Shenac's Work at Home

by Margaret M. Robertson

Chapter Nineteen.

And having closed the once beaming eyes and straightened the worn limbs for the grave, Shenac’s work at home was done. Through the days of waiting that followed, she sat in the great chair with folded hands. Many came and went, and lingered night and day in the house of death, as is the custom of this part of the country, now happily passing away; and through all the coming and going Shenac sat still. Sometimes she roused herself to answer the friends who came with well-meant sympathy; but oftener she sat silent, scarcely seeming to hear their words. She was “resting,” she said to Dan, who watched her through those days with wistful and anxious eyes.

Yes, she was resting from the days and nights of watching, and from the labours and cares and anxieties of the years that had gone before. All her weariness seemed to fall upon her at once. Even when death enters the door, the cares and duties of such a household cannot be altogether laid aside. There was much to do with so many comers and goers; but there were helpful hands enough, and she took no part in the necessary work, but rested.

She took little heed of the preparations going on about her—different in detail, but in all the sad essentials the same, in hut and hall, at home and abroad—the preparations for burying our dead out of our sight. During the first day, Allister and his wife said, thankfully, to each other, “How calm she is!” The next day they said it a little anxiously. Then they watched for the reaction, feeling sure it must come, and longing that it should be over.

“It will be now,” said Shenac Dhu as they brought in the coffin; and she waited at her sister’s door to hear her cry out, that she might weep with her. But it was not then; nor afterwards, when the long, long procession moved away from the house so slowly and solemnly; nor when they stood around the open grave in the kirkyard. When the first clod fell on the coffin—oh, heart-breaking sound!—Dan made one blind step towards Shenac, and would have fallen but for Angus Dhu. Little Flora cried out wildly, and her sister held her fast. 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.

After the first day or two, Shenac tried faithfully to fall back into her old household ways—or, rather, she tried to settle into some helpful place in her brother’s household. The wheel was put to use again, and, indeed, there was need, for all things had lagged a little during the summer; and Shenac did her day’s work, and more, as she used to do. She strove to be interested in the discussions of ways and means which Allister’s wife was so fond of holding, but she did not always strive successfully. It was a weariness to her; everything was a weariness at times. It was very wrong, she said, and very strange, for she really did wish to be useful and happy in her brother’s household. She thought little of going away now; she had not the heart for it. The thought of beginning some new, untried work made her weary, and the thought of going away among strangers made her afraid.

When it was suggested that she and little Flora should pay a long-promised visit to their uncle, at whose house Hamish had passed so many weeks, and that they should go soon, that they might have the advantage of the fine autumn weather, she shrank from the proposal in dismay.

“Not yet, Allister,” she pleaded; “I shall like it by-and-by, but not yet.”

So nothing of the kind was urged again. They made a mistake, however. A change of some kind was greatly needed by her at this time. Her brother’s long illness and death had been a greater strain on her health and spirits than any one dreamed. She was not ill, but she was in that state when if she had been left to herself, or had had nothing to do, she might have become ill, or have grown to fancy herself so, which is a worse matter often, and worse to cure. As it was, with her good constitution and naturally cheerful spirit, she would have recovered herself in time, even if something had not happened to rouse and interest her.

But something did happen. Shenac went one fair October afternoon over the fields to the beech woods to gather nuts with Flora and the young lads, and before they returned a visitor had arrived. They fell in with Dan on their way home, and as they came in sight of the house, chatting together eagerly, there was something like the old light in Shenac’s eye and the old colour in her cheek. If she had known whose eyes were watching her from the parlour window, she would hardly have lingered in the garden while the children spread their nuts on the old house-floor to dry. She did not know till she went into the house—into the room. She did not know till he was holding her hands in his, that Mr Stewart had come.