_ 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. _