became.
"Bearing false witness!" she repeated.  It was a great sin she had been
committing.  It had been done thoughtlessly, but it was none the less a
sin for that, Shenac knew.  Hamish was right.  She was growing very hard
and wicked; and no wonder that he had come to think so meanly of her.
Shenac said all this to herself, with many sorrowful and some angry
tears.  But the anger passed away before the sorrow.  There were no
confessions made openly; but, whatever may have been her secret thoughts
of Angus Dhu, neither Dan nor Hamish nor anybody else ever heard Shenac
speak a disrespectful word of him again.

Dan never got the "hearing" with which she had threatened him.  She
checked him more than once, when in the old way he began to remark on
the evident interest that their father's cousin took in their work; but
she did it gently, remembering her own fault.

The intercourse which had almost ceased between the families was
gradually renewed--at least, between the younger ones.  Shenac could not
bring herself to go often to her cousins' house.  She always felt, as
she said to Hamish, as though Angus Dhu "eyed her" at such times.  And,
besides, she was too busy to go there or anywhere else.  But her cousins
came often to see her when the day's work was over; and Shenac, the
youngest, who was her father's favourite, and who could take liberties
that none of the others could have done at her age, came at other times.
She was older than our Shenac by a year or so; but she was little and
merry, and her jet-black hair was cut close to her head like a child's,
so she seemed much younger.  She could not come too often.  She was
equally welcome to the grave, quiet Hamish and the boyish Dan, and more
welcome to Shenac than to either.  For she never hindered work, but
helped it rather.  She brought the news, too, and fought hot, merry
battles with the lads, and for the time shook even Hamish out of the
grave ways that were becoming habitual to him, and did Shenac herself
good by reminding her that she was not an old woman burdened with care,
but a young girl not sixteen, to whom fun and frolic ought to be
natural.

There were not many newspapers taken in those parts about that time; but
Angus Dhu took one, and Shenac used to come over the fence with it, and,
giving it to Hamish, would take his hoe or rake and go on with his work
while he read the news to the rest.  The newspaper was English, of
course.  Gaelic was the language spoken at home--the language in which
the Bible was read, and the Catechism said; but the young people all
spoke and read English.  And very good English too, as far as it went;
for it was book-English, learned at school from books that are now
considered out of date.  But they were very good books for all that.
They used to have long discussions about the state of the world as they
gathered it from the newspapers--not always grave or wise, but useful,
especially to Shenac, by keeping her in mind of what in her untiring
industry she was in danger of forgetting, that there was a wide world
beyond these quiet lines within which they were living, where nobler
work than the mere earning of bread was being done by worthy and willing
hands.



CHAPTER FIVE.

July had come.  There was a little pause in the field-work, for all the
seed had been sown and all the weeds pulled up, and they were waiting
for a week or two to pass, and then the haying was to begin.  Even
haying did not promise to be a very busy season with them, for the
cutting and caring for the hay in their largest field would this year
fall to the lot of Angus Dhu.  It was as well so, Shenac said to herself
with a sigh, for they could not manage much hay by themselves, and
paying wages would never do for them.  Indeed, they would need some help
even with the little they had; for Dan had never handled a scythe except
in play, and Hamish, even if he had the skill, had not the strength.

And then the wool.  They must have their cloth early this year, for last
year they had been obliged to sell the wool, and the boys' clothes were
threadbare.  If they could get the wool spun early, McLean the weaver
would weave their cloth first.  She must try to see what could be done.
But, oh, that weary little wheel!

Shenac's mother thought it was a wonderful little wheel; and so indeed
it was.  It had been part of the marriage outfit of Shenac's grandmother
before she left her Highland home.  It had been in almost constant use
all these years, and bade fair to be as good as ever for as many years
to come.  There was no wearing it out or putting it out of order, for,
like most things made in those old times, it had strength if not
elegance, and Shenac's mother was as careful of it as a modern musical
lady is of her grand piano.

I cannot describe it to you, for I am not very well acquainted with such
instruments of labour.  It was not at all like the wheels which are used
now-a-days in districts where the great manufactories have not yet put
wheels out of use.  It was a small, low, complicated affair, at which
the spinner sat, using both foot and hand.  It needed skill and patience
to use it well, and strength too.  A long day's work well done on the
little wheel left one far wearier than a day's work in the field.

As for Shenac, the very thought of it made her weary.  If she had lived
in the present day, she would have said it made her nervous.  But,
happily for Shenac, she did not know that she had any nerves, and her
mother's wheel got the blame of her discomfort.  Not that she ever
ventured to speak a disrespectful word of it.  The insane idea that
perhaps her mother might be induced to sell it and buy one of the
new-fashioned kind, like that Archie Matheson's young wife had brought
with her, _did_ come into her head once, but she never spoke of it.  It
would have been wrong as well as foolish to do so, for her mother would
never try to learn to use the new one, and half the comfort of her life
would be gone without her faithful friend, the little wheel.

"Oh, if I could get one for myself!" said Shenac.  She had seen and used
Mary Matheson's last summer, and now, hurried as she was at home, she
took an afternoon to go with Hamish to see it again.

"Could you not make one, Hamish?" she said entreatingly; "you can do so
many things."

But Hamish shook his head.

"I might make the stock if I had tools; but the rest of it--no."

The sheep were shorn.  There were sixteen fleeces piled up in the barn;
but a great deal must be done to it before it could be ready for the
boys to wear.  One thing Shenac had determined on.  It should be sent
and carded at the mill.  The mill was twenty miles away, to be sure--
perhaps more; but the time taken for the journey would be saved ten
times over.  Shenac thought she might possibly get through the spinning,
but to card it by hand, with all there was to do in the fields, would be
quite impossible.

This matter troubled Shenac all the more that she could not share her
vexation with Hamish.  The idea of selling the grandmother's wheel
seemed to him little short of sacrilege; and neither he nor their cousin
Shenac could see why the mother could not dye and card and spin the
wool, as she had been accustomed to do.  But Shenac knew this to be
impossible.  Her mother was able for no such work now, though she might
think so herself; and Shenac knew that to try and fail would make the
mother miserable.  What was to be done?  Over this question she pondered
with an earnestness, and, alas! with a uselessness, that gave impatience
to her hand and sharpness to her voice at last.

"What aileth thee, Shenac Bhan, bonny Shenac, Shenac the farmer, Shenac
the fair?  Wherefore rests the shadow on thy brow, and the look of
sadness in thine azure eyes?"  Hamish had been reading to them Gaelic
Ossian, and Shenac Dhu had caught up the manner of the poem, and spoke
in a way that made them all laugh.  Shenac Bhan laughed too; but not
because she was merry, for her cousin's nonsense always vexed her when
she was "out of sorts."  But her cousin Christie was there, Mrs More,
the eldest sister of Shenac Dhu; and so Shenac Bhan laughed with the
rest.  She was here on a visit from the city of M--- where she lived,
and had come over to see her aunt, as Angus Dhu's children always called
the widow.  A heavy summer shower was falling, and all the boys had
taken refuge from it in the house, and there were noise and confusion
for a time.

"I want Christie to come into the barn and see our wool," said Shenac
Bhan at last, when the shower was over.  "And, Shenac--dark Shenac,
doleful Shenac--you are to stay and keep the lads in order till we come
back."

Shenac Dhu made a face, but let them go.

Mrs More was a pale, quiet woman, with a grave but kind manner, which
put Shenac at her ease at once, though she had not seen her since her
marriage, which was more than five years before.  She had always been
very kind to the children when she lived at home, and the memory of this
gave Shenac courage to ask her help out of at least one of her
difficulties.

"How much you have grown, Shenac!" said her cousin.  "I hardly think I
would have known you if I had seen you anywhere else.  Yes, I think I
would have known your face anywhere.  But you are a woman now, and doing
a woman's work, they tell me."

"We have all been busy this summer," said Shenac; "but our hurry is over
now for a while."

Heedless of the little pools that were shining here and there, they went
first into the garden, and then round the other buildings, and over to
the spot, still black and charred, where the house had stood.  But
little was said by either of them.

"Do you like living in the city?" said Shenac at last.

"For some things I like it--for most things, indeed; but sometimes I
long for a sight of the fields and woods, more for my wee Mary's sake
than for my own."

"This is our wool," said Shenac, as they entered the barn; "I wish it
was spun."

"Shenac," said her cousin kindly, "have you not undertaken too much?
It's all very well for you to speak of Hamish and Dan, but the weight
must fall on you.  I see that plainly."

But Shenac would not let her think so.

"I only do my share," said she eagerly.

"I think you could have helped them more by coming to M--- and taking a
situation.  You could learn to do anything, Shenac, if you were to try."

But Shenac would not listen.

"We must keep together," said she; "and the land must be kept for
Allister.  There is no fear.  We shall not grow rich, but we can live,
if we bide all together and do our best."

"Shenac," persisted her cousin, "I do not want to discourage you; but
there are so many things which a girl like you ought not to do--cannot
do, indeed, without breaking your health.  I know.  I was the eldest at
home.  I know what there is to do in a place like yours.  The doctor
tells me I shall never be quite well again, because of the long strain
of hard work and exposure when I was young like you.  Think, if your
health was to fail."

Shenac turned her compassionate eyes upon her.

"But your father was hard on you, folks say, and I have the work at my
own taking."

Mrs More shook her head sadly.

"Ah, Shenac dear, circumstances may be far harder on you than ever my
father was on me.  You do not know what may lie before you.  No girl
like you should have such responsibility.  If you will come with me or
follow me, you and Hamish, I can do much for you.  You could learn to do
anything, Shenac, and Hamish is very clever.  There are places where his
littleness and his lameness would not be against him, as they must be on
the land.  Let my father take Dan, as he wished, and let Hughie go to
the elder's for a while.  The land can lie here safe enough till
Allister comes home, if that is what you wish.  Indeed, Shenac, you do
not know what you are undertaking."

"Cousin Christie," said Shenac gently, "you are very kind, but I cannot
leave my mother; and I am strong--stronger than you think.  Christie,
you speak as though you thought Allister would never come home.  Was our
Allister a wild lad, as your father says?  Surely, he'll come home to
his mother, now that his father is dead."

She sat down on the pile of wool, and turned a very pale, frightened
face to her cousin.  Mrs More stooped down and kissed her.

"My dear," she said gently, "Allister was not a wild lad in my time, but
good and truthful--one who honoured his parents.  But, Shenac, the world
is wide, and there are so many things that those who have lived in this
quiet place all their lives cannot judge of.  And even if Allister were
to come back, he might not be content to settle down here in the old
quiet way.  The land would seem less to him than it seems to you."

"But if Allister should not come home, or if he should not stay, my
mother will need me all the more.  No, Cousin Christie, you must not
discourage me.  I must try it.  And, indeed, it is not I alone.  Hamish
has so much sense and judgment, and Dan is growing so strong.  And we
will try it anyway."

"Well, Shenac, you deserve to succeed, and you will succeed if anybody
could," said her cousin.  "I will not discourage you.  I wish I could
help you instead."

"You can help me," said Shenac eagerly; "that's what I brought you out
to say.  Our wool--you are going back soon, and if the waggon goes, will
you ask your father to let our wool go to the mill?  The carding takes
so long, and my mother is not so strong as she used to be.  And that is
one of the things I cannot abide.  The weary little wheel is bad enough.
Will you ask your father, Christie?"

Mrs More laughed.

"That is but a small favour, Shenac.  Of course my father will take it,
and he'll bring it back too; for, though it is not his usual plan at
this time of the year, he's going on all the way to M--- with butter.
There came word yesterday that there was great demand for it.  The wool
will be done by the time he comes back; and he is to take his own too, I
believe."

Shenac gave a sigh of relief.

"Well, that's settled."

"Why did you not ask my father himself?" said Mrs More.  "Are not you
and he good friends, Shenac?"  Shenac muttered something about not
liking to give trouble and not liking to ask Angus Dhu.  Mrs More
laughed again.

"I think you are hard on my father, Shenac.  I think he would be a good
friend to you if you would let him.  You must not mind a sharp word from
the like of him.  His bark is worse than his bite."

Shenac was inexpressibly uncomfortable, remembering that all the hard
words had come from her and not from Angus Dhu.

"Well, never mind," said Mrs More; "the carrying of the wool is my
father's favour.  What can I do for you, Shenac?"

"You can do one thing for me," said Shenac briskly, glad to escape from
a painful subject, and laying her hand on a shining instrument of steel
that peeped from beneath the wool on which she was sitting.  "You can
cut my hair off.  My mother does not like to do it, and Hamish won't.  I
was going to ask Shenac yonder; but you will do it better."  And she
began to loosen the heavy braids.

"What's that about Shenac yonder?" said that young person, coming in
upon them.  "I should like to know what you are plotting, you two,
together--and bringing in my innocent name too!"

"Nothing very bad," said Shenac, laughing.  "I want Christie to cut my
hair, it is such a trouble; it takes a whole half-hour at one time or
other of the day to keep it neat, and half-hours are precious."

"I don't like to do it, Shenac," said Mrs More.

Shenac Dhu held up her hands in astonishment.

"Cut your hair off!  Was the like ever heard of?--Nonsense, Christie!
she never means it; and Hamish would never let her, besides.  She'll
look no better than the rest of us without her hair," continued she,
taking the heavy braids out of Shenac's hands and pushing her back on
the pile of wool from which she had risen.  "Christie, tell Shenac about
John Cameron, as you told us last night."

While Shenac listened to the account of a sad accident that had happened
to a young man from another part of the country, Shenac Dhu let down the
long, fair hair of her cousin, and, by the help of an old card that lay
near, smoothed it till it lay in waves and ripples of gold far below her
waist.  Then, as Shenac Bhan still sat, growing pale and red by turns as
she listened, she with great care rolled the shining mass into thick
curls over neck and shoulders.

"Now stand up and show yourself," said she, as she finished.  "Is she
not a picture?  Christie, you should take her to the town with you and
put her up in your husband's shop-window.  You would make her fortune
and your own too."

Shenac Bhan had this advantage over her cousin, and indeed over most
people--that the sun that made them as brown as a berry, after the first
few days' exposure left her as fair and unfreckled as ever; and she
really was a very pretty picture as she stood laughing and blushing
before her cousins.  The door opened, and Hamish came in.

"My mother sent me to bid you all come in to tea;" but he stopped as his
eye fell on his sister.

"Tea!" cried Shenac Bhan.  "I meant to do all that myself.  Who would
have thought that we had been here so long?"  And she made a movement,
as if to bind back her hair, that she might hasten away.

"Be quiet; stay till I bid you go," said Shenac Dhu, hastily letting the
curls fall again.  "I wonder if all the puddles are dried up?--She ought
to see herself.  Cut them off!  The vain creature!  Never fear, Hamish."

"Christie is to cut it," said Shenac Bhan, laughing, and holding the
wool-shears towards Mrs More.  "I must do it, Hamish; it takes such a
time to keep it decently neat.  My mother does not care, and why should
you?"

"Whisht, Hamish," said Shenac Dhu, "you're going to quote Saint Paul and
Saint Peter about a woman's hair being a covering and a glory.  Don't
fash yourself.  Why, she would deserve to be a Scots worthy more than
George Wishart, or than the woman who was drowned even, if she were to
do it!"

"You had your own cut," said Shenac Bhan, looking at her cousin with
some surprise.  "Why should I not do the same?"

"You are not me.  Everybody has not my strength of mind," said Shenac
Dhu, nodding gravely.

"Toch! you cut yours that it might grow long and thick like our
Shenac's," said Dan, who had been with them for some time.  "Think of
your hair, and look at this."  And he lifted the fair curls admiringly.

Shenac Bhan laughed.

"It's an awful bother, Dan."

"But it would be a pity to lose it.  What a lot of it there is!"  And
the boy walked round his sister, touching it as he went.

"She never meant to do it; but after that she could not," said Shenac
Dhu, pretending to whisper.

"Our Shenac never says what she doesn't mean," said Dan hotly.

"Whatever other people's Shenacs do," said Hamish laughing.

Shenac Dhu made as if she would charge him with the great shears.

"Give them to Christie," said Shenac Bhan.  "What a work to make about
nothing!"

"She does not mean to do it yet," said Shenac Dhu; but she handed the
shears to her sister.

"I don't like to do it, Shenac," said Mrs More.  "Think how long it
will take to grow again; and it is beautiful hair," she added, as she
came near and passed her fingers through it.

"Nonsense, Christie, she's not in earnest," persisted Shenac Dhu.

With a quick, impatient motion, Shenac Bhan took the shears from her
cousin's hand and severed one--two--three of the bright curls from the
mass.  Shenac Dhu uttered a cry.

"There! did I not tell you?" cried Dan, forgetting everything else in
his triumph over Shenac Dhu.  Hamish turned and went out without a word.

"There," said Shenac Bhan; "you must do it now, Christie."

Mrs More took the great shears and began to cut without a word; and no
one spoke again till the curls lay in a shining heap at their feet.
Then Shenac Dhu drew a long breath, and said,--

"Don't say afterwards it was my fault."

"It was just your fault, Shenac Dhu, you envious, spiteful thing,"
exclaimed the indignant Dan.

"Nonsense, Cousin Shenac.--Be quiet, Dan.  She had nothing to do with
it.  It has been a trouble all summer, and I'm glad to be rid of it.  I
only wish I could spin it, like the wool."

"What a lot of it there is!"  And Shenac Dhu stooped down and lifted a
long tress or two tenderly, as if they had life.

"What will you do with it, Shenac?"

"Burn it, since I cannot make stockings of it.  Put them in here."  And
she held up her apron.

"Will you give your hair to me, Shenac?" asked Mrs More.

"What can you do with it?" asked Shenac in some surprise.  "Surely I'll
give it to you, so that I hear no more about it."  The curls were
carefully gathered, and tied in Mrs More's handkerchief.

"Shenac Bhan," said the other Shenac solemnly, "you look like a shorn
sheep.  I shall never see you again without thinking of the young woman
tied to the stake on the sands, and the sea coming up and up--"

"Shenac, be quiet.  It is sinful to speak lightly of so solemn a thing,"
said her sister gravely.

"Solemn!" said Shenac.  "Lightly!  By no means.  I was putting two
solemn things together.  I don't know which is more solemn.  For my
part, I would as soon feel the cold water creeping up my back, like--"

"Shenac," said our Shenac entreatingly, "don't say foolish things and
vex my mother and Hamish."

Her cousin put her hand on her mouth.

"You have heard my last word."

But the last word about the shining curls was not spoken yet.



CHAPTER SIX.

The day when the haying was to have commenced was very rainy, and so was
every day for a week or more.  People were becoming a little anxious as
to the getting in of the hay; for in almost all the fields it was more
than ripe, and everybody knows that it should not stand long after that.
The fields of the Macivors were earlier than those of most people, and
Shenac was especially careful to get the hay in at the right time and in
good condition, because they had so much less of it than ever before.

And besides, the wheat-harvest was coming on, and where there were so
few to help, every day made a difference.  Whenever there came a glimpse
of sunshine, Dan was out in the field, making good use of his scythe;
for mowing was new and exciting work to him, though he had seen it done
every summer of his life.  It is not every boy of fourteen that could
swing a scythe to such good purpose as Dan, and he might be excused for
being a little proud and a little unreasonable in the matter.  And after
all, I daresay he knew quite as much about it as Shenac.  When she told
him how foolish it was to cut down grass when there was no chance of
getting it dried, he only laughed and pointed to the fields of Angus
Dhu, where there were three men busy, and acres and acres of grass lying
as it had fallen.

"You are a good farmer, Shenac, but Angus Dhu, you must confess, has had
more experience, and is a better judge of the weather.  We're safe
enough to follow him."

There was reason in this, but it vexed Shenac to have Angus Dhu quoted
as authority; and it vexed her too that Dan should take the matter into
his own hands without regard to her judgment.

"Angus Dhu can get all the help he needs to make the hay when it fairs,"
said she.  "But if we have too much down we shall not be able to manage
it right, I'm afraid."

"There's no fear of having too much down.  I must keep at it.  Where
there's only one man to cut, he must keep at it," said Dan gravely.  "If
you and the rest of the children are busy when the sun shines, you will
soon overtake me."

"Only one man!"  "You and the rest of the children!"  Vexed as Shenac
was, she could not help being amused, and fortunately a good deal of her
vexation passed away in the laugh, in which Dan heartily joined.

This week of rain was a trying time to Shenac.  Nothing could be done
out of doors, for the rain was constant and heavy.  If she could have
had the wheel to herself, she would have got on with the spinning, and
that would have been something, she thought.  Her mother was spinning,
however; and though she could not sit at the wheel all day, she did not
like to have her work interfered with, and Shenac could not make use of
the time when her mother was not employed, and very little was
accomplished.  There was mending to be done, which her mother could have
done so much better than she could, Shenac thought.  But her mother sat
at the wheel, and Shenac wearied herself over the shirts and trousers of
her brothers, and at last startled herself and every one else by
speaking sharply to little Flora and shaking Colin well for bringing in
mud on their feet when they came home from school.

After that she devoted her surplus energies to the matter of
house-cleaning, and that did better.  Everything in the house, both
upstairs and down, and everything in the dairy, passed through her
hands.  Things that could be scrubbed were scrubbed, and things that
could be polished were polished.  The roof and the walls were
whitewashed, and great maple-branches hung here and there upon them,
that the flies might not soil their whiteness; and then Shenac solemnly
declared to Hamish that it was time the rain should cease.

Hamish laughed.  The week had passed far less uncomfortably to him than
to his sister.  He had made up his mind to the necessity of staying
within-doors during such weather; and he could do so all the more easily
as, with a good conscience, he could give himself up to the enjoyment of
a book that had fallen into his hands.  It was not a new book.  Two or
three of the first pages were gone, but it was as good as new to Hamish.
It was a new kind of arithmetic, his friend Rugg, the peddler, told
him.  He knew Hamish liked that sort of thing, and so he had brought it
to him.

Hamish was quite occupied with it.  He forgot the hay, and the rain, and
even his own rheumatic pains, in the interest with which he pored over
it.  Shenac did not grudge him his pleasure.  She even tried to get up
an interest in the unknown quantities, whose values, Hamish assured her,
were so easily discovered by the rules laid down in the book.  But she
did not enter heartily into her brother's pleasure, as she usually did.
She wondered at him, and thought it rather foolish in him to be so taken
up with trifles when there was so much to think about.  She forgot to be
glad that her brother had found something to keep him from vexing
himself, as he had done so much of late, by thinking how little he could
do for his mother and the rest; and she said to herself that Christie
More had been right when she said that it was upon her that the burden
of care and labour must fall.

"You are tired to-night, Shenac," said Hamish, as she sat gazing
silently and listlessly into the fire.

"Tired!" repeated Shenac scornfully.  "What with, I wonder.  Yes, I am
tired with staying within-doors, when there is so much to be done
outside.  If my mother would only let me take the wheel, that would be
something."

"But my mother is busy with it herself," said Hamish.  "Surely you do
not think you can do more or better than my mother?"

"Not better, but more; twice as much in a day as she is doing now.
We'll not get our cloth by the new year, at the rate the spinning is
going on, and the lads' clothes will hardly hold together even now."
Shenac gave an impatient sigh.

"But, Shenac," said her brother, "there is no use in fretting about it;
that will do no good."

"No; if only one could help it," said Shenac.

"Shenac, my woman," said the mother from the other side of the fire, "I
doubt you'll need to go to The Eleventh to-morrow for the dye-stuffs.  I
am not able to go so far myself, I fear."

The townships, or towns, of that part of the country are all divided off
into portions, a mile in width, called concessions; and as the little
cluster of houses where the store was had no name as yet, it was called
The Eleventh; and indeed, all the different localities were named from
the concession in which they were found.

"There is no particular hurry about going, I suppose, mother," Shenac
answered indifferently.

"The sooner the better," said her mother.  "The things are as well here
as there, and we'll need them soon.  What is to hinder you from going
to-morrow?"

"If the morning is fair, I'll need Shenac's help at the hay, mother,"
said Dan with an air.

"I'll need Shenac's help!"  It might have been Angus Dhu himself, by the
way it was said, Shenac thought.  It was ludicrous.  Her mother did not
seem to see anything ludicrous in it, however; for she only answered,--

"Oh yes, Dan; if it should be fair, I suppose I can wait."  Hamish was
busy with his book again.

"It's a very heavy crop," continued Dan.  "It is all that a man can do
to cut yon grass and keep at it steady."

Of course Dan did not mean to take the credit of the heavy crop to
himself, but it sounded exactly as if he did; and there was something
exceedingly provoking to Shenac in the way in which he stretched himself
up when he said, "all that a man can do."  A laughing glance that came
to her over the top of Hamish's book dispelled her momentary anger,
however.

"If Hamish does not mind, I'm sure _I_ need not," she said to herself.

Dan went on:--"I shall put what I have cut to-day in the long barn.  It
will be just the thing for the spring's work."

Dan's new-found far-sightedness was too much for the gravity of Hamish,
and Shenac joined heartily in the laugh.  Dan looked a little
discomfited.

"You must settle it with Shenac and your brother," said the mother.

"All right, Dan, my boy," said Hamish heartily; "it's always best to
look ahead, as Mr Rugg would say.--What do you think, Shenac?"

"All right; only you should not say `my boy' to our Dan, but `my man,'"
said Shenac gravely.

Even little Flora could understand the joke of Dan's assuming the airs
of manhood, and all laughed heartily.  Dan joined in the laugh
good-humouredly enough.

"You see, Shenac," said Hamish, during the few minutes they always
lingered together after the others had gone to bed, "Dan may be led, but
he will not be driven--at least, not by you or me."

"Led!" exclaimed Shenac; "I think he means to lead us all.  That scythe
has made a man of him all at once.  I declare it goes past my patience
to hear the monkey."

"It must not go past your patience if you can help it, Shenac," said her
brother.  "All that nonsense will be laughed out of him, but it must not
be by you or me."

"Oh, well, I'm not caring," said Shenac.  "I only hope it will be fair
to-morrow, so that I can get to help him.  I could mow as well as he, if
my mother would let me.  However, it's all the same whether I help him
or he helps me, so that the work is done some way."

"We'll all help one another," said Hamish.  "Shenac, you were right the
other day when you told me I was wrong to murmur because I could not do
more than God had given me strength to do.  It does not matter what work
falls to each of us, so that it is well done; and we can never do it
unless we keep together."

"No fear, Hamish, bhodach, we'll keep together," said Shenac heartily.
"I do hope to-morrow may be fine."



CHAPTER SEVEN.

But to-morrow was not fine; it was quite the contrary.  Shenac milked in
the rain, and gathered vegetables for dinner in the rain, and would
gladly have made hay all day in the rain, if that had been possible.
Not a pin cared Shenac for the rain.  It wet her face, and twined her
hair into numberless little rings all over her head, and that was the
very worst it could do.  It could not spoil her shoes, for in summer she
did not wear any, unless she was in the field; and it took the rain a
long time to penetrate through the thick woollen dress she always wore
in rainy weather.  Indeed, she rather liked to be out in the rain,
especially when there was a high wind, against which she might measure
her strength; and she was just going to propose to her mother that she
should set out to The Eleventh for the dye-stuffs, when the door opened,
and her cousin Shenac came in.

Rain or shine, Shenac Dhu was always welcome, and quite a chorus of
exclamations greeted her.

"Toch! what about the rain!  I'm neither salt nor sugar to melt in it,"
she said, as Shenac Bhan took off her wet plaid and drew her towards the
fire.  "I must not stay," she continued.--"Hamish, have you done with
your book?  Mr Rugg stayed at our house last night, and he's coming
here next, and so I ran over the field to see his pretty things.--O
Shenac, he has such a pretty print this time--blue and white."

"But could you not see his pretty things last night?  And are you to get
a dress of the blue and white?" asked Shenac Bhan.

"Of course I could see them, but I could not take a good look at them
because my father was there.  He thinks me a sensible woman, and I can't
bear to undeceive him; and my eyes have a trick of looking at pretty
things as though I wanted them, and that looks greedy.  But I'm not for
a dress of the blue and white.  Mysie Cairns in The Sixteenth has one,
and that's enough for one township."

"But Mr Rugg will not open his packs here; we want nothing," said
Shenac Bhan, "unless he may have dye-stuffs for my mother."

"He has no dye-stuffs--you'll get that at The Eleventh," said Shenac
Dhu; "but it's nonsense about not wanting anything.  I'll venture to say
that Mr Rugg will leave more here than he left at our house, or at any
house in the town-ship.  I wish he would come."

They all had plenty to say to Shenac Dhu, but that her mind was full of
other things it was easy to see.  She laughed and chatted, but she
watched the window till the long, high waggon of the peddler came in
sight, and then she drew Shenac Bhan into a corner and kept her there
till the door opened.

"Good-morning, good-morning," said the peddler as he came in.  Glancing
round the room, he stood still on the door-mat with a comical look of
indecision on his face.  "I don't suppose you want to see me enough to
pay for the tracks I shall make on the floor," he said to Shenac Bhan.
"I don't know as I should have come round this way this time, only I've
got something for you--something you'll be glad to have."

Everybody was indignant at the idea of his not coming in.

"Never mind the floor," said Shenac Bhan.  "We don't want anything
to-day, but we are glad to see you all the same."

"Don't say you don't want anything till you see what I've got," said Mr
Rugg gravely.  "I ha'n't no doubt there's a heap of things you would
like, if you could get them.  Now, a'n't there?"

"She wants a wig, for one thing," said Shenac Dhu.

"Well, no; I calculate she'll get along without that as well as most
folks.  I don't see as you spoiled your looks, for all Mrs More said,"
he added, as he touched with his long forefinger one of the little rings
that clustered round Shenac's head.  "Come, now, a'n't there something
I've got that you want?" he asked as Shenac turned away with an
impatient shrug.

"No; not if you haven't a wig.  Do we want anything, mother?  It is not
worth while to open your box in the rain."

Mr Rugg was already out of hearing.

"We can look at them, at any rate," said Shenac Dhu.  But Shenac Bhan
looked very much as if she did not intend to do even that, till the door
opened again, and Mr Rugg walked in, followed by Dan, and between them
they carried a spinning-wheel.

"A big wheel, just like Mary Matheson's!" exclaimed Shenac Bhan.

"No; a decided improvement upon that," said Mr Rugg, preparing to put
on the rim and the head.  The band was ready, too; and he turned the
wheel and pulled out an imaginary thread with such gravity that all
laughed.  "Well, what do you think of it, girls?" he asked after a
little time.  "Will you have it, Miss Shenac?"

"I should like to borrow it for a month," said Shenac with a sigh.

"It a'n't to be lent nor to be borrowed," said the peddler; "leastways,
it a'n't for me to lend.  The owner may do as she likes."

"How much would it cost?" asked Shenac with a vague, wild idea that
possibly at some future time she might get one.

"I can tell you that exactly," said the peddler.  "I've got the invoice
here all right, and another document with it;" and he handed Shenac a
letter, directed, as she knew at a glance, in the handwriting of her
cousin, Mrs More.

"It's from Christie," said Shenac Dhu, looking over her shoulder.  "Open
it, Shenac; what ails you?"

Shenac opened the letter, and the other Shenac read it with her.  It
need not be given here.  It told how Mrs More had taken Shenac's hair
to a hair-dresser in the city, and how the money she had received for it
had been given into the hands of Mr Rugg, who was to buy a wheel with
it, as something Shenac would be sure to value.

"And here it is," said Mr Rugg; "as good a wheel as need be.--It will
put yours quite out of fashion, Mrs Macivor."

It was with some difficulty that the mother could be made to understand
that the wheel was Shenac's--bought and paid for.  As for Shenac, she
could only stand and look at it, saying not a word.  Shenac Dhu shook
her heartily.

"Here I have come all the way in the rain to hear what you would say,
and you stand and glower and say nothing at all."

"Try it, Shenac," said Hamish, bringing a handful of rolls of wool from
his mother's wheel.

"She'll need to learn first," said Shenac Dhu.

But Shenac had tried Mary Matheson's wheel more than once; and besides,
as Mr Rugg had often said, and now triumphantly repeated, she had a
"faculty."  There really did seem nothing that she could not learn to do
more easily than other people.  Now the long thread was drawn out even
and fine as any that ever passed through the mother's hands on the
precious little wheel.  The mother examined and approved, Shenac Dhu
exclaimed, and the little lads laughed and clapped their hands.  As for
Shenac Bhan, she could hardly believe in her own good fortune.  She did
not seem to hear the talk or the laugh, but, with a face intent and
grave, walked up and down, drawing out the long, even threads, and then
letting them roll up smoothly on the spindle.

"Take it moderate, Miss Shenac," said the peddler, "take it moderate.
It don't pay to overdo even a good thing."

But Shenac was busy calculating how many days' work there might be in
the wool, and how long it would take her to finish it.

"The rainy days will not be lost now," she said to herself triumphantly.
"Of course I must stick to the hay; but mornings and evenings and rainy
days I can spin.  No fear for the lads' clothes now."

"Hamish," said Shenac Dhu, "I shall never see her without fancying she
has a wheel on her head."

Hamish laughed.  His pleasure in the pleasure of his sister was intense.

"I don't know what we can ever say to Christie for her kindness," he
said.

"We'll write a letter to her, Hamish, you and I together," said his
sister eagerly.  "I can't think how it all happened.  But I am so glad
and thankful; and I must tell Christie."

The next day was fair.  When Shenac went out with little Hugh to the
milking in the pasture, she thought she heard the pleasant sound of the
whetting of scythes nearer than the fields of Angus Dhu.  She could see
nothing, however, because of the mist that lay close over the low lands.
But when she went out after breakfast to spread the grass cut by Dan
during the rainy days, she found work going on that made Dan's efforts
seem like play.

"Is it a bee?" said Shenac to herself.

No, it was not a bee, Aleck Munroe said, but he and the other lads
thought there was as much hay down in their fields as could be well
cared for, and so they thought they would see what could be done in
their neighbour's.  It was likely to continue fine now, as the weather
had cleared at the change of the moon; and a few hours would help here,
without hindering there.

"Help!  Yes, indeed!" thought Shenac as she watched the swinging of the
scythes, and saw the broad swaths of grain that fell as they passed on.
Dan followed, but he made small show after the young giants that had
taken the work in hand; and in a little while he made a virtue of
necessity and exchanged the scythe for the spreading-pole, to help
Shenac and the little ones in the merry, healthful work.

After this there were no more rainy days while the hay-time lasted.
Shenac and Dan were not the first in all the concessions to finish the
getting in of the hay, but they were by no means the last.  It was all
got in in a good state, too; and the grain-harvest began cheerfully and
ended successfully.  Shenac took the lead in the cutting of the grain.

In those days, in that part of the country, there were none of those
wonderful machines which now begin to make farm-work light.  The horses
were used to draw the grain and hay to the barn or the stacks when it
was ready; but there were no patent rakes or mowing or reaping machines
for them to draw.  All the wheat, and a good deal of the other grain,
was cut down with the old-fashioned hook or sickle, the reapers stooping
low to their work.  It was tedious and exhausting labour, and slow, too.
Shenac's "faculty" and perfect health stood her in good stead at this
work as at other things.  She tired herself thoroughly every day, but
she was young and strong; and though the summer nights were short there
was no part of them lost to her, for she fell asleep the moment her head
touched the pillow.  Even thoughts of the weary and suffering Hamish did
not often disturb her rest.  She slept the dreamless sleep of perfect
health till the dawn awakened her, cheerful and ready for another day's
labour.

They had very little help for the harvest.  There was one moonlight bee.
They say the grain is more easily cut with the dew upon it; and
moonlight bees are common in Glengarry even now.  But Shenac and her
brothers knew nothing of this one till, on going out in the morning,
they found more than half of their wheat lying ready to be bound up in
sheaves.

The rest of the harvest was very successful.  Indeed, it was a
favourable harvest everywhere that year.  There was rejoicing through
all the township--through many town-ships; and even the most earthly and
churlish of the farmers assented with a good grace when a day of
thanksgiving was appointed, and kept it outwardly in appearance, if not
inwardly with the heart.

As for Shenac, it would be impossible to describe her triumph and
thankfulness when the last sheaf was safely gathered in.  For she was
truly thankful, though I am afraid her triumphant self-congratulation
went even beyond her thankfulness.  Her thankfulness was not displayed
in a way that made it apparent to others; but it filled her heart and
gave her courage to look forward.  It did more than this: it gave her a
self-reliance quite unusual--indeed not very desirable--in one so young;
and there was danger, all the greater because she was quite unconscious
of it, that it might degenerate into something different from an humble
yet earnest self-reliance.  But there was nothing of that as yet, and
all the little household rejoiced together.

The spinning too had prospered.  In the mornings and evenings, and on
rainy days, the wheel had been busy; and now the yarn, dyed and ready,
lay in the house of weaver McLean, waiting to be woven into heavy cloth
for the boys; and the flannel for shirts and gowns would not be long
behind.  So Shenac made a pause, and took time to breathe, as Hamish
said.

And, really, with a plentiful harvest gathered safely in, there seemed
little danger of want; and Shenac's thoughts were more hopeful than
anxious when she looked forward.  The mother was more cheerful, too,
than she had been since the father's death.  She was always cheerful
now, when matters went smoothly and regularly among them.  It was only
when vexations arose, when Dan was restless or inclined to be
rebellious, or when the children stood in need of anything which they
could not get, or when she fancied that the affairs of the farm were not
going on well, that she grieved over the past or fretted for the
home-coming of Allister.  The little ones went to school again after the
harvest--the little boys and Flora; and altogether matters seemed to
promise to move smoothly on, and so the mother was content.

There was one thing that troubled the mother and Shenac too.  The
harvest-work had been hard on Hamish, and in the haste and eagerness of
the busy time Shenac had not been so mindful of him as she might have
been, and he suffered for it afterwards; and it grieved them all that
his voice should be so seldom heard as it was among them, for Hamish
never complained.  The more he suffered, the more quiet he grew.  It was
not bodily pain alone with which he struggled on in silence.  It was
something harder to bear--a sense of helplessness and uselessness, a
fear of becoming a burden when there was so much to bear already.  And,
worse than even this, there was the knowledge that there lay no bright
future before him, as there might lie before the rest.  He must always
be a helpless cripple.  He could have no hope beyond the weary round of
suffering which fell to his lot day by day.  What the others did with a
will, with a sense of power and pleasure, was a weariness to him.  There
were times when he wished that death might come and end it all; but he
never spoke of himself, unless Shenac made him speak.  His fits of
depression did not occur often, and Shenac came at last to think it was
better to let them pass without notice; and, though her eye grew more
watchful and her voice more tender, she said nothing for a while, but
waited patiently for more cheerful days.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

I dislike to speak about the faults of Shenac.  It would be far
pleasanter to go on telling all that she did for her mother and brothers
and little Flora--how her courage never failed, and her patience and
temper very seldom; and how the neighbours looked on with wonder and
pleasure at all the young girl was able to accomplish by her sense and
energy, till they quite forgot that she was little more than a child--
not sixteen when her father died--and spoke of her as a woman of
prudence and a credit to her family.  She looked like a woman.  She was
tall and strong.  She seemed, indeed, to have the health and strength
which should have fallen to her twin-brother Hamish; and she was growing
to seem to all the neighbours much older than he.  I suppose this change
would have come in any circumstances, after a while, for girls of
seventeen are generally more mature than boys of the same age; but the
change was more decided in Shenac because of the care that had fallen on
her so early.  Still, they were alike.  They had the same golden-brown
hair, though the brother's was of a darker shade, the same blue eyes,
and frank, open brow.  But the eyes of Hamish had a weary look, and his
brow looked higher and broader because of the thin pale cheeks beneath
it; and while he grew more quiet and retiring every day, no one could
have been long in the house without seeing in many ways that Shenac was
the ruling spirit there.

It was right it should be so.  It could not have been otherwise, for her
mother was broken in health and spirits, and Allister was away.  Hamish
was not able to take the lead in the labour, because of his lameness and
his feeble health; and though he had great influence in the family
councils, it was exercised indirectly, by quiet, sensible words, and by
a silent good example to the rest.

As for Dan, his will was strong enough to command an army, and he had a
great deal of good sense hidden beneath a reckless manner; but he was
two years younger than his sister--quite too young and inexperienced,
even if he had been steady and industriously disposed, to take the lead.
So of course the leadership fell upon Shenac.

They all said, after a while--the neighbours, I mean--that it could not
have fallen into better hands; and, as far as the family affairs were
concerned, that was true.  But for Shenac herself it was not so well.
It is never well to take girls quickly out of their childhood, and it
was especially bad for her to have so much the guidance of these
affairs, for she naturally liked to lead--to have her own way; and,
without being at all conscious of it, there were times when she grew
sharp and arbitrary, expecting to be obeyed unquestioningly by them all.

She was always gentle with the mother, who sometimes was desponding and
irritable, and needed a great deal of patient attendance; but even with
the mother she liked to have her own way.  Generally, Shenac's way was
the best, to be sure; for the mother, weakened in mind and body, saw
difficulties in very trifling things, and fancied dangers and troubles
where the bright, cheerful spirit of her daughter saw none.  So, though
she yielded in word, she often in deed gave less heed to the mother's
wishes than she ought to have done, and she was in danger, through this,
of growing less lovable as the years went on.

But a sadder thing happened to Shenac than this.  In the eagerness with
which she devoted herself to her work she forgot higher duties.  For
there is a higher duty than that which a child owes to parents and
friends--the duty owed to God.  I do not mean that these are distinct
and separate, or that they naturally and necessarily interfere with each
other.  Quite the contrary.  It is only as our duty to our Father in
heaven is understood and acknowledged that any other duty can be well or
acceptably performed.  And so, in forgetting God, Shenac was in danger
of allowing her work to become a snare to her.

Humbly acknowledging God in all her ways, asking and expecting and
waiting for his blessing in all that she undertook, she would hardly
have grown unduly anxious or arbitrary or heedless of her mother's wish
and will.  Conscious of her own weakness, and leaning on eternal
strength, she would hardly have grown proud with success, or sinfully
impatient when her will was crossed.

But in those long, busy summer days, Shenac said to herself she had no
time to think of other things than the work which each day brought.
They had worship always, morning and evening, whatever the hurry might
be.  The Scriptures were read and a psalm was sung, and then the mother
or Hamish offered a few words of prayer.  They would as soon have
thought of going without their morning and evening meals as without
worship.  It would have been a godless and graceless house, indeed,
without that, in the opinion of those who had been accustomed to family
worship all their lives.

Shenac was not often consciously impatient of the time it took, and her
voice was clearest and sweetest always in their song of praise.  But too
often it was her voice only that rose to Heaven.  Her heart was full of
other things; her thoughts often wandered to the field or the dairy,
even when the words of prayer or praise were on her lips.  She lost the
habit of the few minutes' quiet reading of her Bible in the early
morning, and also before she went to bed; and her prayers were brief and
hurried, and sometimes they were forgotten altogether.  She and Hamish
had always been fond of reading, and though few new books found their
way among them, they had gone over and over the old ones, liking them
chiefly because of the long talks to which they gave rise between them.

Many of their favourite books were religious, and various were the
speculations as to doctrine and duty into which they used to fall.
There might have been some danger in this, had not a spirit of reverence
for God's authority been deep and strong within them.  It was to the
infallible standard of the inspired volume that all things were brought.
With what is written there all theories and opinions were compared, and
received or rejected according as they agreed with or differed from the
voice of inspiration.  I do not mean that they were always right in
their judgment, or that their speculations were not sometimes foolish
and vain.  But their spirit was right.  They sought to know the truth,
and, in a way, they helped each other to walk in it.

But all this seemed past now.  There was no time for reading or for
talking--at least Shenac had none.  All day she was too busy, and at
night she was too weary.  Even the long, quiet Sabbath-day was changed.
Not that there was work done on that day, either within or without the
house.  I daresay there were many in the township who did not keep the
law of the Sabbath rest in spirit; but there were none in those days who
did not keep it in letter, in appearance.  In the fields, which through
the week were the scenes of busy labour, on the Sabbath not a sound was
heard save in the pastures--the lowing of the cattle and the bleating of
the sheep.

Few people made the labour of the week an excuse for turning the Sabbath
into a day of rest for the body only.  The old hereditary respect for
God's day and house still prevailed among them, and the great, grey,
barn-like house of worship, which had been among the first built in the
settlement, was always filled to overflowing with a grave and reverent
congregation.

But among them, during all that long summer, Shenac was seldom seen.
Her mother went when it was not too warm to walk the long three miles
that lay between their house and the kirk, or when she got a seat in a
neighbour's waggon; and Hamish and Dan were seldom away.  But Shenac as
seldom went.

"What is the use of going?" she said, in answer to her mother's
expostulations, "when I fall asleep the moment the text is given out.
It's easy to say I should pay attention to the sermon.  The minister's
voice would put me to sleep if I were standing at the wheel.  Sometimes
it takes the sound of the water, and sometimes of the wind; but it's
hush-a-by that it says to me all the time.  And, mother, I think it's a
shame to sleep in the kirk, like old Donald or Elspat Smith.  Somebody
must stay at home, and it may as well be me."

I daresay it was not altogether the fault of the minister that Shenac
fell asleep, though his voice was a drowsy drone to many a one besides
her.  The week's activity was quite sufficient to account for her
drowsiness, to say nothing of the bright sunshine streaming in through
ten uncurtained windows, and the air growing heavy with the breathing of
a multitude.  Shenac tried stoutly, once and again; but it would not do.
The very earnestness with which she fixed her eyes on the kindly,
inanimate face of the minister hastened the slumber; and, touched by her
mother or Hamish, she would waken to see two or three pairs of laughing
eyes fastened upon her.  Indeed she did think it a shame; but it was a
hard struggle listening to words which bore little interest, scarcely a
meaning, to her.  So she stayed at home, and made the Sabbath-day a day
of rest literally; for as soon as the others were away, and her light
household tasks finished, she took her book and fell asleep, as surely,
and far more comfortably, than she did when she went to the kirk; so
that, as a day in which to grow wiser and better, the Sabbath was lost
to Shenac.

She was by no means satisfied with herself because of this, for in her
heart she did not believe her weariness was a sufficient excuse for
staying away from the kirk; so whenever there was a meeting of any sort
in the school-house, which happened once a month generally, Shenac was
sure to be there.  It was close by, and it was in the evening, and she
could take Flora and her little brothers, who could seldom go so far as
the kirk.

"Shenac," said her cousin one day, "why were you not at the kirk last
Sabbath?  Such a fine day as it was; and to think of your letting Hamish
go by himself!"

"He did not go by himself; Dan went with him, and you came home with
him.  And I did go to the kirk--at least I went to the school-house,
where old Mr Forbes preached," said Shenac.

"Toch!" exclaimed Shenac Dhu scornfully; "do you call _that_ going to
the kirk?  Yon poor old body--do you call _him_ a minister?  They say he
used to make shoes at home.  I'm amazed at you, Shenac! you that's held
up to the rest of us as a woman of sense!"

Shenac Bhan laughed.

"Oh, as to his making shoes, you mind Paul made tents; and his sermons
are just like other folk's sermons: I see no difference."

"The texts are like other folk's, you mean," said Shenac Dhu slyly.  "I
daresay you take a nap when he's preaching."

"No," said Shenac Bhan, not at all offended; "that's just the
difference.  I never sleep in the school-house.  I suppose because it's
cool, and I have a sleep before I go," she added candidly.  "But as for
the sermons, they are just like other folk's."

"But that is nonsense," said Shenac Dhu.  "He's just a common man, and
does not even preach in Gaelic."

"But our Shenac would say Paul did not do that, nor Dr Chalmers, nor
plenty more," said Hamish, laughing.

"Hamish," said Shenac Dhu severely, "don't encourage her in what is
wrong.  Elder McMillan says it's wrong to go, and so does my father.
They don't even sing the Psalms, they say."

"That's nonsense, at any rate," said Shenac Bhan.  "The very last
Sabbath they sang,--

  "`I to the hills will lift mine eyes.'

"You can tell the elder that, and your father, if it will be any
consolation to them."

"Our Shenac sang it," said little Hugh.  "John Keith wasn't there, and
the minister himself began the tune of Dundee.  You should have heard
him when he came to the high part."

"I've heard him," said Shenac Dhu; and she raised her voice in a shrill,
broken quaver, that made them all laugh, though Shenac Bhan was
indignant too, and bade her cousin mind about the bears that tore the
mocking children.

"But our Shenac sang it after, and me and little Flora," continued Hugh.
"And, Shenac, what was it that the minister said afterwards about the
new song?"

But Shenac would have no more said about it.  She cared very little for
Shenac Dhu's opinion, or for her father's either.  She went to the
school whenever the old man held a meeting there, and took the children
with her.  It was a great deal less trouble than taking them all so far
as to the kirk, she told her mother; and whatever the elder and Angus
Dhu might say, the old man's sermons were just like other folk's
sermons.

About this time there came a letter from Allister.  The tidings of his
father's death had reached him just as he was about to start for the
mining district with his cousin and others; he had entered into
engagements which made it necessary for him to go with them,--or he
thought so.  He said he would return home as soon as possible; but for
the sake of all there he must not come till he had at least got gold
enough to pay the debt, so that he might start fair.  He could not, at
so great a distance, advise his mother what to do; but he knew she had
kind friends and neighbours, who would not let things go wrong till he
came home, which would be at the earliest possible day.  In the
meantime, he sent some money--not much, but all he had--and he begged
his mother to keep her courage up, for the sake of the children with
her, and for his sake who was far away.

This letter had been so long in coming, that somehow they had fallen
into the way of thinking that there would be no letter, but that
Allister must be on his way; so, when Shenac got it, it was with many
doubts and fears that she carried it home to her mother.  She dreaded
the effect this disappointment might have on her in her enfeebled state,
and shrank in dismay from a renewal of the scenes that had followed her
father's death and the burning of the house.

But she need not have feared.  It was indeed a disappointment to the
mother that the coming home of her son must be delayed, and she grieved
for a day or two.  But everything went on just as usual, and gradually
she settled down contentedly to her spinning and knitting again; and you
may be sure that whatever troubles fell to the lot of Shenac, she did
not suffer her mother to be worried by them.

And Shenac had many anxieties about this time.  Of course she had none
peculiar to herself; that is, she had none which were not shared by
Hamish, and in a certain sense by Dan.  But Hamish would have been
content with moderate things.  Just to rub on as quietly and easily as
possible till Allister came home, was all he thought they should try to
do.  And as for Dan, the future and its troubles lay very lightly on
him.

But with Shenac it was different.  That the hay and grain were safely in
was by no means enough to satisfy her.  If Allister had been coming
soon, it might have been; but now there was the fall ploughing, and the
sowing of the wheat, and the flax must be broken and dressed, and the
winter's wood must be got up, and there were fifty other things that
ought to be done before the snow came.  There was far more to do than
could be done by herself, or she would not have fretted.  But when
Hamish told her to "take no thought for the morrow," and that she ought
to trust as well as work, she lost patience with him.  And when Dan
quoted Angus Dhu, and spoke vaguely of what must be done in the spring,
quite losing sight of what lay ready at his hand to do, she nearly lost
patience with him too.  Not quite, though.  It was a perilous experiment
to try on Dan--a boy who might be led, but who would not be driven; and
many a time Shenac wearied herself with efforts so to arrange matters
that what fell to Dan to do might seem to be his own proposal, and many
a time he was suffered to do things in his own way, though his way was
not always the best, because otherwise there was some danger that he
would not do them at all.

Not that Dan was a bad boy, or very wilful, considering all things.  But
he was approaching the age when boys are supposed to see very clearly
their masculine superiority; and to be directed by a woman how to do a
man's work was more than a man could stand.

If he could have been trusted, Shenac thought, she would gladly have
given up to him the guidance of affairs, and put herself at his disposal
to be directed.  Perhaps she was mistaken in this.  She enjoyed the
leadership.  She enjoyed encountering and conquering difficulties.  She
enjoyed astonishing (and, as she thought, disappointing) Angus Dhu; and
though she would have scorned the thought, she enjoyed the knowledge
that all the neighbours saw and wondered at, and gave her the credit of,
the successful summer's work.

But her being willing or unwilling made no difference.  Dan was not old
enough nor wise enough to be trusted with the management.  The burden of
care must fall on her, and the burden of labour too; and she set herself
to the task with more intentness than ever when the letter came saying
that Allister was not coming home.



CHAPTER NINE.

It was a bright day in the end of September.  Shenac had been busy at
the wheel all the morning, but the very last thread of their flannel was
spun now.  The wheel was put away, and Shenac stood before her mother,
dressed in her black gown made for mourning when her father died.  Her
mother looked surprised, for this gown was never worn except at church,
or when a visit was to be made.

"Mother," said Shenac, "I have made ready the children's supper, and
filled the sacks in case Dan should want to go to the mill, and I want
to go over to see if Shenac and Maggie can come some day to help me with
the flax."

The mother assented, well pleased, for it was a long time since Shenac
had gone to the house of Angus Dhu of her own will.

"And, mother, maybe I'll go with Shenac as far as The Eleventh.  It's a
long time since I have seen Mary Matheson, and I'll be home before
dark."

"Well, well, go surely, if you like," said her mother; "and you might
speak to McLean about the flannel, and bespeak McCallum the tailor to
come as soon as he can to make the lads' clothes; and you might ask
about the shoes."

"Yes, mother, I'll mind them all.  I'll just speak to Hamish first, and
then I'll away."

Hamish was in the garden digging and smoothing the ground where their
summer's potatoes had grown, because he had nothing else to do, he said,
and it would be so much done before the spring.  Shenac seated herself
on the fence, and began pulling, one by one, the brown oak leaves that
hung low over it.  There was no gate to the garden.  It was doubtful
whether a gate could have been made with sufficient strength, or
fastened with sufficient ingenuity, to prevent the incursions of the
pigs and calves, which, now that the fields were clear from grain, were
permitted to wander over them at their will.  So the garden was entered
by a sort of stile--a board was placed with one end on the ground, and
the other on the middle rail of the fence--and it was on this that
Shenac sat down.

"Hamish," she said after a little, "what do you think of my asking John
Firinn to plough the land for the wheat--and to sow it too, for that
matter?"

"I don't think you had better call him by _that_ name, if you want him
to do you a favour," said Hamish, laughing.  "But why ask John Firinn of
all the folk in the world?"

("Firinn" is the Gaelic name for "truth," and it was added to the name
of one of the many John McDonalds of the neighbourhood; not, I am sorry
to say, because he always spoke the truth, but because he did not.)

Shenac laughed.

"No; it's not likely.  But I'm doing it for him because his wife has
been sick all the summer, and has not a thread of her wool spun yet, and
I am going to change work with them."

"But, Shenac," said Hamish gravely, "does our mother know?  I am sure
she will think you have enough to do at home, without going to spin at
John Firinn's."

"I should not go there, of course; they must let me bring the wool home.
And there's no use in telling my mother till I see whether they'll
agree.  It would only vex her.  And, Hamish, it's all nonsense about my
having too much to do.  There's only the potatoes; and Hugh can bide at
home from the school to gather them and the turnips, and Dan will be as
well pleased if I leave them to him.  I am only afraid that he has been
fancying he is to plough, and he's not fit for it."

"No, he's not fit for it," said Hamish.  "But I don't like John Firinn.
Is there no one else?"

"No; for if we speak to the Camerons or Angus Dhu, it will just be the
same as saying we want them to make a bee.  I hate bees,--for us, I
mean.  It was well enough when they all thought it was just for the
summer, and that then Allister would be home.  But now we must do as
other folk do, and be independent.  So I must speak to John.  He's not
very trustworthy, I'm afraid; but that's maybe because few trust him.  I
don't think he'll wrong my mother, if he promises to do the land."

"Perhaps you are right, Shenac," said Hamish with a sigh.

"But, Hamish," said Shenac eagerly, "_you_ could not do this work, even
if you were well and strong."  She was not answering his words, but the
thoughts which she knew were in his heart.  "Come with me, Hamish.  It
will do you good, and it would be far better for you to make a bargain
with John Firinn than for me.  Shenac yonder is going.  Come with us,
Hamish."

"No," said Hamish.  "The children are at the school, and maybe Dan will
go to the mill; and my mother must not be left alone.  And you are the
one to make the bargain about the spinning.  I don't believe John will
be hard upon you; and if you are shamefaced, Shenac yonder will speak
for you."

But Shenac did not intend her cousin to know anything about the matter
till it should be settled, though she did not tell her brother so.  She
went away a little anxious and uncertain.  For though she had been the
main dependence all summer for the work both in the house and in the
field, she had had very little to do with other people; and her heart
failed her at the thought of speaking to any one about their affairs,
especially to John Firinn.  So it was with a slow step and a troubled
face that she took her way over the field to find her cousin.

She had been a little doubtful all day whether she should find Shenac at
home and at liberty to go with her, but she never thought of finding
Shenac's father there.  They were rolling--that is, clearing off--the
felled trees in Angus Dhu's farther field, she knew, and Shenac might be
there, and she thought that her father must be.  She had not met Angus
Dhu face to face fairly since that May-day by the creek; that is, she
had never seen him unless some one else was present, and the thought of
doing so was not at all pleasant to her.  So when, on turning the
corner, she saw his tall and slightly-bent figure moving towards her, in
her first surprise and dismay she had some thoughts of turning and
running away.  She did not, however, but came straight on up the path.

"I was not sure it was you, Shenac," was her uncle's greeting; "you are
seen here so rarely.  It must be something more than common that brings
you from home to-day, you have grown such a busy woman."

"I came for Cousin Shenac to go with me to Mary Matheson's, if she can
be spared.  Is she at home to-day?" said Shenac, with some hesitation,
for she would far rather have made her request to Shenac's mother.

"Oh yes, she's at home.  Go into the house.  I daresay her mother will
spare her."  And he repeated a Gaelic proverb, which being translated
into English would mean something like, "All work and no play makes Jack
a dull boy."  Shenac smiled to herself as she thought of her mother's
many messages and her dreaded mission to John Firinn.  It did not seem
much like play to her.

But burdens have a way of slipping easily from young shoulders, and the
two Shenacs went on their way cheerily enough, and I daresay a stranger
meeting them might have fancied that our Shenac was the lighter-hearted
of the two.  The cloud fell again, however, when they came to the turn
of the road that took them to Mary Matheson's.

"I have to go down to the McDonalds', Shenac.  Just go on, and I will
follow you in two or three minutes."

"To the McDonalds'!" repeated Shenac Dhu.  "Not to John Firinn's surely?
What in all the world can you have to do with him?  You had better take
me with you, Shenac.  They say John has a trick of forgetting things
sometimes.  You might need me for a witness."

Shenac Bhan laughed and shook her head.

"There's no need.  Go on to Mary's, and tell her I am coming.  I shall
not be long."

She wished heartily that Hamish had been with her, or that she could
have honestly said her mother had sent her; for it seemed to her that
she was taking too much upon her to be trying to make a bargain with a
man like John Firinn.  There was no help for it now, however, and she
knocked at the door, and then lifted the latch and went in with all the
courage she could summon.

She did not need her courage for a little time, however; but her tact
and skill in various matters--her "faculty," as Mr Rugg called it--
stood her in good stead for the next half-hour.

Seated on a low chair, looking ill and harassed, was poor Mrs McDonald,
with a little wailing baby on her knee, and her other little ones
clustering round her, while her husband, the formidable John himself,
was doing his best to prepare dinner for all of them.  It was long past
dinner-time, and it promised to be longer still before these little
hungry mouths would be stopped by the food their father was attempting
to prepare.  For he was unaccustomed and inexpert, and it must have
added greatly to the sufferings of his wife to see his blundering
movements, undoing with one hand what he did with the other, and using
his great strength where only a little skill was needed.  Shenac
hesitated a moment, and then advanced to Mrs McDonald.

"Are you no better?  Can I do anything for you?--Let me do that," she
added hastily, as she saw the success of the dinner put in jeopardy by
an awkward movement of the incompetent cook.  In another moment Shenac's
black dress was pinned up, and soon the dinner was on the table, and the
father and children were seated at it.  To her husband's entreaty that
she would try and eat something, the poor woman did not yield.  She was
flushed and feverish, and evidently in great pain.

"I am afraid you are in pain," said Shenac, as she turned to her,
offering to take the baby.

"Yes; I let my sister go home too soon, and what with one thing and
another, I am nearly as bad as ever again."  And she pressed her hand on
her breast as she spoke.

A few more words told the state of the case, and in a little time the
pain was relieved by a warm application, and the weary woman lay down to
rest.  Then there was some porridge made for the baby.  Unsuitable food
it seemed, but the little creature ate it hungrily, and was soon asleep.
Then the kettle was boiled, and the poor woman surprised herself and
delighted Shenac by drinking a cup of tea and eating a bit of toasted
bread with relish.  Then her hands and face were bathed, and her cap
straightened, and she declared herself to be much better, as indeed it
was easy to see she was.  Then Shenac cleared the dinner-things away and
swept the hearth, the husband and wife looking on.

When all this was done, Shenac did not think it needed so much courage
to make her proposal about the change of work.  Mrs McDonald looked
anxiously at her husband, who had listened without speaking.

"I think I could spin it to please you," said Shenac.  "My mother is
pleased with ours, though she did not like the big wheel at first; and
you can speak to weaver McLean.  I don't think he has had much trouble
with the weaving.  I would do my best."

"Could you come here and do it?" asked John.  "Because, if you could, it
would be worth while doing the ploughing just to see you round, let
alone the wool."

Shenac shook her head.  She was quite too much in earnest to notice the
implied compliment.

"No; that would be impossible.  I could not be away from home.  My
mother could not spare me.  She is not so strong as she used to be.  But
I would soon do it at home.  Our work is mostly over now.  Our land does
much the best with the fall wheat, and the wheat is our main
dependence."

"I'm rather behind with my own work," began John; "and I heard something
said about the Camerons doing your field, with some help."

"Oh, a bee," said Shenac.  "But that is just what I will not have.  I
don't want to seem ungrateful.  All the neighbours have been very kind,"
she added humbly.  "But now that Allister is not coming home, we must
carry on the place by ourselves, or give it up.  We must not be
expecting too much from our neighbours, or they will tire of us.  And I
don't want a bee; though everybody has been very kind to us in our
trouble."

She was getting anxious and excited.

"Bees are well enough in their way," said Mrs McDonald.  "And some of
the neighbours were saying they would gather one to help me with the
wool.  But, John, man, if you could do this for the widow Macivor, I
would far rather let Shenac do the wool."

"I would do it well," said Shenac.  "I would begin to-morrow."

"But if you were to do the wool, and then something was to happen that I
could not plough or sow the field, what then?" asked John gravely.

Shenac looked at him, but said nothing.

"What could happen, John, man?" said his wife.

"We could have it written down, however," said John, "and that would
keep us to our bargain.  Should we have it written down, Shenac?"

"If you like," said Shenac gravely; "but there is no need.  I would
begin the wool to-morrow, and do it as soon as I could."

"Oh ay, oh ay! but you might need the bit of writing to bind _me_,
Shenac, my wise woman.  I might slip out of it when the wool was done."

"John, man!" remonstrated his wife.

"You would never do that," said Shenac quietly.  "If you wished to do
it, a paper would not hold you to it.  I don't see the use of a writing;
but if you want one I don't care, of course."

But neither did John care, and so they made the bargain.  John was to
charge the widow a certain sum for the work to be done, and Shenac was
to be allowed the usual price for a day's work of spinning; and it was
thought that when the wool was spun and the field ploughed and sowed,
they would be about even.  There might be a little due on one side or
the other, but it would not be much.

"Well then, it's all settled," said Shenac, and she did not attempt to
conceal her satisfaction.

It came into John's mind that being settled was one thing and being done
was quite another; but he did not say so.  He said to himself, as he saw
Shenac busy about his wife and child,--

"If there is a way to put that wheat in better than wheat was ever put
in before, I shall find it out and do it."

He said the same to his wife, as together they watched her running down
the road to meet Shenac Dhu.

"What in the world kept you so long?" asked her cousin.  "Have you been
hearkening to one of John Firinn's stories?  Better not tell it again.
What made you bide so long?"

"Do you know how ill the wife has been?" asked Shenac Bhan.  Then she
told how she found the poor woman suffering, and about the children and
their dinner, and so was spared the necessity of telling what her
business with John had been.

Greatly to the surprise of Angus Dhu and all the neighbours, in due time
John McDonald brought his team into the widow Macivor's field.  Many
were the prophecies brought by Dan to Hamish and Shenac as to the little
likelihood there was of his doing the work to the satisfaction of all
concerned.

"It will serve you right too, Shenac," said the indignant Dan.  "To
think of a girl like you fancying you could make a bargain with a man
like John Firinn!"

"Is it Angus Dhu that is concerned, and the Camerons?" asked Shenac.
"It's a pity they shouldn't be satisfied.  But if the work is done to
please the mother and Hamish and me, they'll need to content themselves,
I doubt, Dannie, my lad."

"Johnnie Cameron said they were just going to call a bee together and do
it up in a day or two; and then it would have been done right, and you
would have been saved three weeks' spinning besides."

"We're obliged to the Camerons all the same," said Shenac a little
sharply.  "But if it had needed six weeks' spinning instead of three, it
would please me better to do it than to trouble the Camerons or anybody.
Why should we need help more than other folk?" she added impatiently.
"I'm ashamed of you, Dan, with your bees."

"Well, I'll tell them what you say, and you'll not be troubled with
their offers again, I can tell you," said Dan sulkily.

"You'll do nothing of the kind," said Hamish.  "Nonsense, Dan, my lad;
Shenac is right, and she's wrong too.  She's right in thinking the less
help we need the better; but she should not speak as though she did not
thank the neighbours for their wishing to help us."

"Oh, I'm very thankful," said Shenac, dropping a mocking courtesy to
Dan.  "But I'm not half so thankful for their help as I am for the
chance to spin John Firinn's wool.  And Dan can tell the Camerons what
he likes.  I'm not caring; only don't let us hear any more of their bees
and their prophecies."

Lightly as Shenac spoke of the spinning of the wool, it was no light
work to do.  For her mother was not pleased that she had undertaken it
without her knowledge and consent, and fretted, and cast difficulties in
the way, till Shenac, more harassed and unhappy than she had ever been
before, offered to break the bargain and send back the wool.  Her mother
did not insist on this, however, and Shenac span on in the midst of her
murmurings.  Then Hamish took the mother away to visit her sister in the
next township, and during their absence Shenac kept little Flora away
from the school to do such little things as she could do about the
house, and finished the wool by doing six days' work in three, and then
confessed to Dan in confidence, that she was as tired as she ever wished
to be.

She need not have hurried so much, for mother came home quite reconciled
to the spinning--indeed a little proud of all that had been said in
Shenac's praise when the matter was laid before the friends they had
been to see.  So she said, as Mrs McDonald was far from well yet, she
would dye her worsted for her; and Shenac was glad to rest herself with
the pleasant three miles' walk to give the message and get directions.

Shenac's part of the bargain was fulfilled in spirit and letter; and
certainly nothing less could be said as to the part of John Firinn.
Even Angus Dhu and John Cameron, who kept sharp eyes on him during his
work, had no fault to find with the way in which it was done.  It was
done well and in the right time, and it was with satisfaction quite
inexpressible that Shenac looked over the smooth field and listened to
her mother's congratulations that this was one good job well and timely
done.  Ever after that she was John McDonald's fast friend, and the
friend of his sickly wife.  No one ever ventured to speak a
disrespectful word of John before her; and the successful sowing of the
wheat-field was by no means the last piece of work he did, and did well,
for the widow and her children.



CHAPTER TEN.

Winter set in early that year, but not too early for Shenac and her
brothers.  The winter preparations had all been made before the
delightful stormy morning came, when Hugh and Colin and little Flora
chased one another round and round in the door-yard, making many paths
in the new-fallen snow.  The house had been banked up with earth, and
every crack and crevice in the roof and walls closed.  The garden had
been dug and smoothed as if the seeds were to be sown the next day.  The
barn and stable were in perfect order.  The arrangements for tying up
oxen and cows, which are always sure to get out of order in summer, had
been made anew, and the farming-tools gathered safely under cover.

These may seem little things; but the comfort of many a household has
been interfered with because such little things have been neglected.
What may be done at any time is very often left till the right time is
past, and disorder and discomfort are sure to follow.  I daresay the
early snow fell that year on many a plough left in the furrow, and on
many a hoe and spade left in garden or yard.  But all was as it should
be at Mrs Macivor's.

In summer, when a long day's work in the field was the order of things,
when those who were strong and able were always busy, it seemed to
Hamish that he was of little use.  This was a mistake of his.  He was of
great use in many ways, even when he went to the field late and left it
early; for though Shenac took the lead in work and planning, she was
never sure that her plans were wise, or even practicable, till she had
talked them over with Hamish.  She would have lost patience with Dan and
the rest, and with her mother even, if she had not had Hamish to "empty
her heart to."  But even Shenac, though she loved her brother dearly,
and valued his counsels and sympathy as something which she could not
have lived and laboured without--even she did not realise how much of
their comfort depended on the work of his weak hands.  It was Hamish who
banked the house and made the garden; it was he who drove nails and
filled cracks, who gathered up tools and preserved seeds, quietly doing
what others did not do and remembering what others forgot.  It was
Hamish who cared for the creatures about the place; it was he who made
and mended and kept in order many things which it would have cost money
to get or much inconvenience to go without.  So it may be said that it
was owing to Hamish that the early snow did not find them unprepared.

A grave matter was under discussion within-doors that morning while
little Flora and her brothers were chasing each other through the snow.
It was whether Dan was to go to the school that winter.  It was seldom
that any but young children could go to school in the summer-time, the
help of the elder ones being needed in the field as soon as they were
old enough to help.  But in the winter few young people thought
themselves too old to go to school while the teacher could carry them
on.  Hamish and Shenac had gone up to the time of their father's death.
But as for Dan, he thought himself old enough now to have done with
school.  He had never been, in country phrase, "a good scholar?"--that
is, he had never taken kindly to his books--a circumstance which seemed
almost like disgrace in the eyes of Shenac; and she was very desirous
that he should get the good of this winter, especially as they were to
have a new teacher, whose fame had preceded him.  Dan was taking it for
granted that he was the mainstay at home, and that for him school was
out of the question.  But the rest thought differently; and it was
decided, much to his discontent, that when the winter's wood was
brought, to school he must go.

Great was his disgust--so great that he began to talk about going to the
woods with the lumberers; at which Shenac laughed, but Hamish looked
grave, and bade him think twice before he gave his mother so sore a
heart as such a word as that would do.  Dan did think twice, and said
nothing more about the woods.  His going to school, however, did not do
him much good in the way of learning, but it did in the way of
discipline.  At any rate, it left him less idle time than he would
otherwise have had; and though his boyish mischief vexed Shenac often,
things might have been worse with Dan, as Hamish said, and little harm
was done.

Winter is a pleasant time in a country farm-house.  In our country the
summers are so short, and so much work must be crowded into them, that
there is little time for any enjoyment, save that of doing well what is
to be done, and watching the successful issue.  But in winter there is
leisure--leisure for enjoyment of various kinds, visiting, sewing,
singing; and it is generally made the most of.

As for Shenac, the feeling that all the summer's work was successfully
ended, that the farm-products were safely housed beyond loss, gave her a
sense of being at leisure, though her hands were full of work, and would
be for a long time yet.  The fulled cloth and the flannel came home.
The tailor came for a week to make the lads' clothes, and she helped him
with them; and tailor McCallum, though as a general thing rather
contemptuous of woman's help, acknowledged that she helped him to
purpose.

A great deal may be learned by one who begins by thinking nothing too
difficult to learn; and Shenac's stitching and button-holes were
something to wonder at before the tailor's visit was over.

Then came Katie Matheson to help with the new gowns.  Shenac felt
herself quite equal to these, but, as Shenac Dhu insisted, "Katie had
been at M--- within the year, and knew the fashions;" so Katie came for
a day or two.  Of this wish to follow the fashion, the mother was
inclined to speak severely; for what had young folk with their bread to
win to do with the fashions of the idle people of the world?  But even
the mother did not object to following them when she found the wide,
useless sleeves, so much sought after by foolish young girls, giving
place to the small coat-sleeves which had been considered the thing in
her own and her mother's youth.  They were, as she said, far more
sensible-like, and a saving besides.  The additional width which Katie
quietly appropriated to Shenac's skirt would have been declared a piece
of sinful extravagance, if the mother had known of it before Shenac was
turning round, from one to another, to be admired with the new dress on.
She did cry out at the length.  Why the stocking could only just be
seen above the shoe tied round the slender ankle!  There was surely no
call to waste good cloth by making the skirt so long.  "Never mind,"
said Katie: "Flora's should be all the shorter;" and by that means
little Flora was in the fashion too.

I daresay Shenac's pleasure in her new dress might have awakened
amusement, perhaps contempt, among young people to whom new dresses are
not so rare a luxury.  But never a young belle of them all could have
the same right to take pleasure and pride in silk or satin as Shenac had
to be proud of her simple shepherd's plaid.  She had shorn the wool, and
spun and dyed it with her own hands.  She had made it too, with Katie's
help; and never was pleasure more innocent or more unmixed than hers, as
she stood challenging admiration for it from them all.

Indeed, both the dress and the wearer might have successfully challenged
admiration from a larger and less interested circle than that--at least,
so thought the new master, who came in with Hamish while the affair was
in progress.  He had seen prettier faces, and nicer dresses too, it is
to be supposed; but he had certainly never seen anything prettier or
nicer than Shenac's innocent pride and delight in her own handiwork.

Shenac Dhu gave the whole a finishing touch as she drew round her
cousin's not very slender waist a black band fastened with a silver
clasp--an heirloom in the family since the time that the Macivors used
to wear the Highland garb among their native hills.

"Now walk away and let us see you," said she, giving her a gentle push.

Shenac minced and swung her skirts as she moved, as little children do
when they are playing "fine ladies."  Even her mother could not help
laughing, it was so unlike the busy, anxious Shenac of the last few
months.

"Is she not a vain creature?" said Shenac Dhu.  "No wonder that you look
at her that way, Hamish, lad."

The eyes of Hamish shone with pride and pleasure as they followed his
sister.

"Next year I'll weave it myself," said Shenac, coming back again.  "You
need not laugh, Shenac Dhu.  You'll see."

"Yes, I daresay.  And where will you get your loom?"  And Shenac Dhu put
up both hands and made-believe to cut her hair.  Shenac Bhan shook her
head at her.

"I can learn to weave; you'll see.  Anybody can learn anything if they
try," said Shenac.

"Except the binomial theorem," said Hamish, laughing.

His sister shook her head at him too.  Charmed with the "new kind of
arithmetic" which Mr Rugg had brought, yet not enjoying any pleasure to
the full unless his sister enjoyed it with him, Hamish had tried to
beguile her into giving her spare hours to the study.  But Shenac's mind
was occupied with other things, and, rather scornful of labour which
seemed to come to nothing, she had given little heed to it.

"I could learn that too, but what would be the good of it?" asked
Shenac.

"Ask the master," said Hamish.

"Well?" said Shenac, turning to Mr Stewart.

"Do you mean what is the good of algebra, or what would be the good of
it to you?" asked Mr Stewart.

"What would be the good of it to me?  I can never have any use for the
like of that."

"The discipline of learning it might be good for you," said Mr Stewart.
"I once heard a lady say that her knowledge of Euclid had helped her to
cut and make her children's clothes."

Shenac laughed.

"I daresay Katie here could have taught her more about it with less
trouble."

"I daresay you are right," said the master.  "And the discipline of the
wheel and the loom, and of household care, may be far better than the
discipline of study to prepare you for life and what it may bring you.
I am sure this gown, for instance," he added, laying his finger on the
sleeve, "has been worth far more to you already than the money it would
bring.  I mean the patience and energy expended on it will be of far
more value to you; for you know these good gifts, well bestowed, leave
the bestower all the richer for the giving."

"I don't know how that may be," said Shenac, "but I know I would rather
have this gown of my own making than the prettiest one that Katie has
made for twelve months."

I do not know how I came to speak of the winter as a season of leisure
in connection with Shenac, for this winter was a very busy time with
her.  True, her work did not press upon her, so as to make her anxious
or impatient, as it sometimes used to do in summer; but she was never
idle.  There were sewing and housework and a little wool-spinning, and
much knitting of stockings and mittens for them all.  The knitting was
evening work, and, when Hamish was not reading aloud, Shenac's hands and
eyes were busy with different matters.  She read while she knitted, and
enjoyed it greatly, much to her own surprise, for, as she told Hamish,
she thought she had given up caring about anything but to work and to
get on.

They had more books than usual this winter, and more help to understand
them, so that instead of groping on alone, sometimes right and sometimes
wrong, Hamish made great progress; and wherever Hamish was, Shenac was
not far away.  It was a very quiet winter in one way--there was not much
visiting here and there.  Hamish was not fit for that.  Shenac went
without him sometimes now.  She was young, and her mind being at ease,
she took pleasure in the simple, innocent merry-makings of the place.
She was content to leave Hamish when she did not have to leave him
alone, which rarely happened now.  The master lived in the house of
Angus Dhu, but it seemed that the humbler home of the widow and the
company of Hamish suited him best, for scarcely two evenings passed
without finding him there; and Shenac could go with a good heart,
knowing that her brother was busy and happy at home.

Afterwards, when changes came, and new anxieties and cares pressed upon
her, Shenac used to look back on this winter as the happiest time of her
life.  It was not merely that the summer's work had been successful, but
that the summer's success seemed to make all their future secure.  There
was no doubt now about their being able to keep together and carry on
the farm.  That was settled.  She was at rest--they were all at rest--
about that.  Their future did not depend now upon Allister's uncertain
coming home.  It would not be true to say she saw no difficulties in the
way; but she saw none to daunt her.  Even Dan seemed to have come to
himself.  He seemed to have forgotten his self-assertion--his
"contrariness," as Shenac called it--and was a boy again, noisy and full
of fun, but gentle and helpful too.  The little ones were well and
happy, and getting on well in school, as all the Macivors were bound to
do.  The mother was comparatively well and cheerful.  Her monotonous
flax-spinning filled up the quiet, uneventful days, and, untroubled by
out-door anxieties, she was content.

But, in looking back over this happy time, it was to Hamish that
Shenac's thoughts most naturally turned, for it was the happiness of her
twin-brother, more than all the rest put together, that made the
happiness of Shenac.  And Hamish was happier, more like himself, than
ever he had been since their troubles began.  Not so merry, perhaps, as
the Hamish of the former days; but he was happy, that was sure.  He was
far from well, and he sometimes suffered a good deal; but his illness
was not of a kind to alarm them for his life, and unless he had been
exposed in some way, or a sudden change of the weather brought on his
old rheumatic pains, he was, on the whole, comfortable in health.  But
whether he suffered or not, he was happy, that was easily seen.  There
was no sitting silent through the long gloamings now, no weary drooping
of his head upon his hands, no wearier struggle to look up and join in
the household talk of the rest.  There were no heart-sick broodings over
his own helplessness, no murmurings as to the burden he might yet
become.  He did not often speak of his happiness in words, just as he
had seldom spoken of his troubles; but every tone of his gentle voice
and every glance of his loving eye spoke to the heart of his sister,
filling it with content for his sake.

What was the cause of the change? what was the secret of her brother's
peace?  Shenac wondered and wondered.  She knew it was through his
friend, Mr Stewart, that her brother's life seemed changed; but,
knowing this, she wondered none the less.  What was his secret power?
What could Hamish see in that plain, dark man, so grave and quiet, so
much older than he?

True, they had the common tie of a love of knowledge, and pored together
over lines and figures and strange books as though they would never grow
weary of it all.  It was true that, more than any one had ever done
before, the master had opened new paths of knowledge to the eager lad--
that by a few quiet words he put more life and heart into a subject than
others could do by hours and hours of talk.  But all these things Shenac
shared and enjoyed without being able to understand how, through the
master, a new and peaceful influence seemed to have fallen on the life
of Hamish.

She did not grudge it to him.  She was not jealous of the new interest
that had come to brighten her brother's life--at least at this time she
was not.  Afterwards, when new cares and vexations pressed upon her, she
vexed herself with the thought that something had come between her
brother and herself which made her troubles not so much his as they used
to be, and she blamed this new friendship for the difference.  But no
such thoughts vexed these first pleasant months.

Hamish was indeed changed.  Unrealised at first by himself, the most
wonderful change that can come between the cradle and the grave had
happened to him.  He had found a secret spring of peace, hidden as yet
from his sister's eyes.  He had obtained a staff to lean on, which made
his weakness stronger than her strength; and this had come to him
through the master.  There was a bond between the friends, stronger,
sweeter, and more enduring than even that which united the twin brother
and sister--the BOND OF BROTHERHOOD IN CHRIST. On Norman Stewart had
been conferred the highest of all honours; to him had been given the
chief of all happiness.  Through _his_ voice the voice of Jesus had
spoken peace to a troubled soul.  To him it had been given so to hold
forth the word of life that to a soul sitting in darkness a great light
sprang up.

I cannot tell you how it came about, except that the heart of the master
being full of love to Christ, it could not but overflow in loving words
from his lips.  Attracted first to Hamish by the patience and gentleness
with which he suffered, he could not do otherwise than seek to lead him
to the Great Healer; and his touch was life.  Then all the shadows that
had darkened the past and the future to the lame boy fled away.
Gradually all the untoward circumstances of his life seemed to adjust
themselves anew.  His lameness, his suffering, his helplessness were no
longer parts of a mystery, darkening all the future to him, but parts of
a plan through which something better than a name and a place in the
world might be obtained.  Little by little he came to know himself to be
one of God's favoured ones; and then he would not have turned his hand
to win the lot that all his life had seemed the most desirable to him.
Before his friend he saw such a life--a life of labour for the highest
of all ends.  Before himself he saw a life of suffering, a narrow sphere
of action, helplessness, dependence; but he no longer murmured.  He was
coming to know, through the new life given him, how that "to do God's
will is sweet, and to bear God's will is sweet--the one as sweet as the
other, to those to whom he reveals himself;" and to have learned this is
to rejoice for evermore.

The master's term of office came to an end, and the friends were to
part.  It was June by this time; and when he had bidden all the rest
goodbye, Mr Stewart lingered still with Hamish at the gate.  Hamish had
said something about meeting again, and the master answered,--

"Yes, surely we shall meet again--if not here, yonder;" and he pointed
upward.  "We shall be true friends there, Hamish, bhodach; be sure of
that."

Tears that were not all sorrowful stood on the cheeks of Hamish, and he
laid his face down on the master's shoulder without speaking.

"Much may lie between us and that time," continued the master--"much to
do, and, it may be, much to suffer; but it is sure to come."

"For me, too," murmured Hamish.  "They also serve who only wait."

"Yes," said the master; "they who wait are blessed."

"And I shall thank God all my life that he sent you here to me," said
Hamish.

"And I too," said the master.  "It seemed to me an untoward chance
indeed that turned me aside from the path I had chosen and sent me here,
and the good Father has put my doubts and fears to shame, in that he has
given me you, and, through you, others, to be stars in my crown of
rejoicing against that day.  God bless you!  Farewell."

"God bless you, and farewell," echoed Hamish.

So Mr Stewart went away, and Hamish watched till he was out of sight,
and still stood long after that, till Shenac came to chide him for
lingering out in the damp, and drew him in.  She did not speak to him.
There were tears on his cheek, she thought, and her own voice failed
her.  But when they came to the light the tears were gone, but the look
of peace that had rested on his face all these months rested on it
still.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

The happy winter drew to an end, and spring came with some pleasures and
many cares.  I am not going to tell all about what was done this spring
and summer; it would take too long.  Shenac and her brother had not the
same eagerness and excitement in looking forward to the summer's work
that they had had the spring before; but they had some experience, and
were not afraid of failure.  The spring work was well done, and with
comparatively little help.  The garden was made, and the first crop of
weeds disposed of from some of the beds; and Shenac was beginning to
look forward to the little pause in outdoor work that was to give her
time for the wool again, when something happened.  It was something
which Shenac declared delighted her more than anything that had happened
for a long time; and yet it filled her with dismay.  An uncle, a brother
of their mother, who resided in the neighbourhood of the C--- Springs,
celebrated for their beneficial effects on persons troubled with
rheumatic complaints, sent for Hamish to pass the rest of the summer at
his house.  The invitation was urgent.  Hamish would be sure to get much
benefit from the use of the baths, and would return home before winter,
a new man.

Hamish alone hesitated; all the rest declared that he must go, and none
more decidedly than Shenac.  In the first delighted moment, she thought
only of the good that Hamish was to get, and not at all of how they were
to get on without him.  She did not draw back when she thought of it,
but worked night and day to get his things ready before the appointed
time.

I do not know whether the union between twins is more tender and
intimate than that between other brothers and sisters, but when Hamish
went away it seemed to Shenac that half her heart had gone with him.
The house seemed desolate, the garden and fields forsaken.  Her longing
for a sight of his face was unspeakable.

All missed him.  A strange silence seemed to fall upon the household.
They had hardly missed the master, in the bustle that had preceded the
going away of Hamish; but now they missed them both.  The quiet grew
irksome to Dan, and he used in the evenings to go elsewhere--to Angus
Dhu's or the Camerons'--thus leaving it all the quieter for the rest.
The mother fretted a little for the lame boy, till a letter came telling
that he had arrived safe and well, and not very tired; and then she was
content.

As for Shenac, she betook herself with more energy than ever to her
work.  She did not leave herself time to be lonely.  It was just the
first moment of coming into the house and the sitting down at meals that
she found unbearable.  For the first few days her appetite quite failed
her--a thing that had never happened within her memory before.  But try
as she might, the food seemed to choke her.  There was nothing for it
but to work, within doors or without, till she was too weary to stand,
and then go to bed.

And, indeed, there was plenty to do.  Not too much, however, Shenac
thought--though having the share of Hamish added to her own made a great
difference.  But she would not have minded the work if only Dan had been
reasonable.  She had said to herself often, before Hamish went away,
that she would be ten times more patient and watchful over herself than
ever she had been before, and that Dan should have no excuse from her
for being wilful and idle.  It had come into her mind of late that Angus
Dhu had not been far wrong when he said Dan was a wild lad, and she had
said as much to Hamish.  But Hamish had warned her from meddling with
Dan.

"You must trust him, and show that you trust him, Shenac, if you would
get any good out of him.  He is just at the age to be uneasy, and to
have plans and ways of his own, having no one to guide him.  We must
have patience with Dan a while."

"If patience would do it," said Shenac sadly.

But she made up her mind that, come what might, she would watch her
words and her actions too with double care till Hamish came home again.
She was very patient with Dan, or she meant to be so; but she had a
great many things pressing on her at this time, and it vexed her beyond
measure when he, through carelessness or indifference to her wishes, let
things intrusted to him go wrong.  She had self-command enough almost
always to refrain from speaking while she was angry, but she could not
help her vexed looks; and the manner in which she strove to mend
matters, by doing with her own hands what he had done imperfectly or
neglected altogether, angered Dan far more than words could have done.

They missed the peace-maker.  Oh, how Shenac missed him in all things
where Dan was concerned!  She had not realised before how great had been
the influence of Hamish over his brother, or, indeed, over them all.  A
laughing remark from Hamish would do more to put Dan right than any
amount of angry expostulation or silent forbearance from her.  Oh, how
she missed him!  How were they to get through harvest-time without him?

"Mother," said Dan, as he came in to his dinner one day, "have you any
message to The Sixteenth?  I am going over to McLay's raising
to-morrow."

"But, Dan, my lad, the barley is losing; and, for all that you could do
at the putting up of the barn, it hardly seems worth your while to go so
far," said his mother.

Shenac had not come in yet, but Shenac Dhu, who had come over on a
message, was there.

"Oh, I have settled that, mother.  The Camerons and Sandy McMillan are
coming here in the morning.  The barley will be all down by dinner-time,
and they'll take their dinner here, and we'll go up together."

"But, Dan, lad, they have barley of their own.  What will Shenac say?
Have you spoken to your sister about it?" asked his mother anxiously.

"Oh, what about Shenac?" said Dan impatiently.  "They will be glad to
come.  What's a short forenoon to them?  And I believe Shenac hates the
sight of one and all.  What's the use of speaking to her?"

"Did you tell them that when you asked them?" said Shenac Dhu dryly.

"I haven't asked them yet," said Dan.  "But what would they care for a
girl like Shenac, if I were to tell?"

"Try and see," said Shenac Dhu.  "You're a wise lad, Dan, about some
things.  Do you think it's to oblige you that Sandy McMillan is hanging
about here and bothering folk with his bees and his bees?  Why, he would
go fifty miles and back again, any day of his life, for one glance from
your sister's eye.  Don't fancy that folk are caring for _you_, lad."

"Shenac Dhu, my dear," said her aunt in a tone of vexation, "don't say
such foolish things, and put nonsense into the head of a child like our
Shenac."

"Well, I won't, aunt; indeed I dare not," said Shenac Dhu, laughing, as
at that moment Shenac Bhan came in.

"Shenac, what kept you?" said her mother fretfully.  "Your dinner is
cold.  See, Dan has finished his."

"I could not help it, mother," said Shenac, sitting down.  "It was that
Sandy McMillan that hindered me.  He offered to come and help us with
the barley."

"And what did you say to him?" asked Shenac Dhu demurely.

"Oh, I thanked him kindly," said Shenac, with a shrug of her shoulders.

"I must see him.  Where is he, Shenac?" said Dan.  "He must come
to-morrow, and the Camerons, and then we'll go to the raising together.
Is he coming to-morrow?"

"No," said Shenac sharply; "I told him their own barley was as like to
suffer for the want of cutting as ours.  When we want him we'll send for
him."

"But you did not anger him, Shenac, surely?" said her mother.

"No; I don't think it.  I'm not caring much whether I did or not," said
Shenac.

"Anger him!" cried Dan.  "You may be sure she did.  She's as grand as if
she were the first lady in the country."

This was greeted by a burst of merry laughter from the two Shenacs.
Even the mother laughed a little, it was so absurd a charge to bring
against Shenac.  Dan looked sheepishly from one to the other.

"Well, it's not me that says it," said Dan angrily; "plenty folk think
that of our Shenac.--And you had no business to tell him not to come,
when I had spoken to him."

"What will Sandy care for a girl like Shenac?" asked his cousin
mockingly.

"Well, _I_ care," persisted Dan.  "She's always interfering and having
her own way about things--and--"

"Whisht, Dan, lad," pleaded the mother.

"I didn't know that you had spoken to Sandy--not that it would have made
any difference, however," added Shenac candidly.

"And, Dan, you don't suppose any one will care for what a girl like
Shenac Bhan may say.  He'll come all the same to please you," said
Cousin Shenac.

"Whether he comes or not, I'm going to McLay's raising," said Dan
angrily.  "Shenac's not _my_ mistress, yet a while."

"Whisht, Dan; let's have no quarrelling," pleaded the mother.--"Why do
you vex him?" she continued, as Dan rushed out of the room.

"I did not mean to vex him, mother," said Shenac gently.

This was only one of many vexatious discussions that had troubled their
peace during the summer.  Sometimes Shenac's conscience acquitted her of
all blame; but, whether it did or not, she always felt that if Hamish
had been at home all this might have been prevented.  She did not know
how to help it.  Sometimes her mother blamed her more than was quite
fair for Dan's fits of wilfulness and idleness, and she longed for
Hamish to be at home again.

Dan went to the raising, and, I daresay, was none the better for the
companionship of the offended Sandy.  Shenac stayed at home and worked
at the barley till it grew dark.  She even did something at it when the
moon rose, after her mother had gone to bed; but she herself was in bed
and asleep before Dan came, so there was nothing more said at that time.

The harvest dragged a little, but they got through with it in a
reasonable time.  There were more wet weather and more anxiety all
through the season than there had been last year; but, on the whole,
they had reason to be thankful that it had ended so well.  Shenac was by
no means so elated as she had been last year.  She was very quiet and
grave, and in her heart she was beginning to ask herself whether Angus
Dhu might not have been right, and whether she might not have better
helped her mother and all of them in some other way.  They had only just
raised enough on the farm to keep them through the year, and surely they
might have managed just to live with less difficulty.  Even if Dan had
been as good and helpful as he ought to have been, it would not have
made much difference.

Shenac would not confess it to herself, much less to any one else, but
the work of the summer had been a little too much for her strength and
spirits.  Her courage revived with a little rest and the sight of her
brother.  He did not come back quite a new man, but he was a great deal
better and stronger than he had been for years; and the delight of
seeing him go about free from pain chased away the half of Shenac's
troubles.  Even Dan's freaks did not seem so serious to her now, and she
made up her mind to say as little as possible to Hamish about the
vexations of the summer, and to think of nothing unpleasant now that she
had him at home again.

But unpleasant things are not so easily set aside out of one's life, and
Shenac's vexations with Dan were not over.  He was more industrious than
usual about this time, and worked at cutting and bringing up the
winter's wood with a zeal that made her doubly glad that she had said
little about their summer's troubles.  He talked less and did more than
usual; and Hamish bade his mother and Shenac notice how quiet and manly
he was growing, when he startled them all by a declaration that he was
going with the Camerons and some other lads to the lumbering, far up the
Grand River.

"I'm not going to the school.  I would not, even if Mr Stewart were
coming back; and I am not needed at home, now that you are better,
Hamish.  You can do what is needed in the winter, so much of the wood is
up; and, at any rate, I am going."

Hamish entreated him to stay at home for his mother's sake, or to choose
some less dangerous occupation, if he must go away.

"Dangerous!  Nonsense, Hamish!  Why should it be more dangerous to me
than to the rest?  I cannot be a child all my life to please my mother
and Shenac."

"No; that is true," said Hamish; "but neither can you be a man all at
once to please yourself.  You are neither old enough nor strong enough
for such work as is done in the woods, whatever you may think."

"There are younger lads going to the woods than I am," muttered Dan
sulkily.

"Yes; but they are not going to do men's work nor get men's wages.  If
you are wise, you will bide at home."

But all that Hamish could get from Dan was a promise that he would not
go, as he had first intended, without his mother's leave.  This was not
easy to get, for the fate of Lewis might well fill the mother's heart
with terror for Dan, who was much younger than his brother had been.
But she consented at last, and Shenac and Hamish set themselves to make
the best of Dan's going, for their mother's sake.

"He'll be in safe keeping with the Camerons, mother, and it will do him
good to rough it a little.  We'll have him back in the spring, more of a
man and easier to do with," said Hamish.

But the mother was not easily comforted.  Dan's going brought too
vividly back the going of those who had never returned; and the mother
fretted and pined for the lad, and murmured sometimes that, if Shenac
had been more forbearing with him, he might not have wanted to go.  She
did not know how she hurt her daughter, or she never would have said
anything like that, for in her heart she knew that Shenac was not to
blame for the waywardness of Dan.  But Shenac did not defend herself,
and the mother murmured on till the first letter came, saying that Dan
was well and doing well, and then she was content.

About this time they had a visit from their Uncle Allister, their
mother's brother, in whose house Hamish had passed the summer.  He
brought his two daughters--pretty, cheerful girls--who determined
between themselves, encouraged by Hamish, that they should carry off
Shenac for a month's visit when they went home.  They succeeded too,
though Shenac declared and believed it to be impossible that she should
leave home, even up to the day before they went.  The change did her a
great deal of good.  She came back much more like the Shenac of two
years ago than she had seemed for a long time; and, as spring drew on,
she could look forward to the labours of another summer without the
miserable misgivings that had so vexed her in the fall.  Indeed, now
that Hamish was well, whether Dan came home or not, she felt sure of
success, and of a quiet and happy summer for them all.

But before spring came something happened.  There came a letter from
Allister--not this time to the mother, but to Angus Dhu.  It told of
wonderful success which had followed his going to the gold country, and
made known to Angus Dhu that in a certain bank in the city of M--- he
would find a sum of money equal to all his father's debt, with interest
up to the first day of May following, at which time he trusted that he
would give up all claim to the land that had been in his possession for
the last two years, according to the promise made to his father.  He was
coming home soon, he added; he could not say just when.  He meant to
make more money first, and then, if all things were to his mind, he
should settle down on his father's land and wander no more.

It was also added, quite at the end of the paper, as though he had not
intended to speak of it at first, that he had had nothing to do with the
going away of his cousin, as he had heard the lad's father had supposed,
but that he should do his best to bring him home again; "for," he added,
"it is not at all a happy life that folk must live in this golden land."

To say that Angus Dhu was surprised when this letter came would not be
saying enough.  He was utterly amazed.  He had often thought that when
Allister was tired of his wanderings in foreign lands he might wander
home again and claim his share of what his father had left.  But that he
had gone away and stayed away all this time for the purpose of redeeming
the land which his father had lost, he never for a moment supposed.  He
even now thought it must have been a fortunate chance that had given the
money first into Allister's hand and then into his own.  He made up his
mind at once that he should give up the land.  It did not cost him half
as much to do so as it would have cost him two years ago not to get it.
It had come into his mind more than once of late, as he had seen how
well able the widow's children were to manage their own affairs, that
they might have been trusted to pay their father's debt in time; and,
whatever his neighbours thought, he began to think himself that he had
been hard on his cousin.  Of course he did not say so; but he made up
his mind to take the money and give up the land.

And what words shall describe the joyful pride of Shenac?  She did not
try to express it in words while Angus Dhu was there, but "her face and
her sparkling eyes were a sight to behold," as the old man afterwards in
confidence told his daughter Shenac.  There were papers to be drawn up
and exchanged, and a deal of business of one kind or another to be
settled between the widow and Angus Dhu, and a deal of talk was needed,
or at least expended, in the course of it; but in it Shenac took no
part.  She placed entire reliance on the sense and prudence of Hamish,
and she kept herself quite in the background through it all.

She would not acknowledge to any one who congratulated her on Allister's
success, that any surprise mingled with her pleasure; and once she took
Shenac Dhu up sharply--gave her a down-setting, as that astonished young
woman expressed it--because she did not take the coming of the money
quite as a matter of course, and ventured to express a little surprise
as well as pleasure at the news.

"And what is there surprising in it?" demanded Shenac Bhan.  "Is our
Allister one whose well-doing need astonish any one?  But I forgot.  He
is not _your_ brother.  You don't know our Allister, Shenac."

"Don't I?" said Shenac Dhu, opening her black eyes a little wider than
usual.  "Well, I don't wonder that you are proud of your brother.  But
you need not take a body up like that.  I'm not surprised that he minded
you all, and sent the money when he got it; but it is not, as a general
thing, the good, true hearts that get on in this world.  I was aye sure
he would come back, but I never thought of his being a rich man."

Shenac Dhu sighed, as if she had been bemoaning his poverty.

"She's thinking of Evan yonder," said Shenac Bhan to herself.  "Our
Allister is not a rich man," she said gravely.  "He sent enough to pay
the debt and the interest.  There is a little over, because your father
won't take the interest for the last two years, having had the land.
But our Allister is not rich."

"But he means to be rich before he comes home," persisted Shenac Dhu;
"and neither he nor Evan will be content to bide quietly here again--
never.  It aye spoils people to go away and grow rich."

Shenac Bhan looked at her with some surprise.

"I cannot answer for Evan, but our Allister says he is coming home to
stay.  I'm not afraid for him."

"Oh, but he must be changed after all these years.  He has forgotten how
different life is here," said Shenac Dhu with a sigh.  "But, Shenac,
your Allister speaks kindly of our Evan--in the letter your mother got,
I mean."

"That he does," said Shenac Bhan eagerly.  "He says they are like
brothers, and he says your father need not be sorry that Evan went away.
He needed hardening, and he'll win through bravely; and Allister says
he'll bring Evan with him when he comes.  You may trust our Allister,
Shenac."

"May I?" said Shenac Dhu a little wistfully.  "Well, I will," she added,
laughing.  "But, Shenac, I cannot help it.  I _am_ surprised that
Allister should turn out a rich man.  He is far too good for the like of
that.  But there is one good thing come out of it--my father has got
quit of the land.  You can never cast that up again, Shenac Bhan."

Shenac Bhan's cheek was crimsoned.

"I never cast it up to you, Shenac Dhu," said she hastily.  "I never
spoke to any one but himself; and I was sorry as soon as I said it."

"You need not be.  He thought none the worse of you, after the first
anger.  But, Shenac, my father is not so hard a man as folk think.  I do
believe he is less glad for the money than he is for Allister and you
all.  If Evan would only come home!  My father has so set his heart on
Evan."

Though Shenac took the matter quietly as far as the rest of the world
was concerned, she "emptied her heart" to Hamish.  To him she confessed
she had grown a little doubtful of Allister.

"But, Hamish, I shall never doubt or be discouraged again.  If Allister
only comes safe home to my mother and to us all, I shall be content.  We
are too young, Hamish.  It does not harm you, I know; but as for me, I
am getting as hard as a stone, and as cross as two sticks.  I shall be
glad when the time comes that I can do as I am bidden again."

Hamish laughed.  "Are you hard, Shenac, and cross?  Well, maybe just a
little sometimes.  I am not afraid for you, though.  It will all come
right, I think, in the end.  But I am glad Allister is coming home, and
more glad for your sake than for all the rest."



CHAPTER TWELVE.

It is May-day again--not so bright and pleasant as the May-day two years
ago, when Hamish and Shenac sat so drearily watching Angus Dhu's
fence-building.  They are sitting on the same spot now, and the children
are under the big willow, sailing boats as they did that day--all but
Dan.  You could not make him believe that he had done such a foolish
thing as that two years ago.  Two years!  It might be ten for the
difference they have made in Dan.  He only came back from the Grand
River two days ago, and Shenac has not ceased wondering and laughing at
the change in him.  It is not merely his new-fashioned coat and
astonishing waistcoat that have changed him.  He has grown amazingly,
and his voice is almost always as deep and rough as Angus Dhu's; and the
man and the boy are so blended in all he says and does, that Shenac has
much ado to answer him as gravely as he expects.

"Hamish," he called out from the top of the fence on which he was
sitting, "you are a man of sense, and I want to ask you a question.
Whose fence is this that I am sitting on?  Is it ours, or Angus Dhu's?"

Hamish had not considered the question.  Indeed, Dan did not wait for an
answer.

"Because, it is of no use here.  If it is ours, we'll draw the rails up
to the high field, and get them out of the way before Allister comes
home.  If it belongs to Angus Dhu, we'll--we'll throw the rails into the
creek."

"There's no hurry about it, is there?" said a voice behind him; and Dan,
jumping down, turned about, and with more shamefacedness than Shenac
would have believed possible, met the offered hand of Angus Dhu.

"I heard you had come back again, Dan, lad; and I thought you would not
let the grass grow under your feet.--Are you for putting my good rails
in the creek, Hamish, man?"

Hamish was laughing too much at Dan's encounter to be able to answer at
once.  Shenac was laughing too; but she was nearly as shamefaced as Dan,
remembering her own encounter on the same ground.

"If it is Allister you're thinking about, he's not here yet, and you
need not be in a hurry.  And as to whether the rails are yours or mine,
when the goods are bought and paid for there need be no words about the
string that ties them.  But for all that, Dan, lad, I have something to
say to your mother yet, and you may as well let them be where they are a
while.--Are you for sending my good rails down the creek, too?" he added
suddenly, turning to Shenac.

"It was Dan's plan, not mine," said Shenac.  "Though once I would have
liked to do it," she added candidly.

"No, Shenac," said Hamish; "you wanted to burn it.  Don't you mind?"

"O Hamish!" exclaimed Shenac.

Angus Dhu smiled.

"That would be a pity.  They are good rails--the very best.  And if they
were put up too soon, they can be taken down again.  You have heard from
your brother again?"

"No; not since about the time of your letter," said Hamish.  "We are
thinking he may be on the way."

For an instant an eager look crossed the face of the old man, but he
shook his head.

"No.  With gold comes the love of it.  He will stay where he is a while
yet."

"You don't know our Allister," exclaimed Shenac hotly.

But Hamish laid his hand on hers.

"Whisht.  He's thinking of Evan," he said softly.

"He'll not be here this while yet," continued Angus Dhu, not heeding the
interruption.  "You'll have the summer before you, I'm thinking; and the
question is, whether you'll take down the fence just now, while the
creek is full," he added, smiling significantly at Dan, "or whether
you'll let things be as they are till you have more help.  I have done
well by the land, and will yet, and give you what is just and right for
the use of it till your brother comes.  But for what am I saying all
this to children like you?  It is your mother that must decide it."

Accordingly, before the mother the matter was laid; but it was not the
mother who decided it.  Shenac could hardly sit still while he spoke of
the time that might pass before Allister should come home.  But when he
went on to say that, unless they had more help, the boys and Shenac
could not manage more land than they had already, she felt that it was
true.  Hamish thought so too, and said heartily to Angus Dhu that the
land would be better under his care till Allister should come.

Dan was indignant.  He felt himself equal to anything, and declared
that, with two men at his disposal, he could make the farm look like a
different place.  But the rest had less faith in Dan than he had in
himself.  He did not conceal his disgust at the idea of creeping on
through another summer in the old, quiet way, and talked of leaving it
to Hamish and Shenac and seeking work somewhere else.  But they knew
very well he would never do that, now that Allister might be home among
them any day; and he did not.  There was no pulling down of the fence,
however.  It stood as firm as ever; but it was not an eyesore to Shenac
now.

The spring passed, and the summer wore away slowly, for there was no
more word of Allister.  Shenac did not weary herself with field-work, as
she had done the last two years; for she felt that they might get help
now, and, besides, she was needed more in the house.  Her mother had
allowed herself to think that only a few weeks would pass before she
should see her first-born, and the waiting and suspense told upon her
sadly.  It told upon Shenac, too.  In spite of her declaration to
Hamish, she did feel anxious and discouraged many a time.  Hamish was
ill again, not always able to see to things; and Dan was not proving
himself equal to the emergency, now that he was having his own way
out-of-doors.  That would not matter much, if Allister were come.  He
would set all things right again, and Dan would not be likely to resist
his oldest brother's lawful authority.

But if Allister did not come soon?  Shenac shrank from this question.
If he did not come soon, she would have something else to think about
besides Dan's delinquencies.  Her mother could not endure this suspense
much longer.  It was wearing out her health and spirits; and it needed
all Shenac's strength and courage to get through some of these summer
days.  It was worse when Hamish went again for a few weeks to his
uncle's.  He must go, Shenac said, to be strong and well to welcome
Allister; and much as it grieved him to leave his sister, he knew that a
few weeks of the baths would give him the best chance to be able to help
her should this sad suspense change to sadder certainty and Allister
never come home again.  So he went away.

Often and often, during the long days that followed his going away,
Shenac used to wonder at herself for ever having been weary of the
labour that had fallen to her during the last two years.  Now, when her
mother had a better day than usual, when little Flora could do all that
was needed for her, so that Shenac could go out to the field, she was
comparatively at peace.  The necessity for bodily exertion helped her
for the time to set aside the fear that was growing more terrible every
day.  But, when the days came that she could not leave her mother, when
she must sit by her side, or wander with her into the garden or fields,
saying the same hopeful words or answering the same questions over and
over again, it seemed to her that she could not very long endure it.  A
fear worse than the fear of death grew upon her--the fear that her
mother's mind would give way at last, and that she would not know her
son when he came.  Even the fear that he might never come seemed easier
to bear than this.

Shenac Dhu helped her greatly at this time.  Not that she was very
cheerful herself, poor girl; but the quick, merry ways she would assume
with her aunt did her good.  She would speak of the coming home of
Allister as certain and near at hand, and she would tell of all that was
to be done and said, of the house that he was to build, and of the gowns
that Shenac Bhan was to wear, while her aunt would listen contentedly
for a while.  And when the old shadow came back, and the old moan rose,
she would just begin and go over it all again.

She was needed at home during the day; but all the time that Hamish was
away she shared with Shenac Bhan the task of soothing the weary, wakeful
nights of the mother.  She sat one night in the usual way, speaking
softly, and singing now and then, till the poor weary mother had dropped
asleep.  Rising quietly and going to the door, she found Shenac Bhan
sitting on the step, with her head on her hands.

"Shenac," she said, "why did you not go to bed, as I bade you?  I'll
need to begin on you, now that aunt is settled for the night.  You are
tired, Shenac.  Why don't you go to bed?"

Her cousin moved and made room for her on the step beside her.  The
children were in bed, and Dan had gone away with one of Angus Dhu's men
to a preaching that was going on in a new kirk several miles away.  It
was moonlight--so bright that they could see the shadows of the trees
far over the fields, and only a star was visible here and there in the
blue to which, for a time, the faces of both were upturned.

"You're tired, Shenac Bhan," said her cousin again; "more tired than
usual, I mean."

"No, not more tired than you are.  Do you know, Shenac, your eyes look
twice as big as they used to do, and twice as black?"

"Do they?  Well, so do yours.  But no wonder that you are growing thin
and pale; for I do believe, you foolish Shenac Bhan, that it sometimes
comes into your mind that Allister may never come home.  Now confess."

"I often think it," said Shenac, in an awed voice.

"Toch!  I knew it by your face.  You are as bad as my aunt."

"Do you never think so?" asked our Shenac.

"Think it!" said Shenac Dhu scornfully.  "I trow not.  Why should I
think it?  I will not think it!  He'll come and bring Evan.  Oh, I'm
sure he'll come."

"Well, I'm not always hopeless; there is no reason," said Shenac.  "He
did not say he would come at once; but he should write."

"Oh, you may be sure he has written and the letter has been lost.  I
hardly ever take up a paper but I read of some ship that has gone down,
and think of the letters that must go down with it, and other things."

Each saw the emotions that the face of the other betrayed in the
moonlight.

"And think of the sailors," continued Shenac Dhu.  "O Shenac, darling,
we are only wearying for a lost letter; but think of the lost sailors,
and the mothers and sisters that are waiting for them!"  A strong
shudder passed over Shenac Bhan.

"I don't think you know what you are saying, Shenac," said she.

"Yes; about the lost letters, and the sailors," said Shenac Dhu
hurriedly.  "The very worst that can happen to us is that we may lose
the letters.  God would never give us the hope of seeing them, and then
let them be drowned in the sea."

The thought was too much for them, and they burst into bitter weeping.

"We are two fools," said Shenac Dhu, "frightening ourselves for nothing.
We need Hamish to scold us and set us right.  Why should we be afraid?
If there was any cause for fear there would be plenty to tell us of it.
Nobody seems afraid for them except my father; and it is not fear with
him.  He has never settled down in the old way since the letter came
saying that Allister would bring Evan home."

Yes, they needed Hamish more than they knew.  It was the anxiety for the
mother, the sleepless nights and unoccupied days, that, all together,
unnerved Shenac Bhan.  It was the dwelling on the same theme, the going
over and over the same thing--"nothing would happen to him?"--"he would
be sure to come?"--till the words seemed to mock her, they made her so
weary of hoping and waiting.

For, indeed, nobody seemed to think there was anything strange in the
longer stay of Allister.  He had stayed so long and done so well, he
might be trusted surely to come home when the right time came.  No,
there was no real cause for fear, Shenac repeated to herself often.  If
her mother had been well and quite herself, and if Hamish had been at
home, she thought she would never have fallen into this miserable dread.

She was partly right.  It was better for them all when Hamish came home.
He was well, for him, and cheerful.  He had never imagined how sadly
the time was passing at home, or he would not have stayed away so long.
He was shocked at the wan looks of the two girls, and quite unable to
understand how they should have grown so troubled at a few weeks' or
even a few months' delay.  His wonder at their trouble did them good.
It could not be so strange--the silence and the delay--or Hamish would
surely see it.  The mother was better too after the return of Hamish.
The sight of him, and his pleasant, gentle talk, gave a new turn to her
thoughts, and she was able again to take an interest in what was going
forward about her; and when there came a return of the old restlessness
and pain, it was Hamish who stayed in the house to soothe her and to
care for her, while Shenac betook herself with her old energy to the
harvest-field.

The harvest passed.  Dan kept very steady at it, though every night he
went to the new kirk, where the meetings were still held.  He did not
say much about these meetings even when questioned, but they seemed to
have a wonderful charm for him; for night after night, wet or dry, he
and Angus Dhu's man, Peter, walked the four miles that lay between them
and the new kirk to hear--"What?"  Shenac asked one night.

"Oh, just preaching, and praying, and singing."

"But that is nonsense," insisted Shenac.  "You are not so fond of
preaching as all that.  What is it, Dan?"

"It's just that," said Dan; "that is all they do.  The minister speaks
to folk, and sometimes the elders; and that's all.  But, Shenac, it's
wonderful to see so many folk listening and solemn, as if it was the
judgment day; and whiles one reads and prays--folk that never used; and
I'm always wondering who it will be next.  Last night it was Sandy
McMillan.  You should have heard him, Shenac."

"Sandy McMillan!" repeated Shenac contemptuously.  "What next, I wonder?
I think the folk are crazed.  It must be the singing.  I mind when I
was at Uncle Allister's last year I went to the Methodist watch-meeting,
and the singing--oh, you should have heard the singing, Hamish!  I could
not keep back the tears, do what I would.  It must be the singing, Dan."

Dan shook his head.

"They just sing the psalms, Shenac.  I never heard anything else--and
the old tunes.  They do sound different, though."

"Well, it goes past me," said Shenac.  "But it is all nonsense going
every night, Dan--so far too."

"There are plenty of folk who go further," said Dan.  "You should go
yourself, Shenac."

"I have something else to do," said Shenac.

"Everybody goes," continued Dan; and he repeated the names of many
people, far and near, who were in the new kirk night after night.  "Come
with me and Peter to-night, Shenac."

But Shenac had other things to think about, she said.  Still she thought
much of this too.

"I wonder what it is, Hamish," said she when they were alone.  "I can
understand why Dan and Peter McLay should go--just because other folk
go; and I daresay there's some excitement in seeing all the folk, and
that is what they like.  But so many others, sensible folk, and worldly
folk, and all kinds of folk, in this busy harvest-time!  You should go,
Hamish, and see what it is all about."

But the way was long and the meetings were late, and Hamish needed to
save his strength; and he did not go, though many spoke of the meetings,
and the wonderful change which was wrought in the heart and life of many
through their means.  He wondered as well as Shenac, but not in the same
way; for he had felt in his own heart the wondrous power that lies in
the simple truth of God to comfort and strengthen and enlighten; and it
came into his mind, sometimes, that the good days of which he had read
were coming back again, when the Lord used to work openly in the eyes of
all the people, making his Church the instrument of spreading the glory
of his name by the conversion of many in a day.  It did not trouble or
stumble him, as it did his sister, that it was not in their church--the
church of their fathers--that this was done.  They were God's people,
and it made no difference; and so, while she only wondered, he wondered
and rejoiced.

But about this time news came that put all other thoughts out of their
minds for a while.  The mother was sleeping, and Shenac and Hamish were
sitting in the firelight one evening in September, when the door opened
and their cousin Shenac came in.  She seemed greatly excited, and there
were tears on her cheeks, and she did not speak, but came close up to
Shenac Bhan, without heeding the exclamations of surprise with which
they both greeted her.

"Did I not tell you, Shenac, that God would never drown them in the
sea?"

She had run so fast that she had hardly a voice to say the words, and
she sank down at her cousin's feet, gasping for breath.  In her hands
she held a letter.  It was from Evan--the first he had written to his
father since he went away.  Shenac told them that her father had
received it in the morning, but said nothing about it then, going about
all day with a face like death, and only told them when he broke down at
worship-time, when he prayed as usual for "all distant and dear."

"Then he told my mother and me," continued Shenac Dhu, spreading out a
crushed morsel of paper with hands that trembled.  It was only a line or
two, broken and blurred, praying for his father's forgiveness and
blessing on his dying son.  He meant to come home with his cousin.  They
were to meet at Saint F---, and sail together, But he had been hurt, and
had fallen ill of fever in an inland town, and he was dying.  "And now
the same ship that takes this to you will take Allister home.  He will
not know that I am dying, but will think I have changed my mind as I
have done before.  I would not let him know if I could; for he would be
sure to stay for my sake, and his heart is set on getting home to his
mother and the rest.  And, father, I want to tell you that it was not
Allister that beguiled me from home, but my own foolishness.  He has
been more than a brother to me.  He has saved my life more than once,
and he has saved me from sins worse than death; and you must be kind to
him and to them all for my sake."

"And then," said Shenac Dhu, "there is his name, written as if he had
been blind; and that is all."

The three young people sat looking at one another in silence.  Shenac
Bhan's heart beat so strongly that she thought her mother must hear it
in her bed; but she could not put her thought in words--"Allister is
coming home."  Shenac Dhu spoke first.

"Hamish--Shenac, I told my father that Allister would never leave our
Evan alone to die among strangers."

She paused, looking eagerly first at one and then at the other.

"No," said Hamish; "he would never do that, if he knew it in time to
stay.  We can but wait and see."

"Wait and see!"  Shenac Bhan echoed the words in her heart.  If they had
heard that he was to stay for months, or even for years, she thought she
could bear it better than this long suspense.

"Shenac," said her cousin, reading her thought, "you would not have
Allister come and leave him?  It will only be a little longer whether
Evan lives or dies."

"No," said Shenac; "but my mother."

"We will not tell her for a little while," said Hamish.  "If Allister is
coming it will be soon; and if he has stayed, it will give my mother
more hope of his coming home at last to hear that he is well and that he
is waiting for Evan."

"And my father," said Shenac Dhu.  "Oh! if you had seen how he grasped
at the hope when I said Allister was sure to stay, you would not grudge
him for a day or two.  Think of the poor lad dying so far from home and
from us all!"  And poor Shenac clung to her cousin, bursting into sobs
and bitter tears.

"Whisht, Shenac, darling," said her cousin, her own voice broken with
sobs; "we can only have patience."

"Yes," said Hamish; "we can do more than that--we can trust and pray.
And we will not fear for the mother, Shenac.  She will be better, now
that there is a reason for Allister's stay.--And, Cousin Shenac, you
must take hope for your brother.  No wonder he was downcast thinking of
being left.  You must tell your father that there is no call to give up
hope for Evan."

"O Hamish, my father loved Evan dearly, though he was hard on him.  He
has grown an old man since he went away; and to-day,--oh, I think to-day
his heart is broken."

"The broken and contrite heart He will not despise," murmured Hamish.
"We have all need of comfort, Shenac, and we'll get it if we seek it."

And the two girls were startled first, and then soothed, as the voice of
Hamish rose in prayer.  It was no vague, formal utterance addressed to a
God far away and incomprehensible.  He was pleading with a Brother close
at hand--a dear and loving elder Brother--for their brothers far away.
He did not plead as one who feared denial, but trustfully, joyfully,
seeking first that God's will might be done in them and theirs.  Hamish
was not afraid; nothing could be plainer than that.  So the two Shenacs
took a little comfort, and waited and trusted still.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

And so they waited.  For a few days it did not seem impossible to Shenac
that Allister might come; and she watched each hour of the day and
night, starting and trembling at every sound.  But he did not come, and
in a little while Hamish broke the tidings to his mother, how they had
heard that Allister was to have sailed on a certain day, but his Cousin
Evan having been taken ill, they were to wait for another ship; but they
would be sure to come soon.

Happily, the mother's mind rested more on having heard that her son was
well, and was coming some time, than on his being delayed; and she was
better after that.  She fell back for a little time into her old ways,
moving about the house, and even betaking herself to the neglected
flax-spinning.  But she was very feeble, going to bed early, and rising
late, and requiring many an affectionate stratagem on the part of her
children to keep her from falling into invalid ways.

It was a sad and weary waiting to them all, but to none more than to
Angus Dhu.  If he had heard of his son's death, it would not have been
so terrible to him as the suspense which he often told himself need not
be suspense.  There was no hope, there could be none, after the words
written by his son's trembling hands.  He grew an old, feeble man in the
short space between the harvest and the new year.  The grief which had
fallen on all the family when Evan's letter came gave way before the
anxiety with which they all saw the change in him.  His wife was a
quiet, gentle woman, saying little at any time, perhaps feeling less
than her stern husband.  They all sorrowed, but it was on the father
that the blight fell heaviest.

It was a fine Sabbath morning in October.  It was mild, and not very
bright, and the air was motionless.  It was just like an Indian-summer
day, only the Indian summer is supposed to come in November, after some
snow has fallen on brown leaves and bare boughs; and now the woods were
brilliant with crimson and gold, except where the oak-leaves rustled
brown, or the evergreens mingled their dark forms with the pervading
brightness.  It was a perfect Sabbath day, hushed and restful.  But it
must be confessed that Shenac shrank a little from its long, quiet,
unoccupied hours; and when something was said about the great
congregation that would be sure to assemble in the new kirk, she said
she would like to go.

"Go, by all means," said the mother; "and Hamish too, if you are able
for the walk.  Little Flora can do all that is to be done.  There's
nothing to hinder, if you would like to go."

There was nothing to hinder; the mother seemed better and more cheerful
than she had seemed for many days.  They might very well leave her for a
little while; they would be home again in the afternoon.  So they went
early--long before the people were setting out--partly that they might
have time to rest by the way, and partly that they might enjoy the walk
together.

And they did enjoy it.  They were young, and unconsciously their hearts
strove to throw off the burden of care that had pressed so long and so
heavily upon them.

"It has seemed like the old days again," said Shenac as they came in
sight of the new kirk, round which many people had already gathered.
They were strangers mostly, or, at least, people that they did not know
very well; and, a little shy and unaccustomed to a crowd, they went into
the kirk and sat down near the door.  It was a very bright, pleasant
house, quite unlike the dim, dreary old place they were accustomed to
worship in; and they looked round them with surprise and interest.

In a little time the congregation began to gather, and soon the pews
were filled and the aisles crowded with an eager multitude; then the
minister came in, and worship began.  First the psalm was named, and
then there was a pause till the hundreds of Bibles or psalm books were
opened and the place found.  Then the old familiar words were heard, and
yet could they be the same?

Shenac looked at her Bible.  The very same.  She had learned the psalm
years ago.  She had heard it many a time in the minister's monotonous
voice in the old kirk; and yet she seemed to hear it now for the first
time.  Was it the minister's voice that made the difference?  Every word
fell sweet and clear and full from his lips--from his heart--touching
the hearts of the listening hundreds.  Then the voice of praise arose
"like the sound of many waters."  After the first verse Hamish joined,
but through it all Shenac listened; she alone was silent.  With the full
tones of youth and middle age mingled the shrill, clear notes of little
children, and the cracked and trembling voices of old men and women,
dwelling and lingering on the sweet words as if they were loath to leave
them.  It might not be much as music, but as praise it rose to Heaven.
Then came the prayer.  Shenac thought of Jacob wrestling all night with
the angel at Jabbok, and said to herself, "As a prince he hath power
with God."  Then came the reading of the Scriptures, then more singing,
and then the sermon began.

Shenac did not fall asleep when the text was read; she listened, and
looked, and wondered.  There were no sleepers there that day, even old
Donald and Elspat Smith were awake and eager.  Every face was turned
upward towards the minister.  Many of them were unknown to Shenac; but
on those that were familiar to her an earnestness, new and strange,
seemed to rest as they listened.

What could it be?  The sermon seemed to be just like other sermons, only
the minister seemed to be full of the subject, and eager to make the
truth known to the people.  Shenac turned to her brother: she quite
started when she saw his face.  It was not peace alone, or joy, or
triumph, but peace and joy and triumph were brightly blended on the
boy's face as he hung on the words of life spoken there that day.

  "They with the fatness of thy house
  Shall be well satisfied;
  From rivers of thy pleasures thou
  Wilt drink to them provide,"

repeated Shenac.  And again it came into her mind that Hamish was
changed, and held in his heart a treasure which she did not share; and
still the words of the psalm came back:--

  "Because of life the fountain pure
  Remains alone with thee;
  And in that purest light of thine
  We clearly light shall see."

Did Hamish see that light?  She looked away from her brother's fair face
to the congregation about them.  Did these people see it? did old Donald
and Elspat Smith see it? did big Maggie Cairns, at whose simplicity and
queerness all the young people used to laugh, see it?  Yes, even on her
plain, common face a strange, bright look seemed to rest, as she turned
it to the minister.  There were other faces too with that same gleam of
brightness on them--old weather-beaten faces, some of them careworn
women's faces, and the faces of young girls and boys, one here and
another there, scattered through the earnest, listening crowd.

By a strong effort Shenac turned her attention to the minister's words.
They were earnest words, surely, but wherein did they differ from the
words of other men?  They seemed to her just like the truths she had
heard before--more fitly spoken, perhaps, than when they fell from the
lips of good old Mr Farquharson, but just the same.

"For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a
good man some would even dare to die.  But God commendeth his love
toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

This was the text.  It was quite familiar to her; and so were the truths
drawn from it, she thought.  What could be the cause of the interest
that she saw in the faces of those eager hundreds?  Did they see
something hidden from her? did they hear in those words something to
which her ears were deaf?  Her eyes wandered from one familiar face to
another, coming back to her brother's always with the same wonder; and
she murmured again and again,--

  "From rivers of thy pleasures thou
  Wilt drink to them provide."

"He that drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never
thirst."

"That is for Hamish, I'm sure of that.  I wonder how it all happened to
him?  I'll ask him."

But she did not.  The bright look was on his face when the sermon ended,
and while the psalm was sung.  It was there when the great congregation
slowly dispersed, and all the way as they walked home with the
neighbours.  It was there all day, and all the week; and it never left
him.  Even when pain and sickness set their mark on his face, through
all their sorrowful tokens the bright look of peace shone still; and
Shenac watched and wondered, but she did not speak of it yet.

This was Shenac's first visit to the new kirk, but it was by no means
the last.

It would be out of place to enter here into any detailed history of this
one of those awakenings of God's people which have taken place at
different times in this part of the country; and yet it cannot be quite
passed over.  For a long time all the settlers in that neighbourhood
worshipped in the same kirk; but when the time came which proved the
Church in the motherland--the time which separated into two bodies that
which had long been one--the same division extended to the far-away
lands where the Scottish form of worship had prevailed.  After a time,
they who went away built another house in which they might worship the
God of their fathers; and it was at the time of the opening of this
house that the Lord visited his people.

A few of those to whom even the dust of Zion is dear, seeking to
consecrate the house, and with it themselves, more entirely to God's
service, met for prayer for a few nights before the public dedication;
and from that time for more than a year not a night passed in which the
voice of prayer and praise did not arise within its walls.  All through
the busy harvest-time, through the dark autumn evenings, when the unmade
roads of the country were deep and dangerous, and through the frosts and
snows of a bitter winter, the people gathered to the house of prayer.
Old people, who in former years had thought themselves too feeble to
brave the night and the storm for the sake of a prayer-meeting, were now
never absent.  Young people forsook the merry gatherings of singers and
dancers, to join the assemblies of God's people.

It was a wonderful time, all say who were there then.  Connected with it
were none of those startling circumstances which in many minds are
associated with a time of revival.  The excitement was deep, earnest,
and silent; there was in use none of the machinery for creating or
keeping up an interest in the meetings.  A stranger coming into one of
those assemblies might have seen nothing different from the usual weekly
gatherings of God's people.  The minister held forth the word of life as
at other times.  It was the simple gospel, the preaching of Christ and
him crucified, that prevailed, through the giving of God's grace, to the
saving of many.

At some of the meetings others besides the minister took part.  At first
it was only the elders or the old people who led the devotions of the
rest, or uttered words of counsel or encouragement; but later, as God
gave them grace and courage, younger men raised their voices in
thanksgivings or petitions, or to tell of God's dealings with them.  But
all was done gravely and decently.  There was no pressing of excited and
ignorant young people to the "anxious seats," no singing of "revival
hymns."  They sang the Psalms from first to last--the old, rough
version, which people nowadays criticise and smile at, wondering how
ever the cramped lines and rude metre could find so sure and permanent a
place in the hearts and memories of their fathers.  It is said now that
these old psalms are quite insufficient for all occasions of praise; but
to those people, with hearts overflowing with revived or new-found love,
it did not seem so.  The suffering and sorrowful saint found utterance
in the cry of the psalmist, and the rejoicing soul found in his words
full expression for the most triumphant and joyful praise.  They who
after many wanderings were coming back to their first love, and they who
had never come before, alike took his words of self-abasement as their
own.  So full and appropriate and sufficient did they prove, that at
last old and experienced Christians could gather from the psalm chosen
what were the exercises of the reader's mind; and the ignorant, or those
unaccustomed to put their thoughts in words, found a voice in the words
which the Sabbath singing and family worship had made familiar to them.

After a time, when the number of inquirers became so numerous that they
could not be conveniently received at the manse or at the houses of the
elders, they were requested to stay when the congregation dispersed; and
oftentimes the few went while the most remained.  Then was there many a
word "fitly spoken;" many a "word in season" uttered from heart to
heart; many a seeking sinner pointed to the Lamb of God; many a
sorrowful soul comforted; many a height of spiritual attainment made
visible to upward-gazing eyes; many a vision of glory revealed.

I must not linger on these scenes, wondrous in the eyes of all who
witnessed them.  Many were gathered into the Church, into the kingdom,
and the name of the Lord was magnified.  In the day when all things
shall be made manifest, it shall be known what wonders of grace were
there in silence wrought.

For a long time Shenac came to these meetings very much as Dan had
done--because of the interest she took in seeing others deeply moved.
She came as a spectator, wondering what it all meant, interested in what
was said because of the earnestness of the speakers, and enjoying the
clear and simple utterance of truth, hitherto only half understood.

But gradually her attitude was changed.  It was less easy after a while
to set herself apart, for many a truth came home to her sharply and
suddenly.  Now and then a momentary gleam of light flashed upon her,
showing how great was her need of the help which Heaven alone could
give.  Many troubled and anxious thoughts she had, but she kept them all
to herself.  She never lingered behind with those who wished for
counsel; she never even spoke to Hamish of all that was passing in her
heart.

This was, for many reasons, a time of great trial for Shenac.  Day after
day and week after week passed, and still there came no tidings from
Allister or Evan, and every passing day and week seemed to her to make
the hope of their return more uncertain.  The mother was falling into a
state which was more terrible to Shenac than positive illness would have
been.  Her memory was failing, and she was becoming in many things like
a child.  She was more easily dealt with in one sense, for she was
hardly ever fretful or exacting now; but the gentle passiveness that
assented to all things, the forgetfulness of the trifles of the day, and
the pleased dwelling on scenes and events of long ago, were far more
painful to her children than her fretfulness had ever been.

With a jealousy which all may not be able to understand, Shenac strove
to hide from herself and others that her mother's mind was failing.  She
punished any seeming neglect or disrespect to their mother on the part
of the little ones with a severity that no wrong-doing had ever called
forth before, and resented any sympathising allusions of the neighbours
to her mother's state as an insult and a wrong.

She never left her.  Even the nightly assembling in the kirk, which soon
began to interest her so deeply, could not beguile her from home till
her mother had been safely put to rest, with Hamish to watch over her.
All this, added to her household cares, told upon Shenac.  But a worse
fear, a fear more terrible than even the uncertainty of Allister's fate
or the doubt as to her mother's recovery, was taking hold upon her.  Her
determination to drive it from her served to keep it ever in view, for
it made her watch every change in the face and in the strength of her
beloved brother with an eagerness which she could not conceal.

Yes, Hamish was less strong than he had been last year.  The summer's
visit to the springs had not done for him this year what it had done
before.  He was thinner and paler, and less able to exert himself, than
ever.  Even Dan saw it, and gave up all thoughts of going to the woods
again, and devoted himself to out-door matters with a zeal that left
Shenac free to attend to her many cares within.

At last she took courage and spoke to her brother about her fears for
him.  He was greatly surprised, both at her fears and at the emotion
with which she spoke of them.  She meant to be very quiet, but when she
opened her lips all that was in her heart burst forth.  He would not
acknowledge himself ill.  He suffered less than he had often done when
he went to the fields daily, though there still lingered enough of
rheumatic trouble about him to make him averse to move much, and
especially to brave the cold.  That was the reason he looked so wan and
wilted--that and the anxious thoughts about his mother.

"And, indeed, Shenac, you are more changed than I am in looks, for that
matter."

Shenac made an incredulous movement.

"I am perfectly well," said she.

"Yes; but you are changed.  You are much thinner than you used to be,
and sometimes you look pale and very weary, and you are a great deal
older-looking."

"Well, I am older than I used to be," said Shenac.

She rose and crossed the room to look at herself in the glass.

"I don't see any difference," she added, after a moment.

"Not just now, maybe, because you have been busy and your cheeks are
red.  And as for being a great deal older, how old are you, Shenac?"

"I am--I shall be nineteen in September; but I feel a great deal older
than that," said Shenac.

"Yes; that is what I was saying.  You are changed as well as I.  And you
are not to fancy things about me and add to your trouble.  I am quite
well.  If I were not, I would tell you, Shenac.  It would be cruel
kindness to keep it from you; I know that quite well."

Shenac looked wistfully in her brother's face.

"I know I am growing a coward," she said in a broken voice.  "O Hamish,
it does seem as though our troubles were too many and hard to bear just
now!"

"He who sent them knows them--every one; and He can make his grace
sufficient for us," said Hamish softly.

"Ay, for you, Hamish."

"And for you too, Shenac.  You are not very far from the light, dear
sister.  Never fear."

  "And in that purest light of thine
  We clearly light shall see,"

murmured Shenac.  They were ever coming into her mind--bits of the
psalms she had been hearing so much lately; and they brought comfort,
though sometimes she hesitated to take it to her heart as she might.

But light was near at hand, and peace and comfort were not far away.
Afterwards, Shenac always looked back to this night as the beginning of
her Christian life.  This night she went to the house of prayer, from
which her fears for Hamish had for a long time kept her, and there the
Lord met her.  Oh, how weary in body and mind and heart she was as she
sat down among the people!  It seemed to her that not one of all the
congregation was so hopeless or so helpless as she--that no one in all
the world needed a Saviour more.  As she sat there in the silence that
preceded the opening of the meeting, all her fears and anxieties came
over her like a flood, and she felt herself unable to stand up against
them in her own strength.  She was hardly conscious of putting into
words the cry of her heart for help; but words are not needed by Him
from whom alone help can come.

God does not always choose the wisest and greatest, even among his own
people, to do his noblest work.  It was a very humble servant of God
through whose voice words of peace were spoken to Shenac.  In the midst
of her trouble she heard a voice--an old man's weak, quavering voice--
saying,--

  "Praise God.  The Lord praise, O my soul.
  I'll praise God while I live;
  While I have being to my God
  In songs I'll praises give.
  Trust not in princes;"

and so on to the fifth verse, which he called the key-note of the
psalm:--

  "O happy is that man and blest,
  Whom Jacob's God doth aid;
  Whose hope upon the Lord doth rest,
  And on his God is stay'd;"

and so on to the end of the 146th Psalm, pausing on every verse to tell,
in plain and simple words, why it is that they who trust in God are so
blessed.

I daresay there were some in the kirk that night who grew weary of the
old man's talk, and would fain have listened to words more fitly chosen;
but Shenac was not one of these.  As she listened, there came upon her a
sense of her utter sinfulness and helplessness, and then an
inexpressible longing for the help of Him who is almighty.  And I cannot
tell how it came to pass, but even as she sat there she felt her
heaviest burdens roll away; the clouds that had hung over her so long,
hiding the light, seemed to disperse; and she saw, as it were, face to
face, Him who came to bear our griefs and carry our sorrows, and
thenceforth all was well with her.

Well in the best sense.  Not that her troubles and cares were at an end.
She had many of these yet; but after this she lived always in the
knowledge that she had none that were not of God's sending, so she no
longer wearied herself by trying to bear her burdens alone.

It was not that life was changed to her.  _She_ was changed.  The same
Spirit who, through God's Word and the example and influence of her
brother, made her dissatisfied with her own doings, still wrought in
her, enlightening her conscience, quickening her heart, and filling her
with love to Him who first loved her.

It would not have been easy for her, in the first wonder and joy of the
change, to tell of it in words, except that, like the man who was born
blind, she might have said, "One thing I know, that whereas I was blind,
now I see."  But her life told what her lips could not, and in a
thousand ways it became evident to those at home, and to all who saw
her, that something had happened to Shenac--that she was at peace with
herself and with all the world as she had not been before; and as for
Hamish, he said to himself many a time, "It does not matter what happens
to Shenac now.  All will be well with her, now and always."



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

After long waiting, Allister came home.  Shenac and Hamish had no
intention of watching the going out of the old year and the coming in of
the new; but they lingered over the fire, talking of many things, till
it grew late.  And while they sat, the door opened, and Allister came
in.  They did not know that he was Allister.  The dark-bearded man
lingering on the threshold was very little like the fair-faced youth who
had left them four years ago.  He made a step forward into the room, and
said,--

"This is Hamish, I know; but can this be our little Shenac?"  And then
they knew him.

It would be vain to try to describe the meeting.  The very happiest
meeting after years of separation must be sorrowful too.  Death had been
among them since Allister went, and the bereavement seemed new to the
returned wanderer, and his tears fell as he listened to the few words
Hamish said about his father's last days.

When the first surprise and joy and sorrow were a little abated, Shenac
whispered,--

"And Evan--Hamish, should we go to-night to tell Angus Dhu that Allister
has come home?"

"What about Evan, Allister?" said Hamish.

"Do you not know?  Did you not get my letter?  I waited for Evan.  He
had been robbed and hurt, and thought himself dying.  But it was not so
bad as that.  He is better now--quite well, I think.  I left him at his
father's door."

"At home!  Evan at home!  What did his father say?  Did you see Angus
Dhu?"

Shenac was quite breathless by the time her questions were asked.

"No; I could not wait.  The field between there and here seemed wider to
me than the ocean.  When I saw the light, I left him there."  And the
manly voice had much ado to keep from breaking into sobs again as he
spoke.

"His father has been so anxious.  No letter has come to us since Evan's
came to his father to say that he was dying.  I wish the old man had
been prepared," said Shenac.

"Oh, I am grieved!  If I had but thought," said Allister regretfully.

"It is quite as well that he was not prepared," said Hamish.  And he was
right.

Shenac Dhu told them about it afterwards.

"My mother went to the door, and when she saw Evan she gave a cry and
let the light fall.  And then we all came down; and my father came out
of his bed just as he was, and when he saw my mother crying and clinging
about the lad, he dropped down in the big chair and held out his hands
without saying a word.  You may be sure Evan was not long in taking
them; and then he sank down on his knees, and my father put his arms
round him, and would not move--not even to put his clothes on,"
continued Shenac Dhu, laughing and sobbing at the same time.  "So I got
a plaid and put about him; and there they would have sat, I dare say,
till the dawn, but after just the first, Evan looked pale and weary, and
my father said he must go to bed at once.  `But first tell us about your
cousin Allister,' my father said.  Evan said it would take him all
night, and many a night, to tell all that Allister had done for him; and
then my father said, `God bless him!' over and over.  And I cannot tell
you any more," said Shenac Dhu, laughing and crying and hiding her face
in her hands.

"But as to my father being prepared," she added gravely, after a
moment's pause, "I am afraid if he had had time to think about it, it
would have seemed his duty to be stern at first with Evan.  But it is
far better as it is; and he can hardly bear him out of his sight.  Oh,
I'm glad it is over!  I know now, by the joy of the home-coming, how
terrible the waiting must have been to him."

Very sad to Allister was his mother's only half-conscious recognition of
him.  She knew him, and called him by name; but she spoke, too, of his
father and Lewis, not as dead and gone, but as they used to be in the
old days when they were all at home together, when Hamish and Shenac
were little children.  She was content, however, and did not suffer.
There were times, too, when she seemed to understand that he had been
away, and had come home to care for them all; and she seemed to trust
him entirely that "he would be good to Hamish and the rest when she was
no more."

"Folk get used to the most sorrowful things at last," said Shenac to
herself, as, after a time, Allister could turn quietly from the mother,
so broken and changed, to renew his playful sallies with his brothers
and little Flora.  Indeed, it was a new acquaintance that he had to make
with them.  They had grown quite out of his remembrance, and he was not
at all like the brother Allister of their imaginations; but this making
friends with one another was a very pleasant business to them all.

He had to renew his acquaintance with others too--with his cousins and
the neighbours.  He had much to hear and much to tell, and after a while
he had much to do too; and through all the sayings and doings, the
comings and goings,--of the first few weeks, both Hamish and Shenac
watched their brother closely and curiously.  Apart from their interest
in him as their brother whom they loved, and in whose hands the future
of all the rest seemed to lie, they could not but watch him curiously.
He was so exactly like the merry, gentle, truthful Allister of old
times, and yet so different!  He had grown so strong and firm and manly.
He knew so many things.  He had made up his mind about the world and
the people in it, and could tell his mind too.

"Our Allister is a man!" said Shenac, as she sat in the kitchen one
night with Shenac Dhu and the rest.  The words were made to mean a great
deal by the way in which they were spoken, and they all laughed.  But
her cousin answered the words merely, and not the manner:--

"That is not saying much.  Men are poor creatures enough, sometimes."

"But our Allister is not one of that kind," said Dan, before his sister
had time to answer.  "He _is_ a man.  He is made to rule.  His will must
be law wherever he is."

Dan had probably some private reason for knowing this better than the
rest, and Shenac Dhu hinted as much.  But Dan took no notice, and went
on,--

"You should hear Evan tell about him.  Why, he saved the lives of the
whole band more than once, by his firmness and wisdom."

"I have heard our Evan speaking of him," said Shenac Dhu, her dark eyes
softening, as she sat looking into the fire; "but if one is to believe
all that Evan says, your Allister is not a man at all, but--don't be
vexed, Dan--an angel out of heaven."

"Oh, I don't know about that part of it," said Dan; "but I know one
thing: he'll be chief of the clan, boss of the shanty, or he'll know the
reason why.--O Shenac, dear, I'm sorry for you; your reign is over, I
doubt.  You'll be farmer-in-chief no longer."

The last words were spoken with a mingled triumph and pathos that were
irresistible.  They all laughed.

"Don't be too sorry for me, Dan," said his sister.  "I'll try to bear
it."

"Oh yes, I know: you think you won't care, but I know better.  You like
to rule as well as Allister.  You'll see, when spring comes, that you
won't put him aside as you used to put me."

"There won't be the same need," said Shenac, laughing.

"Won't there?  It is all very fine, now that Allister is new.  But wait
and see.  You won't like to be second-best, after having been first so
long."

Both Hamish and Shenac Dhu were observing her.  She caught their look,
and reddened a little.

"Do you think so, Shenac Dhu?--You surely cannot think so meanly of me,
Hamish?"

"I think there may be a little truth in what Dan says, but I cannot
think meanly of you because of that," said Hamish.

"Nonsense, Hamish!" said Shenac Dhu; "you don't know anything about it.
It is one thing to give up to a lad without sense, like Dan, but quite
another thing to yield to a man like Allister, strong and wise and
gentle.  You are not to make Shenac afraid of her brother."

"I shall never be afraid of Allister," said Shenac Bhan gravely; "and
indeed, Hamish, I don't think it is quite kind in you to think I like my
own way best of all--"

"I did not mean that, Shenac," said her brother.

"But you are afraid I will not like to give up to Allister.  You need
not--at least, I think you need not," she added meditatively.  "I shall
be glad and thankful to have our affairs managed by stronger hands and a
wiser head than mine."

"If stronger and wiser could be found, Shenac, dear," said a new voice,
and Shenac's face was bent back, while her brother kissed her on the
cheek and lip.  "Uncle Angus thinks it would not be easy to do that."

They were all taken aback a little at this interruption, and each
wondered how much he had heard of what had been said.

"Have you been long here, Allister?" asked Dan.

"No; I came this minute from the other house.  Your mother told me you
were here, Shenac Dhu."

"Did you hear what we were saying?" asked Dan, not content to let well
alone.

"No; what was it?" said Allister surprised, and a little curious.

"Oh, you should have heard these girls," said Dan mischievously.  "Such
stuff as they have been talking!"

"The chief of the clan, and the boss of the shanty," said Hamish
gravely; "and that was you, Dan, was it not?"

"Oh! what I said is nothing.  It was the two Shenacs," said Dan.

Shenac Dhu, as a general thing, was able enough to take her own part;
but she looked a little shamefaced at the moment, and said nothing.

"What did they say, Dan?" asked Allister, laughing.

Shenac Dhu need not have feared.  Dan went on to say,--

"I have been telling our Shenac that she will have to `knock under,' now
that you are come home; but she says she is not afraid."

"Why should she be?" asked Allister, who still stood behind his sister,
passing his hand caressingly over her hair.

"Oh, you don't know our Shenac," said Dan, nodding wisely, as though he
could give some important information on the subject.  The rest laughed.

"I'm not sure that I know anybody's Shenac very well," said Allister
gravely; "but in time I hope to do so."

"Oh, but our Shenac's not like the rest of the girls.  She's hard and
proud, and looks at folk as though she didn't see them.  You may laugh,
but I have heard folk say it; and so have you, Shenac Dhu."

"No, I never did," said Shenac Dhu; "but maybe it's true for all that:
there's Sandy McMillan--"

"And more besides him," said Dan.  "There's your father--"

"My father!  Oh, he's no mark.  He believes Shenac Bhan to be at least
fifteen years older than I am, and wiser in proportion.  But as for her
not seeing people, that's nonsense, Dan."

But Shenac Bhan would have no more of it.

"Shenac Dhu, you are as foolish as Dan to talk so.  Don't encourage him.
What will Allister think?"

Shenac laughed, but said no more.

They were right.  Allister was a man of the right sort.  Whether, if
circumstances had been different, he would have been content to come
back and settle down as a farmer on his father's land, it is not easy to
say.  But as it was, he did not hesitate for a moment.  Hamish would
never be able to do hard work.  Dan might be steady enough by-and-by to
take the land; but in the meantime Shenac must not be left with a burden
of care too heavy for her.  So he set himself to his work with a good
will.

He had not come back a rich man according to the idea of riches held by
the people he had left behind him; but he was rich in the opinion of his
neighbours, and well enough off in his own opinion.  That is, he had the
means of rebuilding his father's house, and of putting the farm in good
order, and something besides.  He lost no time in commencing his
labours, and he worked, and made others work, with a will.  There were
among the neighbours those who shook their cautious old heads when they
spoke of his energetic measures, as though they would not last long; but
this was because they did not know Allister Macivor.

He had not been at home two days before he made up his mind that his
mother should not pass another winter in the little log-house that had
sheltered them since his father's death; and he had not been at home ten
days when preparations for the building of a new house were commenced.
Before the snow went away, stone and lime for the walls and bricks for
the chimneys were collected, and the carpenters were at work on windows
and doors.  As soon as the frost was out of the ground, the cellar was
dug and stoned, and everything was prepared for the masons and
carpenters, so that when the time for the farm-work came, nothing had to
be neglected in the fields because of the work going on at the new
house.  So even the slow, cautious ones among the neighbours confessed
that, as far as could be judged yet, Allister was a lad of sense; for
the true farmer will attend to his fields at the right time and in the
right way, whatever else may be neglected.

But the house went on bravely--faster than ever house went on in those
parts before, for all things were ready to the workmen's hands.

May-day came, and found Allister and Dan busy in taking down Angus Dhu's
fence--at least, that part of it that lay between the house-field and
the creek.

"I didn't think the old man meant to let us have these rails," said Dan.
"Not that they are his by rights.  I should not wonder if he were down
upon us, after all, for taking them away."  And Dan put up his hands to
shade his eyes, as he turned in the direction of Angus Dhu's house.

"Nonsense, Dan; I bought the rails," said Allister.

Dan whistled.

"If I had been you, I would have taken them without his leave," said he.

"Pooh! and quarrelled with a neighbour for the sake of a few rails."

"But right is right," insisted Dan.  "Not that I think he would have
made much ado about it, though.  The old man has changed lately.  I
always think the hearing that our Shenac gave him on this very place did
him a deal of good."

Dan looked mysterious, and Allister was a little curious.

"I have always told you that you don't know our Shenac.  Whether it is
your coming home, or my mother's not being well, that has changed her, I
can't say.  Or maybe it is something else," added Dan thoughtfully.  He
had an idea that others in the parish were changed as well as Shenac.
"She's changed, anyway.  She's as mild as summer now.  But if you had
seen her when Angus Dhu was making this fence--Elder McMillan was here;"
and Dan went off into a long account of the matter, and of other matters
of which Allister had as yet heard nothing.

"Angus Dhu don't seem to bear malice," said he, when Dan paused.  "He
has a great respect for Shenac."

"Oh yes, of course; so have they all."  And Dan launched into a
succession of stories to prove that Shenac had done wonders in the way
of winning respect.  For though he had sometimes been contrary enough,
and even now thought it necessary to remind his sister that, being a
girl, she must be content to occupy but a humble place in the world,
Shenac had no more stanch friend and supporter than he.  Indeed, Dan was
one who, though restless and jealous of his rights when he thought they
were to be interfered with, yielded willingly to a strong hand and
rightful authority; and he had greatly improved already under the
management of his elder brother, of whom he was not a little proud.

"Yes," continued he, "I think they would have scattered us to the four
winds if it had not been for Shenac.  She always said that you would
come home, and that we must manage to keep together till then.  Man, you
should have seen her when Angus Dhu said to my mother that he doubted
that you had gone for your own pleasure, and would stay for the same.
She could not show him the door, because my mother was there, and he is
an old man; but she turned her back upon him and walked out like a
queen, and would not come in again while he stayed, though Shenac Dhu
cried, and begged her not to mind."

"I suppose Shenac Dhu was of the same mind--that I was not to be
trusted," said Allister.

Dan shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh, as to that, I don't know.  She's only a girl, and it does not
matter what she thinks.  But how it vexed her to be told what our Shenac
said about her father."

"But the two Shenacs were never unfriendly?" said Allister
incredulously.

"No," said Dan; "I don't think they ever were.  Partly because Shenac
yonder did not believe all I said, I suppose, and partly because she was
vexed herself with her father.  Oh yes, they are fast friends, the two
Shenacs.  You should have seen them the night Angus Dhu came to speak to
my mother about the letter that came from Evan.  Our Shenac was as proud
of you as a hen is of one chicken, though she did not let the old man
see it; and Shenac Dhu was as bad, and said over and over again to her
father, `I told you, father, that Allister was good and true.  He'll
never leave Evan; don't be afraid.'  I doubt Evan was a wild lad out
yonder, Allister."

"Not wilder than many another," said Allister gravely.  "But it is a bad
place for young men, Dan.  Evan was like a brother to me always."

"You were a brother to him, at any rate," said Dan.

"We were like brothers," said Allister.

"Oh, well, it's all right, I daresay," said Dan.  "It has come out like
a story in a book, you both coming home together.  And, Allister, I was
wrong about our Shenac in one thing.  She does not mind in the least
letting you do as you like.  She seems all the better pleased when you
are pleased; but she was hard on me, I can tell you."

"That's queer, too," said Allister, with a look in his eyes that made
Dan laugh in spite of himself.

"Oh yes, I know what you are thinking: that there is a difference
between you and me.  But there is a difference in Shenac too."



CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

Dan was right,--Shenac was changed.  Even if Allister had not come home,
if the success of the summer's work had depended, as it had hitherto
mainly done, upon her, it would have been a very different summer from
the last.  The labour, though it had been hard enough, from early
morning till night every day of the year, was not what had been worst
for her.  The constant care and anxiety had been harder to bear.  Not
the fear of want.  That had never really troubled her.  She knew that it
would never come to that with them.  But the welfare of all the family
had depended on her strength and wisdom while they kept together, and
the responsibility had been too heavy for her.  How much too heavy it
had been she only knew by the blessed sense of relief which followed its
removal.

But it would have been different now, even had her cares been the same,
for a new element mingled in her life--a firm trust in God.  She had
known, in a way, all along that, labour as she might, the increase must
come from God.  She had always assented to her brother's gentle
reminders of the heavenly care and keeping promised to the widow and the
fatherless; but she had wearied and vexed herself, taking all the weight
of the burden, just as if there had been no promise given, no help made
sure.

It would have been quite different now.  Even failure would have brought
no such burden as had come with a sense of success before, because of
her sure and certain knowledge that all that concerned her was safe in
the best and most loving care.

And, with Allister between her and the summer's work, she had no need to
trouble herself.  Every day had strengthened her trust in him, not only
as a loving brother, but as a wise man and a good farmer; and many a
time she laughed merrily to herself as Dan's foolish words about her not
wishing to give place to Allister came to her mind.  She could never
tell him or any one else how blessed was the sense of relief and peace
which his being at home gave her.  She awoke every morning with the
restful feeling fresh in her heart.  There was no half-conscious
planning about ways and means before her eyes were open; no shrinking
from possible encounters with Dan's idleness or wilfulness; no balancing
of possibilities as to his doing well, or doing at all, some piece of
work depending upon him.

She heard more in the song of the birds now than just the old burden,
"It is time to be at work again."  It gave her quite a sense of pleasure
now and then to find herself looking over the fields with delight just
because they were fresh and green and beautiful, and not at all because
of the tons of hay or the bushels of grain which they were to yield.  Of
course it was pleasant to anticipate a good harvest, and it was pleasant
to know that there were wider fields to harvest this year, and that the
barns would be full to overflowing.  It did not in the least lessen the
pleasure to know that this year success would not be due to her.
Indeed, her pride in Allister's work was quite as great as it ever had
been in her own, and the pleasure had fewer drawbacks.  She could speak
of it and triumph in it, and did so with Hamish and Shenac Dhu, and
sometimes with Allister himself.

She was happy, too, in a half-conscious coming back to the thoughts and
enjoyments of the time before their troubles had overtaken them.  She
was very young still, quite young enough to grow light-hearted and
mirthful; and if her mother had been well, it would truly have seemed
like the old happy days again.

Not that she had very much leisure even now.  She did not go to the
fields; but what with the dairy and the house-work, and after a little
while the wool, she had plenty to do.  There were two more cows in the
enlarged pasture, and some of the people who were busy about the new
house took their meals with them, so there was little time for lingering
over anything.  Besides, the house-work, which in the busy seasons had
seemed a secondary concern, was done differently now.  Shenac took pride
and pleasure in doing everything in the very best way, and in having the
house in order, the linen snow-white, and the table neatly laid; and the
little log-house was a far pleasanter home than many a more commodious
dwelling.

If there had lingered in Angus Dhu's heart any indignation towards
Shenac for having interfered with his plans, and for having spoken her
mind to him so plainly, it was gone now.  They had no more frequent
visitor than he, and few who were more welcome.  His coming was for
Allister's sake, his sister used to think; and, indeed, the old man
seemed to see no fault in the young farmer.  He gave him his confidence
as he had never given it to any one before.  After the first meeting he
never spoke of what Allister had done for him in bringing Evan home, but
he knew it was through his care and tenderness that he had ever seen his
son's face again, and he was deeply grateful.

There was another reason why he found pleasure in the young man's
society.  He had loved Allister's father when they had been young
together, before the love of money had hardened his heart and blinded
his eyes.  His long trouble and fear for his son had made him feel that
wealth is not enough to give peace.  It had shaken his faith in the "god
of this world;" and as God's blessing on his sorrow softened his heart,
the worldly crust fell away, and he came back to his old thoughts--or
rather, I should say, his young thoughts of life again.

Allister was just what his father had been at his age--as gentle, as
manly, and kind-hearted; having, besides, the strength of character, the
knowledge of men and things, which his father had lacked.  He had always
been a bold, frank lad.  Even in the old times he had never stood in awe
of "the dour old man," as the rest had done.  In the old times his
frankness had been resented as an unwarrantable liberty; but it was very
different now.  Even his own children felt a little restraint in the
presence of the stern old man; but Allister always greeted him
cheerfully, talked with him freely, and held his own opinions firmly,
though they often differed widely enough from those of Angus Dhu.  But
they never quarrelled.  The old man's dogmatic ways vexed and irritated
Shenac many a time; even Hamish had much ado to keep his patience and
the thread of his argument at the same time; but Allister never lost his
temper, and if the old man grew bitter and disagreeable, as he sometimes
did, the best cure for it was Allister's good-humoured determination not
to see it, and so they always got on well together.

Of all their friends, Angus Dhu was the one whom their mother never
failed to recognise.  She did not always remember how the last few years
had passed, and spoke to him, as she so often did to others, as though
her husband were still living and her children young; but almost always
she was recalled to the present by the sight of him, and rejoiced over
Allister's return, and the building of the new house, and the prosperity
which seemed to be coming back to them.  But, whether she was quite
herself or not, he was always very gentle with her, answering the same
questions and telling the same incidents over and over again for her
pleasure, with a patience very different from anything that might have
been expected from him.

There was one thing about Allister, and Shenac too, which greatly vexed
their uncle.  In his eyes it seemed almost like forsaking the God of
their fathers when, Sabbath after Sabbath, they passed by the old kirk
and sat in the new.  He would have excused it on the days when old Mr
Farquharson was not there and the old kirk was closed; but that they
should hold with these "new folk" at all times was a scandal in his
eyes.

It was in vain that Hamish proved to him that in doctrine and
discipline--in everything, indeed, except one thing, which could not
affect them in this country--the new folk were just like the old.  This
only made the matter less excusable in the eyes of Angus Dhu.  The
separation which circumstances might have made necessary at home--as
these people still lovingly called the native land of their fathers--was
surely not needed here, and it grieved and vexed the old man sorely to
see so many leaving the old minister and the kirk their fathers had
built and had worshipped in so long.

But even Angus Dhu himself ventured into the forbidden ground of the new
kirk, when word was brought that Mr Stewart, the schoolmaster of two
years ago, was come to supply the minister's place there for a while.
He had a great respect for Mr Stewart, and some curiosity, now that he
was an ordained minister, to hear him preach; and having heard him, he
acknowledged to himself, though he was slow to speak of it to others,
that the word of God was held forth with power, and he began to think
that, after all, the scores of young people who flocked to hear him were
as well while listening here as when sleeping quietly under the
monotonous voice of the good old minister; and very soon no objection
was made when his own Evan and Shenac Dhu went with the rest.

Mr Stewart had changed much since he came among them first.  His health
was broken then, and he was struggling with a fear that he was not to be
permitted to work the work for which he had all his lifetime been
preparing.  That fear had passed away.  He was well now, and well-fitted
to declare God's gospel to men.  It was a labour of love to him, all
could see.  The grave, quiet man seemed transformed when he stood in the
pulpit He spoke with authority, as one who knew from deep, blessed
experience the things which he made known, and no wonder that all
listened eagerly.

Hamish was very happy in the renewal of their friendship, and Allister
was almost as happy in coming to know the minister.  He came sometimes
to see them, but not very often, for he had many engagements, and his
visits made "white days" for them all.  Hamish saw much more of him than
the rest, for he was comparatively idle this summer, and drove the
minister to his different preaching stations, and on his visits to the
people, with much profit to himself and much pleasure to both.

It was a very pleasant summer, for many reasons, to Shenac and them all.
The only drawback was the state of the mother.  She was not getting
better--would probably never be better, the doctor said, whom Allister
had brought from far to see her.  But she might live a long time in her
present state.  She did not suffer, and was almost always quite content.
All that the tenderest care could do for her was done, and her
uneventful days were made happy by her children's watchful love.

The entire renewal of confidence and intercourse between the two
families was a source of pleasure to all, but especially to Shenac, who
had never been quite able to believe herself forgiven by her uncle
before.  Two of Angus Dhu's daughters were married in the spring, and
left their father's house; and partly because she was more needed at
home, and partly for other reasons, Shenac Dhu did not run into their
house so often as she used to do.  But Evan was often there.  He and
Hamish were much together, for neither of them was strong, and much help
was not expected from them on the land or elsewhere.  Evan was hardly
what he had been before his departure from home.  He was improved, they
thought, on the whole; but his health was not firm, and his spirits and
temper were variable, and, as Shenac said, he was as different from
Allister as weakness is from strength, or as darkness is from the day.
But they were always glad to see him, and his intercourse with these
healthy, cheerful young people did him much good.

The new house progressed rapidly.  There was a fair prospect that they
might get into it before winter, and already Shenac was planning ways
and means towards the furnishing of it.  The wool was sorted and dyed
with reference to the making of such a carpet as had never been seen in
those parts before; and every pound of butter that was put down was
looked upon as so much security for a certain number of things for use
or for adornment in the new house.  For Shenac had a natural love for
pretty things, and it was pleasant to feel that she might gratify her
taste to a reasonable degree without hazarding the comfort of any one.

She made no secret of her pleasure in the prospect of living in a nice
house with pretty things about her, and discussed her plans and
intentions with great enjoyment with her cousin Shenac, who did not
laugh at her little ambitions as much as might have been expected.
Indeed, she was rather grave and quiet about this time, and seemed to
shun, rather than to seek, these confidences.  She was too busy now that
Mary and Annie were both gone, to leave home often, and when our Shenac
wished to see her she had to go in search of her.  It was not quite so
formidable an affair as it used to be to go to Angus Dhu's house now,
and Shenac and her brother often found themselves there on summer
evenings.  But at home, as elsewhere, Shenac Dhu was quiet and staid,
and not at all like the merry Shenac of former times.

This change was not noticed by Shenac Bhan so quickly as it would have
been if she had been less occupied with her own affairs; but she did
notice it at last, and one night, drawing her away from the door-step
where the rest were sitting, she told her what she was thinking, and
entreated to know what ailed her.

"What ails me?" repeated Shenac Dhu, reddening a little.  "What in the
world should all me?  I am busier than I used to be, that is all."

"You were always busy; it is not that.  I think you might tell _me_,
Shenac."

"Well," began her cousin mysteriously, "I will tell you if you will
promise not to mention it.  I am growing wise."

Shenac Bhan laughed.

"Well, I don't see what there is to laugh at.  It's time for me to grow
wise, when you are growing foolish."

Shenac Bhan looked at her cousin a little wistfully.

"Am I growing foolish, Shenac?  Is it about the house and all the
things?  Perhaps I am thinking too much about them.  But it is not for
myself, Shenac; at least, it's not all for myself."

But Shenac Dhu stopped her.

"You really _are_ foolish now.  No; of course the house has nothing to
do with it.  I called you foolish for saying that something ails me,
which is nonsense, you know.  What could ail me?  I put it to yourself."

"But that is what I am asking you.  How can I tell?  Many a thing might
go wrong with you," said Shenac Bhan.

"Yes; I might take the small-pox, or the bank might break and I might
lose my money, or many a thing might happen, as you say; and when
anything does happen, I'll tell you, you may be sure.  Now tell me, is
the wide stripe in the new carpet to be red or green?"

"You are laughing at me, Cousin Shenac," said our Shenac, gravely.  "I
daresay it is foolish in me, and may be wrong, to be thinking so much
about these things and teasing you about them; but, Shenac, our Allister
is a man now, and folk think much of him, and I want his house to be
nice, and I do take pleasure in thinking about it.  And you know we have
been so poor and so hard pressed for the last few years, with no time to
think of anything but just what must be done to live; and it will be so
nice when we are fairly settled.  And, Shenac, our Allister is so good.
There never was such a brother as Allister--never.  I would not speak so
to every one, Shenac; but _you_ know."

Shenac Dhu nodded.  "Yes, I know."

"If my mother were only well!" continued Shenac Bhan, and the tears that
had risen to her eyes fell on her cheeks now.  "We would be too happy
then, I suppose.  But it seems sad enough that she should not be able to
enjoy it all, and take her own place in the new house, after all she has
gone through."

"Yes," said Shenac Dhu, "it is very sad."

"And yet I cannot but take pleasure in it; and perhaps it is foolish and
unkind to my mother too.  Is it, Shenac?"

There were two or three pairs of eyes watching--no, not watching, but
seeing--the two girls from the doorstep, and Shenac Dhu drew her cousin
down the garden-path towards the plum-tree before she answered her.
Then she put her arms round her neck, and kissed her two or three times
before she answered,--

"You are not wrong or foolish.  You are right to take pride and pleasure
in your brother and his house, and in all that belongs to him.  And he
is just as proud of you, Shenac, my darling."

"That is nonsense, you know, Cousin Shenac," said Allister's sister; but
she smiled and blushed too, as she said it, with pure pleasure.

There was no chance after this to say anything more about the change,
real or supposed, that had taken place in Shenac Dhu, for she talked on,
allowing no pause till they had come quite round the garden and back to
the door-step; but Shenac Bhan knew all about it before she saw her
cousin again.

That night, as she was going home through the field with Allister, he
asked her rather suddenly,--

"What were you and Cousin Shenac speaking about to-night when you went
round the garden?"

"Allister," said his sister, "do you think Cousin Shenac is changed
lately?"

"Changed!" repeated Allister.  "How?"

"Oh, of course you cannot tell; but she used to be so merry, and now she
is quite quiet and grave, and we hardly ever see her over with us now.
I was asking her what ailed her."

"And what did she say?"

"Oh, she laughed at me, and denied that anything ailed her, and then she
said she was growing wise.  But I know something is wrong with her,
though she would not tell me."

"What do you think it is, Shenac?"

"I cannot tell.  It is not only that she is quieter--I could understand
that; but she hardly ever comes over now, and something is vexing her,
I'm sure.  Could it be anything Dan has said?  He used to vex her
sometimes.  What do you think it can be, Allister?"

There was a little pause, and then Allister said,--

"I think I know what it is, Shenac."

"You!" exclaimed Shenac.  "What is it?  Have I anything to do with it?
Am I to blame?"

"You have something to do with it, but you are not to blame," said
Allister.

"Tell me, Allister," said his sister.

There was a silence of several minutes, and then Allister said,--

"Shenac, I have asked Cousin Shenac to be my wife."  Shenac stood
perfectly still in her surprise and dismay.  Yes, she _ was_ dismayed.
I have heard it said that the tidings of a brother's engagement rarely
bring unmixed pleasure to a sister.  I daresay there is some truth in
this.  Many sisters make their brothers their first object in life--
pride themselves on their talents, their worth, their success, live in
their lives, glory in their triumphs; till a day comes when it is softly
said of some stranger, or some friend--it may be none the pleasanter to
hear because it is a friend--"She is more to him than you could ever
be."  Is it only to jealous hearts, ignoble minds, that such tidings
come with a shock of pain?  Nay, the truer the heart the keener the
pain.  It may be short, but it is sharp.  The second thought may be, "It
is well for him; I am glad for him."  But the pang is first, and
inevitable.

Allister had been always first, after Hamish, in Shenac's heart--perhaps
not even after Hamish.  She had never thought of him in connection with
any change of this kind.  In all her plans for the future, no thought of
possible separation had come.  She stood perfectly still, till her
brother touched her.

"Well, Shenac?"

Then she moved on without speaking.  She was searching about among her
astonished and dismayed thoughts for something to say, for she felt that
Allister was waiting for her to speak.  At last she made a grasp at the
question they had been discussing, and said hurriedly,--

"But there is nothing to vex Shenac in that, surely?"

"No; unless she is right in thinking that you will not be glad too."

"I am glad it is Shenac.  I would rather it would be Shenac than any one
else in the whole world--"

"I was sure of it," said her brother, kissing her fondly.

Even without the kiss she would hardly have had the courage to add,--

"If it must be anyone."

"And, Shenac," continued her brother, "you must tell her so.  She
fancies that for some things you will not like it, and she wants to put
it off for ever so long--till--till something happens--till you are
married yourself, I suppose."

Now Shenac was vexed.  She was in the way--at least, Allister and Shenac
Dhu thought so.  It was quite as well that the sound of footsteps gave
her no time to speak the words that rose to her lips.  They were
overtaken by Mr Stewart and Hamish.  It had been to see the minister
that they had all gone to Angus Dhu's, for he was going away in the
morning, and they did not know when they might see him again.  It was
late, and the farewells were brief and earnest.

"God bless you, Shenac!" was all that Mr Stewart said; and Shenac
answered never a word.

"I'll walk a little way with you," said Allister.  Hamish and Shenac
stood watching them till they passed through the gate, and then Shenac
sat down on the doorstep with a sigh, and laid her face upon her hands.
Hamish looked a little astonished, but he smiled too.

"He will come back again, Shenac," he said at last.

"Yes, I know," said she, rising slowly.  "I must tell you before he
comes.  We must not stay here.  Come in; you will take cold.  I don't
know what to think.  He expected me to be pleased, and I shall be in a
little while, I think, after I have told you.  Do you know it, Hamish?"

"I know--he told me; but I thought he had not spoken to you," said the
puzzled Hamish.

"Did Allister tell you?  Are you glad, Hamish?"

"Allister?" repeated Hamish.

"Allister has asked Shenac Dhu to be his wife," said Shenac in a
whisper.

"Is that it?  No, I had not heard that, though I thought it might be--
some time.  You must have seen it, Shenac?"

"Seen it! the thought never came into my mind--never once--till he told
me to-night."

"Well, that's odd, too," said Hamish, smiling.  "They say girls are
quick enough to see such things.  Are you not pleased, Shenac?"

"I don't know.  Should I be pleased, Hamish?  I think perhaps in a
little while I shall be."  Then she added, "It will make a great
difference."

"Will it?" asked Hamish.  "Cousin Shenac has almost been like one of
ourselves so long."

"I suppose it is foolish, and maybe it is wrong, but it does seem to put
Allister farther from us--from me, at least.  He seems less our own."

"Don't say that, Shenac dear," said her brother gently.  "Allister can
never be less than a dear and loving brother to us all.  It is very
natural and right that this should happen.  It might have been a
stranger.  We all love Shenac Dhu dearly."

"Yes," said Shenac; "I said that to Allister."

"And, Shenac, I am very glad this should happen.  Allister will settle
down content, and be a good and useful man."

"He would have done that anyway," said Shenac, a little dolefully.

"He might, but he might not," said Hamish.  "They say marriage is the
natural and proper state.  I am glad for Allister, Shenac; and you will
be glad by-and-by.  I wish I had known this a little sooner.  I am very
glad, Shenac."

Shenac sighed.  "I suppose it is altogether mean and miserable in me not
to be glad all at once; and I'll try to be.  I suppose we must stay here
now, Hamish," she added, glancing round the low room.

"Do you think so?" said Hamish in surprise.  "No, you must not say so.
I am sure it would grieve Cousin Shenac."

"There are so many of us, Hamish, and our mother is a great care; it
would not be fair to Shenac.  I must stay here and take care of my
mother and you."

There was a long silence.

"Shenac," said her brother at last, "don't think about this just now;
don't make up your mind.  It is not going to happen soon."

"Allister says soon, but Shenac says not till--" She stopped.

"Well, soon or late, never mind; it will all come right.  Let us be more
anxious to do right than for anything else.  God will guide us, Shenac.
Don't let us say anything to vex Allister.  It would vex him greatly, I
know, to think that you and all of us would not go with him and Shenac."

"But it would not be fair to Shenac herself.  Think what a large family
there is of us."

"Whisht, Shenac, there may be fewer of us soon.  You may marry
yourself."

"And leave my mother and you?"  Shenac smiled incredulously.

"Stranger things have happened," said her brother.  "But, Shenac, our
mother will not be here long, and Allister's house is her place, and you
can care for her all the same there--better indeed.  I am glad of this
marriage, for all our sakes.  Shenac Dhu is like one of ourselves; she
will always care for the little ones as no stranger could, and for our
mother.  It _is_ a little hard that _you_ should not have the first
place in the new house for a while, till you get a home of your own,
after all the care and trouble you have had for us here--"

"Do you think that has anything to do with it, Hamish?" said Shenac
reproachfully.  "It never came into my mind; only when Allister told me
it seemed as though I would be so little to him now.  Maybe you are
right, though.  Everybody seems to think that I like to be first.  I
know I have thought a great deal about the new house; but it has been
for the rest, and for Allister most of all."

"Shenac, you must not vex yourself thinking about it," said her brother.
"I am more glad of this for your sake than for all the rest.  I cannot
tell you how glad I am."

"Well, I am glad too--I think I am glad; I think it will be all right,
Hamish.  I am not really afraid of anything that can happen now."

"You need not be, dear; why should you be afraid even of trouble?" said
her brother.  "And this is not trouble, but a great blessing for us
all."

But Shenac thought about it a great deal, and, I am afraid, vexed
herself somewhat, too.  She did not see Shenac Dhu for a day or two, for
her cousin was away; and it was as well to have a little time to think
about it before she saw her.  There came no order out of the confusion,
however, with all her thinking.  That they were all to be one family she
knew was Allister's plan, and Hamish approved it, though the brothers
had not exchanged a word about the matter.  But this did not seem the
best plan to her, nor did she think it would seem so to her cousin; it
was not best for any of them.  She could do far better for her mother,
and Hamish too, living quietly in their present home; and the young
people would be better without them.  Of course they must get their
living from the farm, at least partly; but she could do many things to
earn something.  She could spin and knit, and she would get a loom and
learn to weave, and little Flora should help her.

"If Allister would only be convinced; but they will think I am vexed
about the house, and I don't think I really cared much about it for
myself--it was for Allister and the rest.  Oh, if my mother were only
able to decide it, I do think she would agree with me about it."

She thought and thought till she was weary, and it all came to this:--

"I will wait and see what will happen, and I will trust.  Surely nothing
can go wrong when God guides us.  At any rate, I shall say nothing to
vex Allister or Shenac; but I wish it was well over."

It was the first visit to Shenac Dhu which, partly from shyness and
partly from some other feeling, she did dread a little; but she need not
have feared it so much.  She did not have to put a constraint on herself
to _seem_ glad; for the very first glimpse she caught of Shenac's sweet,
kind face put all her vexed thoughts to flight, and she was really and
truly glad for Allister and for herself too.

She went to her uncle's one night, not at all expecting to see her
cousin; but she had returned sooner than was expected, and when she went
in she found her sitting with her father and Allister.  Shenac did not
see her brother, however.  She hastily greeted her uncle, and going
straight to her cousin put her arms round her neck and kissed her many
times.  Shenac Dhu looked up in surprise.

"I know it now, Cousin Shenac," said Allister's sister; and in a moment
Allister's arms were round them both.  It was Angus Dhu's turn to be
surprised now.  He had not been so startled since the day that Shenac
Bhan told him her mind down by the creek.  The girls escaped, and
Allister explained how matters stood.  The old man was pleased, but he
grumbled a little, too, at the thought of losing his last daughter.

"You must make an exchange, Allister, my man.  If you could give us your
Shenac--"

Allister laughed.  In his heart he thought his sister too good to be
sent there, and he was very glad he had not the matter to decide.

"Shenac, my woman," said the old man as they were going away, "I wonder
at you being so willing to give up the fine new house.  I think it is
very good in you."

"I would not--to anybody else," said she, laughing.

"But she's not going to give it up, father," said Shenac Dhu eagerly.

"Well, well, maybe not, if you can keep her."

Shenac still pondered over the question of what would be best for them
all, and wearied herself with it many a time; but she gave none the less
interest to the progress of the house and its belongings.  She spun the
wool for the carpet, and bleached the new linen to snowy whiteness, and
made all other preparations just the same as if she were to have the
guiding and governing of the household.  She was glad with Allister and
glad with Shenac, and, for herself and the rest, quite content to wait
and see what time would bring to pass.



CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

But a day came when Shenac saw how needless all her anxious thoughts
about her mother's future had been, when she acknowledged, with tears of
mingled sorrow and joy, that she had tenderer care and safer keeping
than son or daughter could give.

All through the long harvest-days the mother failed slowly--so slowly
that even the watchful eyes of Shenac did not see how surely.  Then, as
the autumn wore away, and the increasing cold no longer permitted the
daily sitting in the sunshine, the change became more rapid.  Then there
was a time of sharper suffering.  The long days and nights lingered out
into weeks, and then all suffering was over--the tired heart ceased to
struggle with the burden of life, and the widow was laid to rest beside
her husband and son.

That this was a time of great sorrow in the household need not be told.
Neighbours came from far and near with offers of help and sympathy.  All
that kind hearts and experienced hands could do to aid these young
people in the care of their suffering mother was done; but all was only
a little.  It was the strong arm of Allister which lifted and laid down,
and moved unceasingly, the never-resting form of the mother.  It was
Shenac who smoothed her pillow and moistened her lips, and performed all
the numberless offices so necessary to the sick, yet too often so
useless to soothe pain.  It was the voice of Hamish that sometimes had
the power to soothe to quietness, if not to repose, the ever-moaning
sufferer.  Friends came with counsel and encouragement, but her children
never left her through all.  It was a terrible time to them.  Their
mother's failure had been so gradual that the thought of her death had
not been forced upon them; and, quite unaccustomed to the sight of so
great suffering, as the days and nights wore on, bringing no change, no
respite, but ever the same moaning and agony, they looked into one
another's faces appalled.  It was terrible; but it came to an end at
last.  They could not sorrow for her when the close came.  They rejoiced
rather that she had found rest.  But they were motherless and desolate.

It was a very hushed and sorrowful home that night, when all the friends
who had returned with them from the grave were gone, and the children
were alone together; and for many days after that.  If this trouble had
come upon them a year ago, there would have been some danger that the
silence and sadness that rested upon them might have changed to gloom
and despondency on Shenac's part; for she felt that her mother's death
had "unsettled old foundations," and when she looked forward to what her
life might be now, it was not always that she could do so hopefully.
But she was quiet and not impatient--willing to wait and see what time
might bring to them all.

By-and-by the affairs of the house and of the farm fell back into the
old routine, and life flowed quietly on.  The new house made progress.
It was so nearly completed that they had intended to remove to it about
the time their mother became worse.  The work went on through all their
time of trouble, and one after another the workmen went away; but
nothing was said of any change to be made, till the year was drawing to
a close.  It was Hamish who spoke of it then, first to Shenac and then
to Allister; and before Christmas they were quite settled in their new
home.

Christmas passed, and the new year came in, and a month or two more went
by, and then one night Shenac said to her brother,--

"Allister, when are you going to bring Shenac home?"

Allister had been the gravest and quietest of them all during the time
that had passed since their mother's death.  He was silent, though he
started a little when his sister spoke.  In a moment she came close to
him, and standing behind him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and said
softly,--

"It would be no disrespect to the memory of our mother, coming now.
Hamish says so too.  Shenac is not like a stranger; and it might be very
quiet."  Allister turned and touched with his lips the hand that lay on
his shoulder, and then drew her down on the seat beside him.  This was
one of the things which made Allister so different from other people in
Shenac's eyes.  Even Hamish, loving and kind as he was, had not
Allister's gentle, caressing ways.  A touch, a smile, a fond word, came
so naturally from him; and these were all the more sweet to Shenac
because she was shy of giving such tokens herself, even where she loved
best.

"If Shenac would come," said Allister.

Shenac smiled.  "And will she not?"

"Should I ask it now, dear?"

"Yes, I think so," said his sister gravely.  "The spring will soon be
here, and the busy time.  I think it should be soon.  Have you spoken to
Shenac since?"

"No; I have not.  Though I may wish it, and Shenac might consent, there
is more to be thought of.  We will not have you troubled, after all you
have gone through, till you are quite ready for it--you and Hamish."

"But surely Shenac cannot doubt I will speak to her myself; and I think
it should be soon," said his sister.

They were sitting in the new, bright kitchen, and it was growing dark.
There was a stove in it, one of the latest kind, for use; but there was
a great wide fireplace too, for pleasure; and all the light that was in
the room came from the great maple logs and glowing embers.  Little
Flora had gone to the mill with Dan, Hamish was at his uncle's, and the
other lads were not come in; so they had the house to themselves.  There
was silence between them for a little while, and then his sister said
again,--

"I'll speak to Shenac."

The chance to do so was nearer than she thought; for there was a touch
at the door-latch, and a voice said softly,--

"Are you here, Cousin Shenac?  I want to speak to you.  Hamish told me
you were quite alone."

"Yes, she's quite alone, except me."  And Allister made one stride
across the floor, and Shenac Dhu was held fast.  She could not have
struggled from that gentle and firm clasp, and she did not try.

"I thought you were at The Sixteenth, Allister," said she.  "I was
there, but I am here now.  And our Shenac wants to speak to you."

He brought her to the fire-light, where our Shenac was waiting, a little
shyly--that is, Shenac waited shyly.  Allister brought the other Shenac
forward, not at all shyly, quite triumphantly, indeed, and then our
Shenac said softly,--

"When are you coming home, sister Shenac?"

With that the startled little creature gave one look into our Shenac's
face, and breaking from Allister's gentle hold, she clasped her round
the neck, and wept and sobbed in a way that astonished them more than a
little.  For indeed there was no cause for tears, said Shenac Bhan; and
indeed she was very foolish to cry, said Allister--though there were
tears in his own eyes; and as for Shenac Bhan, the tears did not stay in
her eyes, but ran down over her face and fell on the soft black braids
of the other Shenac's bowed head; for joy will make tears fall as well
as sorrow sometimes, and joy and sorrow mingled is the source of these.

But indeed, indeed, I never thought of telling all this.  When I began
my story I never meant to put a word of love or marriage in it.  I meant
to end it at the happy day when Allister came home.  But all Shenac's
work at home was not done when her good and loving brother took the
place she had filled so well.  So my story has gone on, and will go on a
little longer; though that night, when Shenac Dhu went away and Allister
went with her, leaving Shenac Bhan to her own thoughts, she said to
herself that very soon there would be nothing more for her to do.
Allister and Shenac Dhu would care for the little ones better than she
ever could have done; for the lads were wilful often, and sometimes her
patience failed, and Allister would make men of them--wise, and strong,
and gentle, like himself.  And Shenac, sweet, kind, merry Shenac Dhu,
would never be hard with the lads or little Flora, for she loved them
dearly; and it would be better for the children just to have Allister
and Shenac Dhu, and no elder sister to appeal to from them.  It would be
better that she should go away--at least for a little while, till other
authority than hers should be established.

Yes; her work for the children was done.  She said it over and over
again, repeating that it was better so, and that she was glad and
thankful that all would be so well.  But she said it with many a tear
and many a sigh and sob; for, having no experience of life beyond her
long labour and care for them, it seemed to this foolish Shenac that
really and truly her life's work was done.  No, she did not say it in
words, even to herself; but the future looked blank and bare to her.
Any future that seemed possible to her looked rather dark than bright;
and she feared--oh, so much!--to take her destiny in her hands and go
away alone.

But not a word of all this had been spoken to Allister and Shenac Dhu.
Not even Hamish had been told of her plans.  No, not her plans--she had
none--but the vague blending of wishes and fears that came with all her
thoughts of the future.  There would be time enough by-and-by to tell
him; and, indeed, Shenac was a little afraid to let the light of her
brother's sense and wisdom in on all her thoughts.  For Hamish had a way
of putting things in a light that made them look quite different.
Sometimes this made her laugh, and sometimes it vexed her; but, whether
or not, the chances were she would come round in time to see things as
he saw them.

And, besides, there was something in this matter that she could not tell
to Hamish--at least, it seemed to her that she could not, even if it
would be right and kind to do so; and without this she feared that her
wish to go away from home might not commend itself to him.  Indeed, if
it had not been for this thing which could not be told, she might not
have wished to leave home.  She would hardly have found courage to break
away from them all and go to a new, untried life, of her own free will,
even though her work at home were done.

This was the thing which Shenac thought she never could tell even to
Hamish.  One night, on her way home from his house, she had been waylaid
by Angus Dhu, and startled out of measure by a request, nay, an
entreaty, that "she would be kind to poor Evan."  Then the old man had
gone on to say how welcome she would be if she would come home and be
the daughter of the house when his Shenac went to Allister.  He told her
how fondly she should be cherished by them all, and how everything
within and without should be ordered according to her will; for he was
sure that union with one of her firm yet gentle nature was just what was
needed to make a good man of his wayward lad.  She had listened, because
she could not break away, wishing all the time that the earth would open
and that she might creep away into the fissure and get out of sight.
For, indeed, she had never thought of such a thing as that.  Nor Evan
either, she was sure--she thought--she did not know.  Oh, well, perhaps
he had thought of it, and had tried to make it known to her in his
foolish way.  But she never really would have found it out or thought
about it if his father had not spoken; and now she would never be able
to think about anything else in the presence of either.

It was too bad, and wrong, and miserable, and uncomfortable, and I don't
know what else, she said to herself, for it could never be--never.  And
yet, why not?  It would seem natural enough to people generally; her
aunt would like it, her uncle's heart was set on it, and Allister and
Shenac Dhu would be pleased.  Even Hamish would not object.  And Evan
himself?  Oh, no; it could never be.  She would never care for him in
that way.  He was not like Allister, nor like any one she cared for--so
different from--from--Shenac was sitting alone in the dark, but she
suddenly dropped her face in her hands.  For quite unbidden, with a
shock of surprise and pain that made her heart stand still for a moment,
and then set it beating wildly, a name had come to her lips--the name of
one so wise and good in her esteem that to speak it at such a time, even
in her thoughts, seemed desecration.

"I am growing foolish, I think, with all this vexation and nonsense; and
I won't think about it any more.  I have enough to keep me busy till
Shenac Dhu comes home, and then I'll have it out with Hamish."

The wedding was a very quiet one.  It was hardly a wedding at all, said
the last-married sisters, who had gone away amid feasting and music.
There was no groomsman nor bridesmaid, for Shenac Bhan could hardly
stand in her black dress, and Shenac Dhu would have no one else; and
there were no guests out of the two families.  Old Mr Farquharson came
up one morning, and it was "put over quietly," as Angus Dhu said; and
after dinner, which might have served half the township both for
quantity and quality, Allister and his bride went away for their wedding
trip, which was only to the town of M--- to see Christie More and make a
few purchases.  They were to be away a week--certainly no longer--and
then the new life was to begin.

Shenac Bhan stood watching till they were out of sight; and then she
stood a little longer, wondering whether she might not go straight home
without turning into the house.  No; she could not.  They were all
expected to stay the rest of the day and have tea, and visit with her
cousins, who lived at some distance, and had been little in their
father's house since they went to their own.

"Mind you are not to stay away, Hamish, bhodach," whispered Shenac, as
they turned towards the house; and Hamish, who had been thinking of it,
considered himself in honour bound to return after he had gone to see
that all was right at home.

It was not so very bad, after all.  The two young wives were full of
their own affairs, and compared notes about the butter and cheese-making
which they had carried on during the summer, and talked about flannel
and full-cloth and the making of blankets in a way that must have set
their mother's heart at rest about their future as notable
house-keepers.  And Shenac Bhan listened and joined, seemingly much
interested, but wondering all the time why she did not care a pin about
it all.  Flannel and full-cloth, made with much labour and pains, as the
means of keeping Hamish and little Flora and the lads from the cold, had
been matters of intense interest; and butter put down, and cheese
disposed of, as the means of getting sugar and tea and other things
necessary to the comfort of her mother and the rest, had been prized to
their utmost value.  But flannel and full-cloth, butter and cheese, were
in themselves, or as a means of wealth, matters of indifference.
Allister's good heart and strong arm were between them and a struggle
for these things now; and that made the difference.

But, as she sat listening and wondering, Shenac did not understand all
this, and felt vexed and mortified with herself at the change.  Annie
and Mary, her cousins, were content to look forward to a long routine of
spinning and weaving, dairy-work and house-work, and all the rest.  Why
should she not do the same?  She used to do so.  No; she used to work
without looking forward.  She could do so still, if there were any need
for it--any good in it--if it were to come to anything.  But to work on
for yards of flannel and pounds of butter that Flora and the rest, and
all the world indeed, would be just as well without--the thought of that
was not pleasant.

She grew impatient of her thoughts, as well as the talk, at last, and
went to help her aunt to set out the table for tea.  This was better.
She could move about and chat with her concerning the cream-cheese made
for the occasion, and of the cake made by Shenac Dhu from a recipe sent
by Christie More, of which her mother had stood in doubt till it was
cut, but no longer.  Then there were the new dishes of the bride, which
graced the table--pure white, with just a little spray of blue.  They
were quite beautiful, Shenac thought.  Then her aunt let her into the
secret of a second set of knives and forks--very handsome, which even
the bride herself had not seen yet; and so on till Hamish came in with
Angus Dhu.  Then Shenac could have cried with vexation, she felt so
awkward and uncomfortable under the old man's watchful, well-pleased
eye; and when Evan and the two Dans came in it was worse.  She laid
hands on a long grey stocking, her aunt's work, and betook herself to
the corner where Annie and Mary were still talking more earnestly than
ever.  She startled them by the eagerness with which she questioned
first one and then the other as to the comparative merits of madder
and--something else--for dyeing red.  It was a question of vital
importance to her, one might have supposed, and it was taken up
accordingly.  Mrs McLay thought the other thing was best--gave much the
brighter colour; but Mrs McRea declared for the madder, because,
instead of fading, it grew prettier the longer it was worn and the
oftener it was washed.  But each had enough to say about it; and this
lasted till the lads and little Flora came in from their play, and
Shenac busied herself with them till tea was ready.  After tea they had
worship, and sung a little while, and then they went home.

"Oh, what a long day this has been!" said Shenac, as they came in.

"Yes; I fancied you were a little weary of it all," said Hamish.

"It would be terrible to be condemned to do nothing but visit all one's
life.  It is the hardest work I ever undertook--this doing nothing,"
said Shenac.

Hamish laughed.

"Well, there is comfort in knowing that you have not had much of that
kind of work to do in your lifetime, and are not likely to have."

There were several things to attend to after coming home, and by the
time all these were out of the way the children had gone to bed, and
Hamish and Shenac were alone.

"I may as well speak to Hamish to-night," said Shenac to herself.  "Oh
dear!  I wish it were well over.  If Hamish says it is right to go, I
shall be sure I am right, and I shall not be afraid.  But I must go--I
think it will be right to go--whether Hamish thinks so or not.  Hamish
can do without me; but how shall I ever do without him?"

She sat looking into the fire, trying to think how she should begin, and
started a little when Hamish said,--

"Well, Shenac, what is it?  You have something to tell me."

"I am going to ask you something," said his sister gravely.  "Do you
think it is wrong for me to wish to go away from home--for a while, I
mean?"

"From home?  Why?  When?  Where?  It all depends on these things," said
Hamish, laughing a little.

"Hamish, what should I do?" asked his sister earnestly.  "I cannot do
much good by staying here, can I?  Ought I to stay?  Don't tell me that
I ought not to go away--that you have never thought of such a thing."

"No, I cannot tell you that, Shenac; for I have thought a great deal
about it; and I believe you ought to go--though what we are to do
without you is more than I can tell."

So there were to be no objections from Hamish.  She said to herself that
was good, and she was glad; but her heart sank a little too, and she was
silent.

"You have been thinking about us and caring for us all so long, it is
time we were thinking what is good for you," said Hamish.

"You are laughing at me, Hamish."

"No, I am not.  I think it would be very nice for us if you would be
content to stay at home and do for us all as you have been doing; but it
would not be best for you."

"It would be best for me if it were needful," said Shenac eagerly; "but,
Hamish, it is not much that I could do here now.  I mean Allister and
Shenac Dhu will care for you all; and just what I could do with my hands
is not much.  Anybody could do it."

"And you think you could do higher work somewhere else?"

"Not higher work, Hamish.  But I think there must be work somewhere that
I could do better--more successfully--than I can do on the farm.  Even
when I was doing most, before Allister came, Dan could go before me when
he cared to do it.  And he did it so easily, forgetting it all the
moment it was out of his hand; while I vexed myself and grew weary
often, with planning and thinking of what was done and what was still to
do.  I often feel now it was a wild thing in us to think of carrying on
the farm by ourselves.  If I had known all, I would hardly have been so
bold with Angus Dhu that day."

"But it all ended well.  You did not undertake more than you carried
through," said Hamish.

"No; it kept us all together.  But, Hamish, I often think that Allister
came home just in time.  If it had gone on much longer, I must either
have given out or become an earth-worm at last, with no thought but how
to slave and save and turn everything to account."

"I don't think that would ever have happened, Shenac," said her brother.
"But I think it was well for us all, and especially for you, that
Allister came home just when he did."

"I don't mean that field-labour may not in some cases be woman's work.
For a girl living at home, of course, it must be right to help in
whatever way help is needed; but I don't think it is the work a woman
should choose, except just to help with the rest.  Surely I can learn to
do something else.  If I were to go to Christie More, she could find a
place of some kind for me.  Don't you mind, Hamish, what she once said
about our going with her to M---, you and me?  Oh, if we could only go
together!"

But Hamish shook his head.

"No, Shenac.  It would be useless for me.  I must be far stronger than I
am now to undertake anything of that kind.  And you must not be in a
hurry to get away.  You must not let Shenac think you are running away
from her.  Wait a while.  A month or two will make no difference, and by
that time the way will open before us.  I don't like the thought of your
taking any place that Christie More could get for you.  You will be far
better at home for a while."

"But, Hamish, you really think it will be better for me to go?"

"Yes--some time.  Why should you be in haste?  Is there any reason that
you have not told me why you should wish to go?"

Shenac did not answer for a moment.

"Is it about Evan, Shenac?" asked her brother.  "That could never be, I
suppose."

"Who told you, Hamish?  No; I think it could never be.  Allister would
like it, and Shenac Dhu; and I suppose to folk generally it would seem a
good thing for me.  But I don't like Evan in that way.  No, I don't
think it could ever be."

"Evan will be a rich man some day, Shenac; and you could have it all
your own way there."

"Yes; Allister said that to me once.  They all seem to think I would
like to rule and to be rich.  But I did not think you would advise me
because of that, Hamish, or because Evan will be a rich man."

"I am not advising you, Shenac," said Hamish eagerly.  "If you cared for
Evan it would be different; but I am very glad you do not."

"I might come to care for him in time," said Shenac, a little wearily.
"But I never thought about him in that way till--till Angus Dhu spoke to
me."

"Angus Dhu!" exclaimed Hamish.

"Yes--and frightened me out of my wits," said Shenac, laughing a little.
"I never answered a word, and maybe he thinks that I am willing.
Allister spoke about it too.  Would it please you, Hamish?  I might come
to like him well enough, in time."

"No, Shenac.  It would by no means please me.  I am very glad you do not
care for Evan--in that way.  I would not like to see you Evan's wife."

There was not much said after that, though they sat a long time together
in the firelight.

"Did I tell you that I had a letter from Mr Stewart to-day, Shenac?"
Hamish asked at last.

"No," said Shenac; "was he well?"

"He has a call to be minister of the church in H---, and he is to go
there soon; and he says if he can possibly do it he will come this way.
It will be in six weeks or two months, if he comes at all."

Shenac said nothing to this; but when Hamish had added a few more
particulars, she said,--

"Perhaps it may seem foolish, Hamish, but I want to go soon."

"Because of Evan?" asked her brother.

"Partly; or rather, because of Angus Dhu," she said, laughing.  "And
Allister and Shenac would like it."

"But they would never urge it against your will."

"No; I suppose not.  But it is uncomfortable; and, Hamish, it is not
impossible that I might let myself be persuaded."

Hamish looked grave.

"I don't know but it is the best thing that could happen to me," Shenac
continued.  "I am not fit for any other life, I am afraid.  But I must
go away for a while at any rate."

Hamish said nothing, though he looked as if he had something to say.

"If you are willing, Hamish, it will go far to satisfy Allister.  And I
can come back again if I should find nothing to do."



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

But Shenac's work at home was not all done yet.  Sitting that night by
the fireside with her brother, could she have got a glimpse of the next
few months and all they were to bring about, her courage might have
failed her; for sorrowful as some of the past days had been, more
sorrowful days were awaiting her--sorrowful days, yet sweet, and very
precious in remembrance.

A very quiet and happy week passed, and then Allister and his wife came
home.  There was some pleasure-seeking then, in a quiet way; for the
newly-married pair were entertained by their friends, and there were a
few modest gatherings in the new house, and the hands of the two Shenacs
were full with the preparations, and with the arrangement of new
furniture, and making all things as they ought to be in the new house.

But in the midst of the pleasant bustle Hamish fell ill.  It was not
much, they all thought--a cold only, which proved rather obstinate and
withstood all the mild attempts made with herb-drinks and applications
to remove it.  But they were not alarmed about it.  Even when the doctor
was sent for, even when he came again of his own accord, and yet again,
they were not much troubled.  For Hamish had been so much better all the
winter.  He had had no return of his old rheumatic pains.  He would soon
be well again, they all said,--except himself; and he said nothing.
They were inclined to make light of his present illness, rejoicing that
he was no longer racked with the terrible pains that in former winters
had made his nights sleepless and his days a weariness.  He suffered
now, especially at first, but not as he had suffered then.

All through March he kept his bed, and through April he kept his room;
but he was comfortable, comparatively--only weak, very weak.  He could
read, and listen to reading, and enjoy the family conversation; and his
room became the place where, in the gloaming, all dropped in to have a
quiet time.  This room had been called during the building of the house
"the mother's room," but when Hamish became ill it was fitted up for
him.  It was a pleasant room, having a window which looked towards the
south over the finest fields of the farm, and one which looked west,
where the sun went down in glory, over miles and miles of unbroken
forest.

Even now, though years have passed since then, Shenac, shutting her
eyes, can see again the fair picture which that western window framed.
There is the mingling of gorgeous colours--gold, and crimson, and
purple, fading into paler tints above.  There is the glory of the
illuminated forest, and on this side the long shadows of the trees upon
the hills.  Within, there is the beautiful pale face, radiant with a
light which is not all reflected from the glory without--her brother's
dying face.

Now, when troubles come, when fightings without and fears within assail
her, when household cares make her weary, and the thought of guiding
wayward hearts and wandering feet makes her afraid, the remembrance of
this room comes back to her as the remembrance of Bethel or Peniel must
have come to Jacob in his after-wanderings, and her strength is renewed.
For there _she_ met God face to face.  There she was _smitten_, and
there the same hand healed her.  There she tasted the sweetness of the
cup of bitterness which God puts to the lips of those of his children
who humbly and willingly, through grace which he gives, drink it to the
dregs.  The memory of that room and the western window is like the
memory of the stone which the prophet set up--"The stone of help."

"I will trust, and not be afraid."

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort
me."

The words seem to come again from the dear dying lips; and as they were
surely his to trust to, to lean on when nought else could avail, so in
all times of trouble Shenac knows that they are most surely hers.

But much sorrow came before the joy.  March passed, and April, and
May-day came, warm and bright this year again; and for the first time
for many weeks Hamish went out-of-doors.  He did not go far; just down
to the creek, now flowing full again, to sit a little in the sunshine,
with a plaid about his shoulders and another under his feet.  It was
pleasant to feel the wind in his face.  All the sights and sounds of
spring were pleasant to him--the gurgle of the water, the purple tinge
on the woods, the fields growing fair with a tender green.

Allister left the plough in the furrow, and came striding down the long
field, just to say it was good to see him there.  Dan shouted, "Well
done, Hamish, lad!" in the distance; and little Flora risked being too
late for the school, in her eagerness to gather a bunch of spring
flowers for him.  As for Shenac, she was altogether triumphant.  There
was no cloud of care darkening the brightness of her loving eyes, no
fear from the past or for the future resting on her face.  Looking at
her, and at his fair little sister tying up her treasures for him,
Hamish for a moment longed--oh, so earnestly!--to live, for their sakes.

Hidden away among Flora's most precious treasures is a faded bunch of
spring-flowers, tied with a thread broken from the fringe of the plaid
on which her brother sat that day; and looking at them now, she knows
that when Hamish took them from her hand, and kissed and blessed her
with loving looks, it was with the thought in his heart of the long
parting drawing near.  But she did not dream of it then, nor did Shenac.
He watched with wistful eyes the little figure dancing over the field
and down the road, saying softly as she disappeared,--

"I would like to live a little while, for their sakes."

Shenac did not catch the true sense of his words, and mistaking him, she
said eagerly,--

"Ah, yes, if we could manage it--you and Flora and I.  Allister might
have the lads; he will make men of them.  I am not wise enough nor
patient enough.  But you and Flora and I--it would be so nice for us to
live together till we grow old."  And Shenac cast longing looks towards
the little log-house where they had lived so long and so happily.

But Hamish shook his head.  "I doubt it can never be, my Shenac."

"No, I suppose not," said Shenac, with a sigh; "for Allister is to take
down the old house--the dear old shelter--to make the garden larger.  He
is an ambitious lad, our Allister," she added laughing, "and means to
have a place worthy of the chief of the clan.  But, somewhere and some
time, we'll have a wee house together, Hamish--you and I and Flora.
Don't shake your wise head, lad.  There is nothing that may not happen--
some time.

"Do you remember, Hamish," she continued (and her voice grew low and
awed as she said it)--"do you remember the night you were so ill?  I did
not say it to you, but I feared that night that you were going to die,
and I said to myself, if God would spare you to my prayers, I would
never doubt nor despond again; I would trust God always.  And I will."

"But, Shenac, what else could you do but trust God if I were to die?"
asked her brother gravely.  "My living or dying would make no difference
as to that."

"But, Hamish, that is not what I mean.  It may seem a bold thing to say,
but I think God heard my prayer that night, and spared you to us; and it
would seem so wrong, so ungrateful, to doubt now.  All will be for the
best now, I am sure, now that he has raised you up again."

"For a little while," said Hamish softly.  "But, Shenac, all will be for
the best, whether I live or die.  You do not need me to tell you that, I
am sure."

"But you _are_ better," said Shenac eagerly, a vague trouble stirring at
her heart.

"Surely I am better.  But that is not the question.  I want you to say
to me that you will trust and not be afraid even if I were to die,
Shenac, my darling.  Think where your peace and strength come from,
think of Him in whom you trust; and what difference can the staying or
going of one like me make, if He is with you?"

For just a moment it was clear to Shenac how true this was--how safe
they are whom God keeps, how much better than a brother's love is the
love divine, which does not shield from all suffering, but which most
surely saves from all real evil.

"Yes, Hamish," she said humbly, "I see it.  But, oh, I am glad you are
better again!"

But was he really better?  Shenac asked herself the question many a time
in the days that followed.  For the May that had come in so brightly
was, after all, a dreary month.  There were some cold days and some
rainy days, and never a day, till June came, that was mild enough for
Hamish to venture out again.  And when he did, it was not on the hillock
by the creek where Shenac spread the plaid, but close to the end of the
old log-house, where the mother used to sit in the sunshine.  For the
creek seemed a long way off to Hamish now.  When Allister came down the
hill to speak to his brother, it came into Shenac's mind that his face
was graver, and his greeting not so cheery, as it had been that May-day.
As for Dan, he did not hail him as he had done then, but only looked a
moment with wistful eyes, and then went away.

"Truly, the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to
behold the sun," said Hamish softly, as he leaned back against the wall.
"I thought, the last time I was out, that nothing could be lovelier
than the sky and the fields were then; but they are lovelier to-day.  It
helps one to realise `the living green' that the hymn speaks about,
Shenac:--

  "`There everlasting spring abides,
  And never-withering flowers,'"

he murmured.

But Shenac had no answer ready.  Day by day she was coming to the
knowledge of what must be, but she could not speak about it yet.  Nay,
she had never really put it to herself in words that her brother was
going to die.  She had all these days been putting the fear from her, as
though by that means she might also put away the cause.  Now in the
sunshine it looked her in the face, and would not be put aside.  But,
except that she sat very still and was very pale, she gave no token of
her thoughts to Hamish; and if he noticed her, he said nothing.

"Shenac," said he in a little while, "when Allister takes away the poor
old house to make the garden larger, he should make a summer-seat here,
just where the end of the house comes, to mind you all of my mother and
me.  Will you tell him, Shenac?"

"He may never change the garden as he thought to do," answered Shenac.
"He will have little heart for the plans we have all been making."

"Yes, just at first, I know; but afterwards, Shenac.  Think of the years
to come, when Allister's children will be growing up about him.  He will
not forget me; but he will be quite happy without me, as the time goes
on; and you too, Shenac.  It is well that it should be so."

Shenac neither assented nor denied.  Soon Hamish continued:--

"I thought it would be my work to lay out the new garden.  I would like
to have had the thought of poor lame Hamish joined with the change; but
it does not really matter.  You will not forget me; but, Shenac,
afterwards you must tell Allister about the summer-seat."

"Afterwards!"  Ah, well, there would be time enough for many a thing
afterwards--for the tears and bitter cries which Shenac could only just
keep back, for the sickness of the heart that would not be driven away.
Now she could only promise quietly that afterwards Allister should be
told; and then gather closer about him the plaid, which her brother's
hand had scarcely strength to hold.

"You are growing weary, Hamish," she said.

"Yes," said Hamish; and they rose to go.  But first they would go into
the old house for a moment, for the sake of old times.

"For, with all your cares, and all my painful days and nights, we were
very happy here, Shenac," said Hamish, as the wide, low door swung back
and they stepped down into the room.  Oh, how unspeakably dreary it
looked to Shenac--dreary, though so familiar!  There was a bedstead in
the room yet, and some old chairs; and the heavy bunk, which was hardly
fit for the new house.  There was the mother's wheel, too; and on the
walls hung bunches of dried herbs and bags of seeds, and an old familiar
garment or two.  There was dust on the floor, and ashes and blackened
brands were lying in the wide fireplace, and the sunshine streaming in
on all through the open door.  Shenac shivered as she entered, but
Hamish looked round with a smile, and with eyes that were taking
farewell of them all.  Even in her bitter pain she thought of him first.
She made him sit down on the bunk, and gathered the plaid about him
again, for the air was chill.

It all came back: the many, many times she had seen him sitting there,
in health and in sickness, in sorrow and in joy; all their old life, all
the days that could never, never come again.  Kneeling down beside him,
she laid her head upon his breast, and just this once--the first time
and the last in his presence--gave way to her grief.

"O Hamish!  Hamish, bhodach!  Must it be?  Must it be?"  He did not
speak.  She did not move till she felt tears that were not her own
falling on her face.  Then she rose, and putting her arms round him, she
made him lean on her, all the while softly soothing him with hand and
voice.

"I am grieved for you, my Shenac," said he.  "We two have been nearer to
each other than the rest.  You have not loved me less because I am
little and lame, but rather more for the trouble I have been to you; and
I know something will be gone from your life when I am not here."

"Oh, what will be left?" said Shenac.

"Shenac, my darling, I know something that you do not know, and I see
such a beautiful life before you.  You are strong.  There is much for
you to do of the very highest work--God's work; and then at the end we
shall meet all the happier because of the heart-break now."

But beyond the shadow that was drawing nearer, Shenac's eyes saw
nothing, and she thought indeed that her heart was breaking--dying with
the sharpness of the pain.

"It won't be long, at the very longest; and after just the first, there
are many happy days waiting you."

Shenac withdrew herself from her brother, she trembled so, and slipping
down beside him, she laid her face on his bosom again.  Then followed
words which I shall not write down--words of prayer, which touched the
sore place in Shenac's heart as they fell, but which came back
afterwards many a time with a comforting and healing power.

All through the long summer afternoon Hamish slumbered and woke and
slumbered again, while his sister sat beside him, heart-sick with the
dread, which was indeed no longer dread, but sorrowful certainty.

"It is coming nearer," she said to herself, over and over again--"it is
coming nearer."  But she strove to quiet herself, that her face might be
calm for his waking eyes to rest upon.

Allister and his wife came in as usual to sit a little while with him,
when the day's work was done; and then Shenac slipped away, to be alone
a little while with her grief.  An hour passed, and then another, and a
third was drawing to a close, and she did not return.

"She must have fallen asleep.  She is weary with the long day," said
Hamish.  "And you are weary too, Allister and Shenac.  Go to bed.  I
shall not need anything till my Shenac comes."

Shenac Dhu went out and opened the door of her sister's room.  Little
Flora was sleeping sweetly, but there was no Shenac.  Very softly she
went here and there, looking and listening in vain.  The late moon, just
rising, cast long shadows on the dewy grass as she opened the door and
looked out.  The pleasant sounds of a summer night fell on her ear, but
no human voice mingled with the music.  All at once there came into her
mind the remembrance of the brother and sister as they sat in the
afternoon at the old house-end, and, hardly knowing why, she went
through the yard and down the garden-path.  All was still without, but
from within the house there surely came a sound.

Yes; it was the sound of weeping--not loud and bitter, but as when a
"weaned child" has quieted itself, and sobs and sighs through its
slumbers.

"Alone with God and her sorrow!"

Shenac Dhu dared not enter; nor shall we.  When a stricken soul lies in
the dust before God, no eye should gaze, no lip tell the story.  Who
would dare to speak of the mystery of suffering and blessing through
which a soul passes when God first smites, then heals?  What written
words could reveal his secret of peace spoken to such a one?

That night all the grief of Shenac's sore heart was spread out before
the Lord.  All the rebellion of the will that clung still to an earthly
idol rose up against him; and in his loving-kindness and in the
multitude of his tender mercies he had compassion upon her.  That night
she "did eat angels' food," on the strength of which she went for many a
day.

Shenac Dhu still listened and waited, meaning to steal away unseen; but
when the door opened, and the moonlight fell on her sister's
tear-stained face, so pale and calm, now that the struggle was over, she
forgot all else, and clung to her, weeping.  Shenac did not weep; but,
weary and spent with the long struggle, she trembled like a leaf, and,
guiding each other through the dim light, they went home.

Shenac Dhu was herself again when she crossed the threshold, and when
her cousin would have turned towards the door of her brother's room, she
gently but firmly drew her past it.

"No; it is Allister's turn and mine to-night," she said; and Shenac had
no strength to resist, but suffered herself to be laid down by little
Flora's side without a word.

She rose next morning refreshed; and after this all was changed.  She
gave Hamish up after that night; or, rather, she had given up her own
will, and waited that God's will might be done in him and in her.  It
was not that she suffered, and had strength to hide her suffering from
her brother's eye.  She did not suffer as she had done before.  She did
not love her brother less, but she no longer grudged him to his Lord and
hers.  It was not that for him the change would be most blessed, nor
that for her the waiting would not be long.  It was because God willed
that her brother should go hence; and therefore she willed it too.

And what blessed days those were that followed!  Surely never traveller
went down the dark valley cheered by warmer love or tenderer care.
There was no cloud, no shadow of a cloud, between the brother and sister
after that night.  Though Shenac never said it, Hamish knew that after
that night she gave him up and was at peace.  It was a peaceful time to
all the household, and to the friends who came now and then to see them;
but there was more than peace in the hallowed hours to the brother and
sister.  It was a foretaste of "the rest that remaineth."  To one, that
rest was near.  Between it and the other lay life--it might be long--a
life of care and labour and trial; but to her the rest "remaineth" all
the same.

He did not suffer much--just enough to make her loving care constant and
very sweet to him--just enough to make her not grudge too much, for his
sake, the passing of the days.  Oh, how peacefully they glided on!  The
valley was steep, but it never was dark.  Not a shadow, to the very
last, came to dim the brightness of those days; and in remembrance the
brightness lingers still.



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

But I must go back again to the June days when Shenac's peace was new.
The light came in through the western window, not from the sun, but from
the glory he had left behind; and with his face upturned towards the
golden clouds, Hamish sat gazing, as if he saw heaven beyond.

"Ready and waiting!" thought Shenac--"ready and waiting!"

For a moment she thought she must have spoken the words aloud, as her
brother turned and said,--

"I have just one thing left to wish for, Shenac.  If I could only see
Mr Stewart once again."

"He said he would come, dear, in August or September," said Shenac,
after a moment's pause.

"I shall not see him, then," said Hamish softly.

"He might come sooner, perhaps, if he knew," said Shenac.  "Allister
might write to him."

"I so long to see him!" continued Hamish.  "I do love him so, Shenac
dear--next to you, I think.  Indeed, I know not which I love best.  Oh,
I could never tell you all the cause I have to love him."

"He would be sure to come," said his sister.

"I want to see him because I love him, and because he loves me, and
because--" He paused.

"Have you anything to say to him that I could tell him afterwards?  But
he will be sure to come."

"You could write and ask him, Shenac."

"Yes; oh yes.  Only Allister could do it better," said Shenac; "but I
could let him know that you are longing to see him again."

But it was Hamish himself who wrote--two broken lines, very unlike the
letters he used to take so much pains to make perfect.  But the
irregular, almost illegible, characters were eloquent to his friend; and
in a few days there came an answer, saying that in a day or two business
would bring him within fifty miles of their home, and it would go hard
with him if he could not get a day for his friend.  And almost as soon
as his letter he himself came.  He had travelled all night to accomplish
it, and must travel all night again; but in the meantime there was a
long summer day before them.

A long, happy day it was, and long to be remembered.  They had it mostly
to themselves.  All the morning Mr Stewart sat beside the low couch of
Hamish, and spoke or was silent as he had strength to listen or reply.
On the other side sat Shenac, never speaking, never moving, except when
her brother needed her care.

Once, when Hamish slumbered, Mr Stewart, touching her bowed head with
his hand, whispered,--

"Is it well?"  And Shenac answered, "It is well.  I would not have it
otherwise."

"And afterwards?" said her friend.

"I cannot look beyond," she murmured.

He stooped to whisper,--

"I will not fear, though the earth be removed, though the mountains be
cast into the midst of the sea."

"I am not afraid," said Shenac.  "I do not think when the time comes I
shall be afraid."

After that Mr Stewart carried Hamish out to the end of the house, and
there they were alone.  When they came in again, one and another of his
friends came to see Mr Stewart, and Hamish rested.  As it grew dark,
they all gathered in to worship, and then it was time for Mr Stewart to
go.  When all was ready, and he came to say farewell, Hamish slumbered.
Shenac stooped down and spoke his name.  Mr Stewart bent over him and
kissed him on the brow and lips.  As he raised himself, the closed eyes
opened, and the smiling lips murmured, as Shenac stooped again to catch
the words,--

"He will come again, to care for you always.  I could hardly have borne
to leave my Shenac, but for that."

Shenac lifted her startled eyes to Mr Stewart's face.

"Is he wandering?" she asked.

"No.  Will you let me care for you always, Shenac, good and dear child?"

Shenac did not catch the true meaning of his words, but she saw that his
lip quivered, and the hand he held out trembled; so she placed hers in
it for a farewell.  Then he kissed her as he had kissed her brother, and
then he went away.

There was no break in the long summer days after this.  Sabbaths and
weekdays were all the same in the quiet room.  Once or twice Hamish was
carried in Allister's strong arms to the door, or to the seat at the end
of the house, and through almost all July he sat for an hour or two each
day in the great chair by the western window.  But after August came in,
the only change he had was between his bed and the low couch beside it.
He did not suffer much pain, but languor and restlessness overpowered
him often; and then the strong, kind arms of his elder brother never
were wearied, even when the harvest-days were longest, but bore him from
bed to couch, and from couch to bed again, till he could rest at last.
Sometimes, when he could rest nowhere else, he would slumber a little
while with his head on his sister's shoulder, and her arms clasped about
him.

When a friend came in to sit with him for a while, or when he was easy
or slumbered through the day, Shenac made herself busy with household
matters; for, what with the milk and the wool and the harvest-people,
Shenac Dhu had more than she could well do, even with the help of her
handmaid Maggie, and her sister strove to lighten the labour.  But the
care of her brother was the work that fell to her now, and at night she
never left him.  She slept by snatches in the great chair when he slept,
and whiled away the wakeful hours when his restless turns came on.

She was not doing too much for her strength; she was quite fit for it
all.  The neighbours were more than kind, and many of them would gladly
have shared the watching at night with her; but Hamish was not used to
have any one else about him, and it could hardly be called watching, for
she slept all she needed.  And, besides, it was harvest-time, and all
were busy in the fields, and those who worked all day could not watch at
night.  She was quite well--a little thin and pale--"bleached," her aunt
said, by being in the house and not out in the harvest-field; but she
was always alert and cheerful.

The coming sorrow was more hers than any of the others.  They all
thought with dismay of the time when Shenac should be alone, with half
her heart in the grave of Hamish.  But she did not look beyond the end
to that time, and sought no sympathy because of this.

It is a happy, thing that they who bear the burdens of others by this
means lighten their own; and Shenac, careful for her young brothers and
little Flora, anxious that the few hushed moments in their brother's
room--his prayers, his loving words, his gentle patience, his immortal
hope--should henceforth be blended with all their inward life, never to
be forgotten, never to be set aside, thought more of them than of
herself through all those days and nights of waiting.

When a sudden shower or a rainy day gave the harvesters a little
leisure, she used to make herself busy in the house that Dan might feel
himself of use to Hamish, and might hear, with no one else to listen, a
sweet, persuasive word or two from his dying brother's lips.

For Shenac's heart yearned over her brother Dan.  He did so need some
high aim, some powerful motive of action, some strengthening, guiding
principle of life.  All need this; but Dan more than others, she
thought.  If he did not go straight to the mark, he would go very far
astray.  He would soon be his own master, free to guide himself, and he
would either do very well or very ill in life; and there had been times,
even since the coming home of Allister, when Shenac feared that "very
ill" it was to be.

And yet at one time he had seemed not very far from the kingdom.  During
all the long season of religious interest, no one had seemed more
interested, in one way, than he.  Without professing to be personally
earnest in the matter, he had attended all the meetings, and watched--
with curiosity, perhaps, but with awe and interest too--the coming out
from the world of many of his companions, their changed life, their
higher purpose.  But all this had passed away without any real change to
himself, and, as a reaction from that time, Dan had grown a little more
than careless--very willing to be called careless, and more, by some who
grieved, and by others who laughed.

So Shenac watched and prayed, and forgot herself in longings that, amid
the influences of a time so solemn and so sweet, Dan might find that
which should make him wise and strong, and place him far beyond all her
doubts and fears for ever.

It was a day in the beginning of harvest--a rainy day, coming after so
long a time of drought and dust and heat that all rejoiced in it, even
though it fell on golden sheaves and on long swaths of new-cut grain.
It was not a misty, drizzling rain; it came down with a will in sudden
showers, leaving little pools in the chip-yard and garden-paths.  Every
now and then the clouds broke away, as if they were making preparation
for the speedy return of the sunshine; but the sun did not show his face
till he had only time to tinge the clouds with golden glory before he
sank behind the forest.

"Carry me to the window, Dan," said Hamish.  "Thank you: that is nice.
You carry me as strongly and firmly as Allister himself.  You are as
strong, and nearly as tall, I think," continued he, when he had been
placed in the great chair and had rested a little.  At any other time
Dan would have straightened himself up to declare how he was an eighth
of an inch taller than Allister, or he would have attempted some
extraordinary feat--such as lifting the stove or the chest of drawers--
to prove his right to be called a strong man.  But, looking down on his
brother's fragile form and beautiful colourless face, other thoughts
moved him.  Love and compassion, for which no words could be found,
filled his heart and looked out from his wistful eyes.  It came to him
as it had never come before--what a sorrowful, suffering life his
brother's had been; and now he was dying!  Hamish seemed not to need
words in order that he might understand his thoughts.

"I used to fret about it, Dan; but that is all past.  It does not
matter, as I am lying now.  I would not change my weakness for your
strength to-day, dear lad."

A last bright ray of sunlight lighted up the fair, smiling face, and
flecked with golden gleams the curls that lay about it.  There came into
Dan's mind thoughts of the time when Hamish was a little lad, strong and
merry as any of them all; and his heart was moved with vague wonder and
regret at the mystery that had changed his happy life to one of
suffering and comparative helplessness.  And yet, what did it matter,
now that the end had come?  Perhaps all that trouble and pain had helped
to make the brightness of to-day, for there was no shadow in the dying
eyes, no regret for the past, no fear for the future.  He let his own
eyes wander from his brother's face away to the clouds and the sinking
sun and the illuminated forest, with a vague notion that, if his
feelings were not suppressed, he should do dishonour to his manliness
soon.  Hamish touched his hand, as he said,--

"It looks dark to you, Dan, with the shadow of death drawing nearer and
nearer; but it is only a shadow, lad, only a shadow, and I am not
afraid."

Dan felt that he must break down if he met that smile a moment longer,
and, with a sudden wrench, he turned himself away; but he could not have
spoken a word, if his reputation for strength had depended on it.
Hamish spoke first.

"Sit down, lad, if you are not needed, and read a while to me, till
Shenac comes back again."

"All right," said Dan.  He could endure it with something to do, he
thought.  "What book, Hamish?"

"There is only one book now, Dan, lad," said Hamish as he lifted the
little, worn Bible from the window-seat.

Dan could do several things better than he could read, but he took the
book from his brother's hand.  Even reading would be better than
silence--more easily borne.

"Anywhere, I suppose?" said he.

The book opened naturally at a certain place, where it had often been
opened before, and he read:--

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ."

The sigh of satisfaction with which Hamish laid himself back, as the
words came slowly, said more to Dan than a sermon could have done.  He
read on, thinking, as verse by verse passed his lips, "That is for
Hamish," till he came to this:--

"For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of
his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life."

"Was this for Hamish only?"  Dan's voice was not quite smooth through
this verse; it quite broke down when he tried the next; and then his
face was hidden, and the sobs that had been gathering all this time
burst forth.

"Why, Dan, lad! what is it, Dan?" said Hamish; and the thin, transparent
fingers struggled for a moment to withdraw the great, brown, screening
hands from his eyes.  Then his arm was laid across his brother's neck.
"They are all for you, Dan, as well as for me," he murmured.  "O Dan, do
not sob like that.  Look up, dear brother, I have something to say to
you."

If I were to report the broken words that followed, they might not seem
to have much meaning or weight; but, falling from those dear dying lips,
they came with power to the heart of Dan.  And this was but the
beginning.  The veil being once lifted from Dan's heart, he did not
shrink again from his brother's gentle and faithful ministrations.
There were few days after that in which the brothers were not left alone
together for a little while.  Though the days were not many, in Dan's
life they counted more than all the years that had gone before.

The harvest was drawing to a close before the last day came.  The dawn
was breaking after a long and weary night More than once, during the
slowly-passing hours, Shenac had turned to the door to call her
brothers; but thoughts of the long laborious day restrained her, and now
a little respite had come.  Hamish slumbered peacefully.  It was not
very long, however, before his eyes opened on his sister's face with a
smile.

"It is drawing nearer, my Shenac," he murmured.

Her answering smile was tearful, but very bright.

"Yes, it is drawing nearer."

"And you do not grudge me to my rest, dear?"

"No; even at my worst time I did not do that.  For myself, the way
looked weary; but at the very worst time I was glad for you."

The brightness of her tearful smile never changed till his weary eyes
closed again.  The day passed slowly.  They thought him dying in the
afternoon, and they all gathered in his room; but he revived, and when
night came he was left alone with Shenac.  There were others up in the
house all night, and now and then a face looked in at the open door; but
they slept, or seemed to sleep--Shenac in the great chair, with her head
laid on her brother's pillow and her bright hair mingling with his.  On
her cheek, pale with watching and with awe of the presence that
overshadowed them, one thin, white hand was laid.  The compressed lips
and dimmed eyes of Hamish never failed to smile as in answer to his
touch she murmured some tender word--not her own, but _His_ whose words
alone can avail when it comes to a time like this.

As the day dawned they gathered again--first Dan, then Allister and
Shenac Dhu, then Flora and the little lads; for the change which cannot
be mistaken had come to the dying face, and they waited in silence for
the King's messenger.  He slumbered peacefully with a smile upon his
lips, but his eyes opened at last and fastened on his sister's face.
She had never moved through the coming in of them all; she did not move
now, but spoke his name.

"Hamish, bhodach!"

Did he see her?

"How bright it is in the west!  It will be a fair day for the harvest
to-morrow."

It must have been a glimpse of the "glory to be revealed" breaking
through the dimness of death; for he did not see the dear face so close
to his, and if he heard her voice, he was past all answering now.  Just
once again his lips moved, murmuring a name--the dearest of
all--"Jesus;" and then he "saw him as he is."



CHAPTER NINETEEN.

And having closed the once beaming eyes and straightened the worn limbs
for the grave, Shenac's work at home was done.  Through the days of
waiting that followed, she sat in the great chair with folded hands.
Many came and went, and lingered night and day in the house of death, as
is the custom of this part of the country, now happily passing away; and
through all the coming and going Shenac sat still.  Sometimes she roused
herself to answer the friends who came with well-meant sympathy; but
oftener she sat silent, scarcely seeming to hear their words.  She was
"_resting_," she said to Dan, who watched her through those days with
wistful and anxious eyes.

Yes, she was resting from the days and nights of watching, and from the
labours and cares and anxieties of the years that had gone before.  All
her weariness seemed to fall upon her at once.  Even when death enters
the door, the cares and duties of such a household cannot be altogether
laid aside.  There was much to do with so many comers and goers; but
there were helpful hands enough, and she took no part in the necessary
work, but rested.

She took little heed of the preparations going on about her--different
in detail, but in all the sad essentials the same, in hut and hall, at
home and abroad--the preparations for burying our dead out of our sight.
During the first day, Allister and his wife said, thankfully, to each
other, "How calm she is!"  The next day they said it a little anxiously.
Then they watched for the reaction, feeling sure it must come, and
longing that it should be over.

"It will be now," said Shenac Dhu as they brought in the coffin; and she
waited at her sister's door to hear her cry out, that she might weep
with her.  But it was not then; nor afterwards, when the long, long
procession moved away from the house so slowly and solemnly; nor when
they stood around the open grave in the kirkyard.  When the first clod
fell on the coffin--oh, heart-breaking sound!--Dan made one blind step
towards Shenac, and would have fallen but for Angus Dhu.  Little Flora
cried out wildly, and her sister held her fast.  She did not shriek, nor
swoon, nor break into weeping, as did Shenac Dhu; but "her face would
never be whiter," said they who saw it, and many a kindly and anxious
eye followed her as the long line of mourners slowly turned on their
homeward way again.

After the first day or two, Shenac tried faithfully to fall back into
her old household ways--or, rather, she tried to settle into some
helpful place in her brother's household.  The wheel was put to use
again, and, indeed, there was need, for all things had lagged a little
during the summer; and Shenac did her day's work, and more, as she used
to do.  She strove to be interested in the discussions of ways and means
which Allister's wife was so fond of holding, but she did not always
strive successfully.  It was a weariness to her; everything was a
weariness at times.  It was very wrong, she said, and very strange, for
she really did wish to be useful and happy in her brother's household.
She thought little of going away now; she had not the heart for it.  The
thought of beginning some new, untried work made her weary, and the
thought of going away among strangers made her afraid.

When it was suggested that she and little Flora should pay a
long-promised visit to their uncle, at whose house Hamish had passed so
many weeks, and that they should go soon, that they might have the
advantage of the fine autumn weather, she shrank from the proposal in
dismay.

"Not yet, Allister," she pleaded; "I shall like it by-and-by, but not
yet."

So nothing of the kind was urged again.  They made a mistake, however.
A change of some kind was greatly needed by her at this time.  Her
brother's long illness and death had been a greater strain on her health
and spirits than any one dreamed.  She was not ill, but she was in that
state when if she had been left to herself, or had had nothing to do,
she might have become ill, or have grown to fancy herself so, which is a
worse matter often, and worse to cure.  As it was, with her good
constitution and naturally cheerful spirit, she would have recovered
herself in time, even if something had not happened to rouse and
interest her.

But something did happen.  Shenac went one fair October afternoon over
the fields to the beech woods to gather nuts with Flora and the young
lads, and before they returned a visitor had arrived.  They fell in with
Dan on their way home, and as they came in sight of the house, chatting
together eagerly, there was something like the old light in Shenac's eye
and the old colour in her cheek.  If she had known whose eyes were
watching her from the parlour window, she would hardly have lingered in
the garden while the children spread their nuts on the old house-floor
to dry.  She did not know till she went into the house--into the room.
She did not know till he was holding her hands in his, that Mr Stewart
had come.

"Shenac, good, dear child, is it well with you?"

She had heard the words before.  All the scene came back--the
remembrance of the summer days, her dying brother and his friend--all
that had happened since then.  She strove to answer him--to say it was
well, that she was glad to see him, and why had he not come before?  But
she could not for her tears.  She struggled hard; but, long restrained,
they came in a flood now.  When she felt that to struggle was vain, she
would have fled; but she was held fast, and the tears were suffered to
have way for a while.  When she could find voice, she said,--

"I am not grieving too much; you must not think that.  Ask Allister.  I
did not mean to cry, but when I saw you it all came back."

Again her face was hidden, for her tears would not be stayed; but only
one hand was given to the work.  Mr Stewart held the other firmly,
while he spoke just such words as she needed to hear of her brother and
herself--of all they had been to each other, of all that his memory
would be to her in the life that might lie before her.  Then he spoke of
the endless life which was before them, which they should pass together
when this life--short at the very longest--should be over.  She
listened, and became quiet; and by-and-by, in answer to his questions,
she found herself telling him of her brother's last days and words, and
then, with a little burst of joyful tears, of Dan, and all that she
hoped those days had brought to him.

Never since the old times, when she used "to empty her heart out" to
Hamish, had she found such comfort in being listened to.  When she came
to the tea-table, after brushing away her tears, she seemed just as
usual, Shenac Dhu thought; and yet not just the same, she found, when
she looked again.  She gave a little nod at her husband, who smiled back
at her, and then she said softly to Mr Stewart,--

"You have done her good already."

Of course Mr Stewart, being a minister, whose office it is to do good
to people, was very glad to have done good to Shenac.  Perhaps he
thought it best to let _well_ alone, for he did not speak to her again
during tea-time, nor while she was gathering up the tea-things--"just as
she used to do in the old house long ago," he said to himself.  She
washed them, too, there before them all; for it was Shenac Dhu's new
china--Christie More's beautiful wedding present--that had been spread
in honour of the occasion, and it was not to be thought of that they
should be carried into the kitchen to be washed like common dishes.  She
was quiet, as usual, all the evening and at the time of worship, when
Angus Dhu and his wife and Evan and some other neighbours, having heard
of the minister's arrival, came in.  She was just as usual, they all
said, only she did not sing.  If she had raised her voice in her
brother's favourite psalm,--

  "I to the hills will lift mine eyes,"

she must have cried again; and she was afraid of the tears which it
seemed impossible to stop when once they found a way.

Mr Stewart fully intended for that night to "let well alone."  Shenac
had welcomed him warmly as the dearest friend of her dead brother, and
he would be content for the present with that.  He had something to say
to her, and a question or two to ask; but he must wait a while, he
thought.  She must not be disturbed yet.

But when the neighbours were gone, and he found himself alone with her
for a moment, he felt sorely tempted to change his mind.  As he watched
her sitting there with folded hands, so quiet and grave and sweet, so
unconscious of his presence, as it seemed to him, a fear came over him--
a fear as to the answer his question might receive.  It was not at all a
pleasant state of mind.  He endured it only while he walked up and down
the room two or three times; then pausing beside her, he said softly,--

"Is this my Shenac?"

She looked up with only wonder in her eyes, he saw, with a little shock
of pain; but he went on,--

"Hamish gave his sister to me, to keep and cherish always.  Did he never
tell you?"

"I do not understand you, Mr Stewart," said Shenac; but the sudden
drooping of the eye and the rush of colour over her face seemed to say
something else.

"To be my wife," he said, sitting down beside her and drawing her gently
towards him.  She did not resist, but she said hastily,--

"Oh, no; I am not fit for that."

"But if I am content, and can make you content?"

"But that is not enough.  I am not fit.  No; it is _not_ humility.  I
know myself, and I am not fit."

It is just possible that Mr Stewart wished that he had for that night
"let well alone."

"But I must have it out with her, now that I have begun," he said to
himself as he rose and went to the door, at which a footstep had paused.
Whoever it was, no one came in; and, shutting the door, he came and sat
down again.

In the meantime, Shenac had been calling up a vision of the new
minister's wife, the one who had succeeded old Mr Farquharson, and, in
view of the prettily-dressed, gentle-mannered, accomplished little lady
that presented herself to her mind, she had repeated to herself, more
emphatically,--

"No, I am _not_ fit."

So when Mr Stewart came back she was sitting with closely-folded hands,
looking straight before her, very grave indeed.  They were both silent
for a moment; then Mr Stewart said,--

"Now, Shenac, tell me why."

Shenac started.  "You must know quite well."

"But indeed I do not.  Tell me, Shenac."

It was not easy to do so.  In the unspeakable embarrassment that came
over her, she actually thought of flight.

"I am not educated," she murmured.  "I have never been anywhere but at
home.  I can only do common work.  I am not fit."

"Hamish thought you fit," said Mr Stewart softly.

"Ah, yes; Hamish, bhodach!"

Her voice fell with such a loving cadence.  All the pain and
embarrassment passed out of her face, giving place to a soft and tender
light, as she turned towards him.

"I was perfect in his eyes; but--you know better, Mr Stewart."

"The eyes of the dying are very clear to see things as they are," said
Mr Stewart.  "And as we sat at the end of the house that day, I think
Hamish was more glad for me than for you.  He was willing to give you to
me, even for your sake; but he knew what a treasure he was giving to his
friend, if I could win you for my own."

Her tears were falling softly.  She did not try to speak.

"Will you tell me in what respect you think you are not fit?"

She did not know how to answer.  She was deficient in so many ways--in
every way, indeed, it seemed to her.  She did not know where to begin;
but she must speak, and quickly too, that she might get away before she
quite broke down.  Putting great force upon herself, she turned to him,
and said,--

"I can do so few things; I know so little.  I could keep your house,
and--and care for you in that way; but I have seen so little.  I am only
an ignorant country girl--"

"Yes; I thought that myself once," said Mr Stewart.

"You must have thought it many times," said Shenac with a pang.  It was
not pleasant to hear it from his lips, let it be ever so true.  But it
took the quiver from her voice, and gave her courage to go on, "And all
you care for is so different from anything I have ever seen or known, I
should be quite left out of your real life.  You do not need me for
that, I know; but I don't think I could bear it--to be so near you and
so little to you."

She rose to go.  She was trembling very much, and could hardly utter the
words.

"You are very kind, and I thank you; but--you know I am not fit.  An
ignorant country girl--you have said so yourself."

"Shall I tell you when I thought so, Shenac?  Do you mind the night that
I brought little Flora home, crying with the cold?  It was the first
time I saw your face.  Do you mind how you comforted Flora, and put the
little lads to shame for having left her?  And then you thanked me, and
asked me to sit down.  And do you mind how you made pancakes for supper,
and never let one of them burn, though you were listening all the time
to Hamish and me?  I remember everything that happened that night,
Shenac--how you put away the things, and made a new band for the
mother's wheel, and took up the lost loops in little Flora's stocking.
Then you helped the little lads with their tables, and kept Dan in
order, listening all the time to your brother and me; and, best of all,
you bade me be sure and come again.  Have you forgotten, Shenac?"

"It was for the sake of Hamish," said Shenac, dropping her head; but she
raised it again quickly.  "That does not make any difference."

"Listen.  That night, as I went over the fields to Angus Dhu's, I said
to myself that if ever I grew strong and well again, if ever I should
live to have a kirk and a manse of my own--was I too bold, Shenac?--I
said to myself you should help me to do my work in them as I ought."

Shenac shook her head.

"It was not a wise thought.  You little know how unfit I was then, how
unfit I am now."

"Say that you do not care for me, Shenac," said Mr Stewart gravely.

"No, I cannot say that; it would not be true.  I mean, that has nothing
to do with my being fit."

Mr Stewart thought it had a great deal to do with it, but he did not
say so.

"You said you would be left out of my real life.  What do you mean,
Shenac?  Do you know what my life's work is to be?  It is, with God's
help, to be of use to souls.  Don't you care for that, Shenac?  Do you
think a year or two of life in the world--common life--could be to you
what these months by your brother's death-bed have been, as a
preparation for real life-work--yours and mine?  Do you think that any
school could do for you what all these years of forgetting yourself and
caring for others have done--all your loving patience with your
afflicted mother, all your care of your sister and the little lads, all
your forbearance with Dan, all your late joy in him?  If you cared for
me, Shenac, you would not say you are not fit."

It was very pleasant to listen to all this.  There was some truth in it,
too, Shenac could not but acknowledge.  He was very much in earnest, at
any rate, and sincere in every word, except perhaps the last He wanted
to hear her say again that she eared for him; but she did not fall into
the trap, whether she saw it or not.

"I know I care for your work," she said, "and you are right--in one way.
I think all our cares and troubles have done me good, have made me see
things differently.  But I could not help you much, I'm afraid."

"Don't say that, Shenac; you could give me what I need most--sympathy;
you could help my weakness with your strength and courage of spirit.
Think what you were to Hamish.  You would be tenfold more to me.  Oh, I
need you so much, Shenac!"

"Hamish was different.  You would have a right to expect more than
Hamish."

But she grew brave again, and, looking into his face, said,--

"I do sympathise in your work, Mr Stewart, and I would like it to be
mine in a humble way; but there are so many things that I cannot speak
about.  Think of your own sisters.  How different I must be from them!
Allister and Shenac saw your sister Jessie when they were in M---, and
they said she was so accomplished--such a perfect little lady--and yet
so good and sweet and gentle.  No, Mr Stewart, I could never bear to
have people say your wife was not worthy of you, even though I might
know it to be true."

"I was thinking how our bonnie little Jessie might sit at your feet to
learn everything--almost everything--that it is worth a woman's while to
know."

"You are laughing at me now," said she, troubled.

"No, I am not; and, Shenac, you must not go.  I have a question to ask.
I should have begun with it.  Will you answer me simply and truly, as
Hamish would have wished his sister to answer his friend?"

"I will try," said she, looking up with a peculiar expression that
always came at the name of Hamish.  He bent down and whispered it.

"I have always thought you wise and good, more than any one, and--"

There was another pause.

"It is a pleasant thing to hear that you have always thought me wise and
good; but you have not answered my question, Shenac."

"Yes, I do care for you, Mr Stewart.  It would make me happy to share
your work; but I am not fit for it--at least, not yet."

In his joy and simplicity he thought all the rest would be easy; and, to
tell the truth, so did Allister and his wife, who ought to have known
our Shenac better.  When Shenac Dhu kissed her, and whispered something
about Christmas, and how they could ever bear to lose her so soon,
Shenac spoke.  She was going away before Christmas, and they could spare
her very well; but she was not going with Mr Stewart for two years at
the very least Allister had told her there was something laid up for her
against the time she should need it, and it would be far better that she
should use it to furnish her mind than to furnish her house; and she was
going to school.

"To school!" repeated Mrs Allister in dismay.  "Does Mr Stewart know?"

"No; you must tell him, Shenac--you and Allister.  I am not fit to be
his wife.  You will not have people saying--saying things.  You must see
it, Shenac.  I know so little; and it makes me quite wretched to think
of going among strangers, I am so shy and awkward.  I am not fit to be a
minister's wife," she added with a little laugh that was half a sob.
Shenac Dhu laughed too, and clapped her hands.

"A minister's wife, no less!  Our Shenac!"  And then she added gravely,
"I think you are right, Shenac.  I know you are good enough and dear
enough to be Mr Stewart's wife, though he were the prince of that name,
if there be such a person.  But there are little things that folk can
only learn by seeing them in others, and I think you are quite right;
but you will not get Mr Stewart to think so."

"If it is right he will come to think so; and you must be on my side,
Shenac--you and Allister, too."

Shenac Dhu promised, but in her heart she thought that her sister would
not be suffered to have her own way in this matter.  She was mistaken,
however.  Shenac was firm without the use of many words.  She cared for
him, but she was not fit to be his wife yet.  This was the burden of her
argument, gone over and over in all possible ways; and the first part
was so sweet to Mr Stewart that he was fain to take patience and let
her have her own way in the rest.

In Shenac's country, happily, it is not considered a strange thing that
a young girl should wish to pursue her education even after she is
twenty, so she had no discomfort to encounter on the score of being out
of her 'teens.  She lived first with her cousin, Christie More, who no
longer occupied rooms behind her husband's shop, but a handsome house at
a reasonable distance towards the west end of the town.  Afterwards she
lived in the school-building, because it gave her more time and a better
chance for study.  She spent all the money that Allister had put aside
for her; but she was moderately successful in her studies, and
considered it well spent.

And when the time for the furnishing of the western manse came, there
was money forthcoming for that too; for Angus Dhu had put aside the
interest of the sum sent to him by Allister for her use from the very
first, meaning it always to furnish her house.  It is possible that it
was another house he had been thinking of then; but he gave it to her
now in a way that greatly increased its value in her eyes, kissing her
and blessing her before them all.

All these years Shenac's work has been constant and varied; her duties
have been of the humblest and of the highest, from the cutting and
contriving, the making and mending of little garments, to the guiding of
wandering feet and the comforting of sorrowful souls.  In the manse
there have been the usual Saturday anxieties and Monday despondencies,
needing cheerful sympathy and sometimes patient forbearance.  In the
parish there have been times of trouble and times of rejoicing; times
when the heavens have seemed brass above, and the earth beneath, iron;
and times when the church has been "like a well-watered garden," having
its trees "filled with the fruits of righteousness."  And in the manse
and in the parish Shenac has never, in her husband's estimation, failed
to fill well her allotted place.

The firm health and cheerful temper which helped her through the days
before Allister came home, have helped her to bear well the burdens
which other years have brought to her.  The firm will, the earnest
purpose, the patience, the energy, the forgetfulness of self, which made
her a stronghold of hope to her mother and the rest in the old times,
have made her a tower of strength in her home and among the people.  And
each passing year has deepened her experience and brightened her hope,
has given her clearer views of God's truth and a clearer sense of God's
love; and thus she has grown yearly more fit to be a helper in the great
work beside which all other work seems trifling--the work in which God
has seen fit to make his people co-workers with himself--the work of
gathering in souls, to the everlasting glory of his name.

And so, when her work on earth is over, there shall a glad "Well done!"
await her in heaven.

THE END.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Shenac's Work at Home" ***

Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.