“And indeed, Shenac, so might you,” said Hamish gravely. “There should be no more said about Angus Dhu, for his sake and ours. He has been very friendly to us this summer, considering all things.”
“Considering what I said to him, you mean,” said Shenac sharply. “I was sorry for that as soon as I said it. But, Hamish, if you think I’m going down on my knees to Angus Dhu to tell him so, you’re mistaken. He may not be a thief and a robber, but he’s a dour carle, though he is of our own kin, and as different from our father as the dark is different from the day. And I can say nothing else of him, even for your sake, Hamish.”
“It is not for my sake that I am speaking, Shenac, but for your own. You are doing yourself a great wrong, cherishing this bitterness in your heart.”
Shenac was too much grieved and too angry to speak. She knew very well that she was neither very good nor very wise; but it had hitherto been her great pleasure in life to know that Hamish thought her so, and his words were very painful to her. She was vexed with him, and with Dan, and with all the world. Above all, she was vexed with herself.
She would not confess it, but in her heart she knew that a little of the zest would be taken from their labours if she were sure that their success would not be a source of vexation to Angus Dhu. And then Hamish had said she was injuring Dan—encouraging him in what was wrong—perhaps risking her influence for good over him.
The longer she thought about all this, the more unhappy she became. “Bearing false witness!” she repeated. It was a great sin she had been committing. It had been done thoughtlessly, but it was none the less a sin for that, Shenac knew. Hamish was right. She was growing very hard and wicked; and no wonder that he had come to think so meanly of her. Shenac said all this to herself, with many sorrowful and some angry tears. But the anger passed away before the sorrow. There were no confessions made openly; but, whatever may have been her secret thoughts of Angus Dhu, neither Dan nor Hamish nor anybody else ever heard Shenac speak a disrespectful word of him again.
Dan never got the “hearing” with which she had threatened him. She checked him more than once, when in the old way he began to remark on the evident interest that their father’s cousin took in their work; but she did it gently, remembering her own fault.
The intercourse which had almost ceased between the families was gradually renewed—at least, between the younger ones. Shenac could not bring herself to go often to her cousins’ house. She always felt, as she said to Hamish, as though Angus Dhu “eyed her” at such times. And, besides, she was too busy to go there or anywhere else. But her cousins came often to see her when the day’s work was over; and Shenac, the youngest, who was her father’s favourite, and who could take liberties that none of the others could have done at her age, came at other times. She was older than our Shenac by a year or so; but she was little and merry, and her jet-black hair was cut close to her head like a child’s, so she seemed much younger. She could not come too often. She was equally welcome to the grave, quiet Hamish and the boyish Dan, and more welcome to Shenac than to either. For she never hindered work, but helped it rather. She brought the news, too, and fought hot, merry battles with the lads, and for the time shook even Hamish out of the grave ways that were becoming habitual to him, and did Shenac herself good by reminding her that she was not an old woman burdened with care, but a young girl not sixteen, to whom fun and frolic ought to be natural.
There were not many newspapers taken in those parts about that time; but Angus Dhu took one, and Shenac used to come over the fence with it, and, giving it to Hamish, would take his hoe or rake and go on with his work while he read the news to the rest. The newspaper was English, of course. Gaelic was the language spoken at home—the language in which the Bible was read, and the Catechism said; but the young people all spoke and read English. And very good English too, as far as it went; for it was book-English, learned at school from books that are now considered out of date. But they were very good books for all that. They used to have long discussions about the state of the world as they gathered it from the newspapers—not always grave or wise, but useful, especially to Shenac, by keeping her in mind of what in her untiring industry she was in danger of forgetting, that there was a wide world beyond these quiet lines within which they were living, where nobler work than the mere earning of bread was being done by worthy and willing hands.