"I will not fear, though the earth be removed, though the mountains be
cast into the midst of the sea."
"I am not afraid," said Shenac. "I do not think when the time comes I
shall be afraid."
After that Mr Stewart carried Hamish out to the end of the house, and
there they were alone. When they came in again, one and another of his
friends came to see Mr Stewart, and Hamish rested. As it grew dark,
they all gathered in to worship, and then it was time for Mr Stewart to
go. When all was ready, and he came to say farewell, Hamish slumbered.
Shenac stooped down and spoke his name. Mr Stewart bent over him and
kissed him on the brow and lips. As he raised himself, the closed eyes
opened, and the smiling lips murmured, as Shenac stooped again to catch
the words,--
"He will come again, to care for you always. I could hardly have borne
to leave my Shenac, but for that."
Shenac lifted her startled eyes to Mr Stewart's face.
"Is he wandering?" she asked.
"No. Will you let me care for you always, Shenac, good and dear child?"
Shenac did not catch the true meaning of his words, but she saw that his
lip quivered, and the hand he held out trembled; so she placed hers in
it for a farewell. Then he kissed her as he had kissed her brother, and
then he went away.
There was no break in the long summer days after this. Sabbaths and
weekdays were all the same in the quiet room. Once or twice Hamish was
carried in Allister's strong arms to the door, or to the seat at the end
of the house, and through almost all July he sat for an hour or two each
day in the great chair by the western window. But after August came in,
the only change he had was between his bed and the low couch beside it.
He did not suffer much pain, but languor and restlessness overpowered
him often; and then the strong, kind arms of his elder brother never
were wearied, even when the harvest-days were longest, but bore him from
bed to couch, and from couch to bed again, till he could rest at last.
Sometimes, when he could rest nowhere else, he would slumber a little
while with his head on his sister's shoulder, and her arms clasped about
him.
When a friend came in to sit with him for a while, or when he was easy
or slumbered through the day, Shenac made herself busy with household
matters; for, what with the milk and the wool and the harvest-people,
Shenac Dhu had more than she could well do, even with the help of her
handmaid Maggie, and her sister strove to lighten the labour. But the
care of her brother was the work that fell to her now, and at night she
never left him. She slept by snatches in the great chair when he slept,
and whiled away the wakeful hours when his restless turns came on.
She was not doing too much for her strength; she was quite fit for it
all. The neighbours were more than kind, and many of them would gladly
have shared the watching at night with her; but Hamish was not used to
have any one else about him, and it could hardly be called watching, for
she slept all she needed. And, besides, it was harvest-time, and all
were busy in the fields, and those who worked all day could not watch at
night. She was quite well--a little thin and pale--"bleached," her aunt
said, by being in the house and not out in the harvest-field; but she
was always alert and cheerful.
The coming sorrow was more hers than any of the others. They all
thought with dismay of the time when Shenac should be alone, with half
her heart in the grave of Hamish. But she did not look beyond the end
to that time, and sought no sympathy because of this.
It is a happy, thing that they who bear the burdens of others by this
means lighten their own; and Shenac, careful for her young brothers and
little Flora, anxious that the few hushed moments in their brother's
room--his prayers, his loving words, his gentle patience, his immortal
hope--should henceforth be blended with all their inward life, never to
be forgotten, never to be set aside, thought more of them than of
herself through all those days and nights of waiting.
When a sudden shower or a rainy day gave the harvesters a little
leisure, she used to make herself busy in the house that Dan might feel
himself of use to Hamish, and might hear, with no one else to listen, a
sweet, persuasive word or two from his dying brother's lips.
For Shenac's heart yearned over her brother Dan. He did so need some
high aim, some powerful motive of action, some strengthening, guiding
principle of life. All need this; but Dan more than others, she
thought. If he did not go straight to the mark, he would go very far
astray. He would soon be his own master, free to guide himself, and he
would either do very well or very ill in life; and there had been times,
even since the coming home of Allister, when Shenac feared that "very
ill" it was to be.
And yet at one time he had seemed not very far from the kingdom. During
all the long season of religious interest, no one had seemed more
interested, in one way, than he. Without professing to be personally
earnest in the matter, he had attended all the meetings, and watched--
with curiosity, perhaps, but with awe and interest too--the coming out
from the world of many of his companions, their changed life, their
higher purpose. But all this had passed away without any real change to
himself, and, as a reaction from that time, Dan had grown a little more
than careless--very willing to be called careless, and more, by some who
grieved, and by others who laughed.
So Shenac watched and prayed, and forgot herself in longings that, amid
the influences of a time so solemn and so sweet, Dan might find that
which should make him wise and strong, and place him far beyond all her
doubts and fears for ever.
It was a day in the beginning of harvest--a rainy day, coming after so
long a time of drought and dust and heat that all rejoiced in it, even
though it fell on golden sheaves and on long swaths of new-cut grain.
It was not a misty, drizzling rain; it came down with a will in sudden
showers, leaving little pools in the chip-yard and garden-paths. Every
now and then the clouds broke away, as if they were making preparation
for the speedy return of the sunshine; but the sun did not show his face
till he had only time to tinge the clouds with golden glory before he
sank behind the forest.
"Carry me to the window, Dan," said Hamish. "Thank you: that is nice.
You carry me as strongly and firmly as Allister himself. You are as
strong, and nearly as tall, I think," continued he, when he had been
placed in the great chair and had rested a little. At any other time
Dan would have straightened himself up to declare how he was an eighth
of an inch taller than Allister, or he would have attempted some
extraordinary feat--such as lifting the stove or the chest of drawers--
to prove his right to be called a strong man. But, looking down on his
brother's fragile form and beautiful colourless face, other thoughts
moved him. Love and compassion, for which no words could be found,
filled his heart and looked out from his wistful eyes. It came to him
as it had never come before--what a sorrowful, suffering life his
brother's had been; and now he was dying! Hamish seemed not to need
words in order that he might understand his thoughts.
"I used to fret about it, Dan; but that is all past. It does not
matter, as I am lying now. I would not change my weakness for your
strength to-day, dear lad."
A last bright ray of sunlight lighted up the fair, smiling face, and
flecked with golden gleams the curls that lay about it. There came into
Dan's mind thoughts of the time when Hamish was a little lad, strong and
merry as any of them all; and his heart was moved with vague wonder and
regret at the mystery that had changed his happy life to one of
suffering and comparative helplessness. And yet, what did it matter,
now that the end had come? Perhaps all that trouble and pain had helped
to make the brightness of to-day, for there was no shadow in the dying
eyes, no regret for the past, no fear for the future. He let his own
eyes wander from his brother's face away to the clouds and the sinking
sun and the illuminated forest, with a vague notion that, if his
feelings were not suppressed, he should do dishonour to his manliness
soon. Hamish touched his hand, as he said,--
"It looks dark to you, Dan, with the shadow of death drawing nearer and
nearer; but it is only a shadow, lad, only a shadow, and I am not
afraid."
Dan felt that he must break down if he met that smile a moment longer,
and, with a sudden wrench, he turned himself away; but he could not have
spoken a word, if his reputation for strength had depended on it.
Hamish spoke first.
"Sit down, lad, if you are not needed, and read a while to me, till
Shenac comes back again."
"All right," said Dan. He could endure it with something to do, he
thought. "What book, Hamish?"
"There is only one book now, Dan, lad," said Hamish as he lifted the
little, worn Bible from the window-seat.
Dan could do several things better than he could read, but he took the
book from his brother's hand. Even reading would be better than
silence--more easily borne.
"Anywhere, I suppose?" said he.
The book opened naturally at a certain place, where it had often been
opened before, and he read:--
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ."
The sigh of satisfaction with which Hamish laid himself back, as the
words came slowly, said more to Dan than a sermon could have done. He
read on, thinking, as verse by verse passed his lips, "That is for
Hamish," till he came to this:--
"For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of
his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life."
"Was this for Hamish only?" Dan's voice was not quite smooth through
this verse; it quite broke down when he tried the next; and then his
face was hidden, and the sobs that had been gathering all this time
burst forth.
"Why, Dan, lad! what is it, Dan?" said Hamish; and the thin, transparent
fingers struggled for a moment to withdraw the great, brown, screening
hands from his eyes. Then his arm was laid across his brother's neck.
"They are all for you, Dan, as well as for me," he murmured. "O Dan, do
not sob like that. Look up, dear brother, I have something to say to
you."
If I were to report the broken words that followed, they might not seem
to have much meaning or weight; but, falling from those dear dying lips,
they came with power to the heart of Dan. And this was but the
beginning. The veil being once lifted from Dan's heart, he did not
shrink again from his brother's gentle and faithful ministrations.
There were few days after that in which the brothers were not left alone
together for a little while. Though the days were not many, in Dan's
life they counted more than all the years that had gone before.
The harvest was drawing to a close before the last day came. The dawn
was breaking after a long and weary night More than once, during the
slowly-passing hours, Shenac had turned to the door to call her
brothers; but thoughts of the long laborious day restrained her, and now
a little respite had come. Hamish slumbered peacefully. It was not
very long, however, before his eyes opened on his sister's face with a
smile.
"It is drawing nearer, my Shenac," he murmured.
Her answering smile was tearful, but very bright.
"Yes, it is drawing nearer."
"And you do not grudge me to my rest, dear?"
"No; even at my worst time I did not do that. For myself, the way
looked weary; but at the very worst time I was glad for you."
The brightness of her tearful smile never changed till his weary eyes
closed again. The day passed slowly. They thought him dying in the
afternoon, and they all gathered in his room; but he revived, and when
night came he was left alone with Shenac. There were others up in the
house all night, and now and then a face looked in at the open door; but
they slept, or seemed to sleep--Shenac in the great chair, with her head
laid on her brother's pillow and her bright hair mingling with his. On
her cheek, pale with watching and with awe of the presence that
overshadowed them, one thin, white hand was laid. The compressed lips
and dimmed eyes of Hamish never failed to smile as in answer to his
touch she murmured some tender word--not her own, but _His_ whose words
alone can avail when it comes to a time like this.
As the day dawned they gathered again--first Dan, then Allister and
Shenac Dhu, then Flora and the little lads; for the change which cannot
be mistaken had come to the dying face, and they waited in silence for
the King's messenger. He slumbered peacefully with a smile upon his
lips, but his eyes opened at last and fastened on his sister's face.
She had never moved through the coming in of them all; she did not move
now, but spoke his name.
"Hamish, bhodach!"
Did he see her?
"How bright it is in the west! It will be a fair day for the harvest
to-morrow."
It must have been a glimpse of the "glory to be revealed" breaking
through the dimness of death; for he did not see the dear face so close
to his, and if he heard her voice, he was past all answering now. Just
once again his lips moved, murmuring a name--the dearest of
all--"Jesus;" and then he "saw him as he is."