Shenac's Work at Home. Margaret M. Robertson
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