United States or Aruba ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"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."
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."
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.
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.
But at home, as elsewhere, Shenac Dhu was quiet and staid, and not at all like the merry Shenac of former times.
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."
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.
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.
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 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.
Word Of The Day