Chapter Eight.
I dislike to speak about the faults of Shenac. It would be far pleasanter to go on telling all that she did for her mother and brothers and little Flora—how her courage never failed, and her patience and temper very seldom; and how the neighbours looked on with wonder and pleasure at all the young girl was able to accomplish by her sense and energy, till they quite forgot that she was little more than a child—not sixteen when her father died—and spoke of her as a woman of prudence and a credit to her family. She looked like a woman. She was tall and strong. She seemed, indeed, to have the health and strength which should have fallen to her twin-brother Hamish; and she was growing to seem to all the neighbours much older than he. I suppose this change would have come in any circumstances, after a while, for girls of seventeen are generally more mature than boys of the same age; but the change was more decided in Shenac because of the care that had fallen on her so early. Still, they were alike. They had the same golden-brown hair, though the brother’s was of a darker shade, the same blue eyes, and frank, open brow. But the eyes of Hamish had a weary look, and his brow looked higher and broader because of the thin pale cheeks beneath it; and while he grew more quiet and retiring every day, no one could have been long in the house without seeing in many ways that Shenac was the ruling spirit there.
It was right it should be so. It could not have been otherwise, for her mother was broken in health and spirits, and Allister was away. Hamish was not able to take the lead in the labour, because of his lameness and his feeble health; and though he had great influence in the family councils, it was exercised indirectly, by quiet, sensible words, and by a silent good example to the rest.
As for Dan, his will was strong enough to command an army, and he had a great deal of good sense hidden beneath a reckless manner; but he was two years younger than his sister—quite too young and inexperienced, even if he had been steady and industriously disposed, to take the lead. So of course the leadership fell upon Shenac.
They all said, after a while—the neighbours, I mean—that it could not have fallen into better hands; and, as far as the family affairs were concerned, that was true. But for Shenac herself it was not so well. It is never well to take girls quickly out of their childhood, and it was especially bad for her to have so much the guidance of these affairs, for she naturally liked to lead—to have her own way; and, without being at all conscious of it, there were times when she grew sharp and arbitrary, expecting to be obeyed unquestioningly by them all.
She was always gentle with the mother, who sometimes was desponding and irritable, and needed a great deal of patient attendance; but even with the mother she liked to have her own way. Generally, Shenac’s way was the best, to be sure; for the mother, weakened in mind and body, saw difficulties in very trifling things, and fancied dangers and troubles where the bright, cheerful spirit of her daughter saw none. So, though she yielded in word, she often in deed gave less heed to the mother’s wishes than she ought to have done, and she was in danger, through this, of growing less lovable as the years went on.
But a sadder thing happened to Shenac than this. In the eagerness with which she devoted herself to her work she forgot higher duties. For there is a higher duty than that which a child owes to parents and friends—the duty owed to God. I do not mean that these are distinct and separate, or that they naturally and necessarily interfere with each other. Quite the contrary. It is only as our duty to our Father in heaven is understood and acknowledged that any other duty can be well or acceptably performed. And so, in forgetting God, Shenac was in danger of allowing her work to become a snare to her.
Humbly acknowledging God in all her ways, asking and expecting and waiting for his blessing in all that she undertook, she would hardly have grown unduly anxious or arbitrary or heedless of her mother’s wish and will. Conscious of her own weakness, and leaning on eternal strength, she would hardly have grown proud with success, or sinfully impatient when her will was crossed.