Hamish laughed. “Are you hard, Shenac, and cross? Well, maybe just a little sometimes. I am not afraid for you, though. It will all come right, I think, in the end. But I am glad Allister is coming home, and more glad for your sake than for all the rest.”
Chapter Twelve.
It is May-day again—not so bright and pleasant as the May-day two years ago, when Hamish and Shenac sat so drearily watching Angus Dhu’s fence-building. They are sitting on the same spot now, and the children are under the big willow, sailing boats as they did that day—all but Dan. You could not make him believe that he had done such a foolish thing as that two years ago. Two years! It might be ten for the difference they have made in Dan. He only came back from the Grand River two days ago, and Shenac has not ceased wondering and laughing at the change in him. It is not merely his new-fashioned coat and astonishing waistcoat that have changed him. He has grown amazingly, and his voice is almost always as deep and rough as Angus Dhu’s; and the man and the boy are so blended in all he says and does, that Shenac has much ado to answer him as gravely as he expects.
“Hamish,” he called out from the top of the fence on which he was sitting, “you are a man of sense, and I want to ask you a question. Whose fence is this that I am sitting on? Is it ours, or Angus Dhu’s?”
Hamish had not considered the question. Indeed, Dan did not wait for an answer.
“Because, it is of no use here. If it is ours, we’ll draw the rails up to the high field, and get them out of the way before Allister comes home. If it belongs to Angus Dhu, we’ll—we’ll throw the rails into the creek.”
“There’s no hurry about it, is there?” said a voice behind him; and Dan, jumping down, turned about, and with more shamefacedness than Shenac would have believed possible, met the offered hand of Angus Dhu.
“I heard you had come back again, Dan, lad; and I thought you would not let the grass grow under your feet.—Are you for putting my good rails in the creek, Hamish, man?”