Shenac's Work at Home Part 8

"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 doc.u.ment 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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 pa.s.sed 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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 towns.h.i.+p--through many town-s.h.i.+ps; and even the most earthly and churlish of the farmers a.s.sented 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 s.h.i.+rts 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 pa.s.s 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 leaders.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d, Shenac was in danger of allowing her work to become a snare to her.

Humbly acknowledging G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 wors.h.i.+p. It would have been a G.o.dless and graceless house, indeed, without that, in the opinion of those who had been accustomed to family wors.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d'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 towns.h.i.+p 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.