Shenacs Work at Home | Page 7

lad before he went away. And, Shenac, he says our Allister beguiled Evan, or he never would have left home. He looked black when he said it. He was angry."
Shenac's eyes blazed again.
"Our Allister unsettled--he that went away for our father's sake, and for us all! Our Allister to beguile Evan, that wild lad! And you sat and heard him say it, Hamish!"
"What else could I do?" said Hamish bitterly.
"And my mother?" said Shenac.
"She could only cry, and say that Allister had always been a good son to her and to my father, and a dear brother to us all."
There was a long pause. Shenac never removed her eyes from the men, who were gradually drawing nearer and nearer, as one after another of the great cedar rails was laid on the foundation of logs and stones already prepared for them along the field; and anger gathered in her heart and showed itself in her face as she gazed. Hamish had turned quite away from the fence and from his sister, towards the creek where his brothers were still shouting at their play. But he was not thinking of his brothers; he did not see them, indeed. He made an effort to keep back the tears, which, in spite of all he could do, would flow. If Shenac had spoken to him, they must have gushed out; but he had time to force them back before Shenac turned away with an angry gesture.
"It's of no use, Shenac," he said then. "There's reason in what Angus Dhu says. We will have to give up the farm."
"Hamish, that shall never be done!" said Shenac. "It would break my mother's heart."
"It seems broken already," said Hamish hoarsely. "And it is easy to say the land must be kept. But what can we do with it? Who is to work it?"
"You and I and the little lads," cried Shenac. "There is no fear. God will help us," she added reverently--"the widow and orphan's God. Hamish, don't you mind?"
Hamish had no voice with which to answer for a moment; but in a little while he said with some difficulty,--
"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. Hamish," she added, suddenly stooping down over him, "do you think any plan made to separate you and me will prosper? I think I see black Angus coming between you and me with his plans."
Her words and her caress were quite too much for Hamish, and he surprised himself and her too by a sudden burst of tears. The sight of this banished Shenac's softness in a moment. She raised herself from her stooping posture with an angry cry. Separated from the rest of the fence-makers, and approaching the knoll where the brother and sister had, been sitting, were two men. One was Angus Dhu, and the other was his friend, and a relation of his wife, Elder McMillan. He was a good man, people said, but one who liked to move on with the current,--one who went for peace at all risks, and so forgot sometimes that purity was to be set before even peace. There was nothing in Shenac's knowledge of the man to make her afraid of him, and she took three steps towards them, and said,--
"Angus Dhu, do you mind what the Bible says of them that oppress the widow and the fatherless? Have you forgotten the verse that says, `Remove not the ancient land-mark'?"
She stopped, as if waiting for an answer. The two men stood still from sheer surprise, and looked at her. Shenac continued:--
"And do you mind what's said of them that add field to field? and--"
"Shenac, my woman," said the elder at last, "it's no becoming in you to speak in that kind of a way to one older than your father was. I doubt you're forgetting--"
But Shenac put his words aside with a gesture of indifference.
"And to speak false words of our Allister to his mother in her trouble as though he had led your wild lad Evan astray. You little know what our Allister saved him from more than once. But that is not for to-day. I have this to, say to you, Angus Dhu: you must be content with the half you have gotten; for not another acre of my father's land shall ever be yours, though all the elders in Glengarry stood at your back.--I will