Shenac's Work at Home

by Margaret M. Robertson

“Do you not know? Did you not get my letter? I waited for Evan. He had been robbed and hurt, and thought himself dying. But it was not so bad as that. He is better now—quite well, I think. I left him at his father’s door.”

“At home! Evan at home! What did his father say? Did you see Angus Dhu?”

Shenac was quite breathless by the time her questions were asked.

“No; I could not wait. The field between there and here seemed wider to me than the ocean. When I saw the light, I left him there.” And the manly voice had much ado to keep from breaking into sobs again as he spoke.

“His father has been so anxious. No letter has come to us since Evan’s came to his father to say that he was dying. I wish the old man had been prepared,” said Shenac.

“Oh, I am grieved! If I had but thought,” said Allister regretfully.

“It is quite as well that he was not prepared,” said Hamish. And he was right.

Shenac Dhu told them about it afterwards.

“My mother went to the door, and when she saw Evan she gave a cry and let the light fall. And then we all came down; and my father came out of his bed just as he was, and when he saw my mother crying and clinging about the lad, he dropped down in the big chair and held out his hands without saying a word. You may be sure Evan was not long in taking them; and then he sank down on his knees, and my father put his arms round him, and would not move—not even to put his clothes on,” continued Shenac Dhu, laughing and sobbing at the same time. “So I got a plaid and put about him; and there they would have sat, I dare say, till the dawn, but after just the first, Evan looked pale and weary, and my father said he must go to bed at once. ‘But first tell us about your cousin Allister,’ my father said. Evan said it would take him all night, and many a night, to tell all that Allister had done for him; and then my father said, ‘God bless him!’ over and over. And I cannot tell you any more,” said Shenac Dhu, laughing and crying and hiding her face in her hands.

“But as to my father being prepared,” she added gravely, after a moment’s pause, “I am afraid if he had had time to think about it, it would have seemed his duty to be stern at first with Evan. But it is far better as it is; and he can hardly bear him out of his sight. Oh, I’m glad it is over! I know now, by the joy of the home-coming, how terrible the waiting must have been to him.”