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"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?" 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."
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?"
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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?"
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.
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.
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