And having closed the once beaming eyes and straightened the worn limbs
for the grave, Shenac's work at home was done. Through the days of
waiting that followed, she sat in the great chair with folded hands.
Many came and went, and lingered night and day in the house of death, as
is the custom of this part of the country, now happily passing away; and
through all the coming and going Shenac sat still. Sometimes she roused
herself to answer the friends who came with well-meant sympathy; but
oftener she sat silent, scarcely seeming to hear their words. She was
"_resting_," she said to Dan, who watched her through those days with
wistful and anxious eyes.
Yes, she was resting from the days and nights of watching, and from the
labours and cares and anxieties of the years that had gone before. All
her weariness seemed to fall upon her at once. Even when death enters
the door, the cares and duties of such a household cannot be altogether
laid aside. There was much to do with so many comers and goers; but
there were helpful hands enough, and she took no part in the necessary
work, but rested.
She took little heed of the preparations going on about her--different
in detail, but in all the sad essentials the same, in hut and hall, at
home and abroad--the preparations for burying our dead out of our sight.
During the first day, Allister and his wife said, thankfully, to each
other, "How calm she is!" The next day they said it a little anxiously.
Then they watched for the reaction, feeling sure it must come, and
longing that it should be over.
"It will be now," said Shenac Dhu as they brought in the coffin; and she
waited at her sister's door to hear her cry out, that she might weep
with her. But it was not then; nor afterwards, when the long, long
procession moved away from the house so slowly and solemnly; nor when
they stood around the open grave in the kirkyard. When the first clod
fell on the coffin--oh, heart-breaking sound!--Dan made one blind step
towards Shenac, and would have fallen but for Angus Dhu. Little Flora
cried out wildly, and her sister held her fast. She did not shriek, nor
swoon, nor break into weeping, as did Shenac Dhu; but "her face would
never be whiter," said they who saw it, and many a kindly and anxious
eye followed her as the long line of mourners slowly turned on their
homeward way again.
After the first day or two, Shenac tried faithfully to fall back into
her old household ways--or, rather, she tried to settle into some
helpful place in her brother's household. The wheel was put to use
again, and, indeed, there was need, for all things had lagged a little
during the summer; and Shenac did her day's work, and more, as she used
to do. She strove to be interested in the discussions of ways and means
which Allister's wife was so fond of holding, but she did not always
strive successfully. It was a weariness to her; everything was a
weariness at times. It was very wrong, she said, and very strange, for
she really did wish to be useful and happy in her brother's household.
She thought little of going away now; she had not the heart for it. The
thought of beginning some new, untried work made her weary, and the
thought of going away among strangers made her afraid.
When it was suggested that she and little Flora should pay a
long-promised visit to their uncle, at whose house Hamish had passed so
many weeks, and that they should go soon, that they might have the
advantage of the fine autumn weather, she shrank from the proposal in
dismay.
"Not yet, Allister," she pleaded; "I shall like it by-and-by, but not
yet."
So nothing of the kind was urged again. They made a mistake, however.
A change of some kind was greatly needed by her at this time. Her
brother's long illness and death had been a greater strain on her health
and spirits than any one dreamed. She was not ill, but she was in that
state when if she had been left to herself, or had had nothing to do,
she might have become ill, or have grown to fancy herself so, which is a
worse matter often, and worse to cure. As it was, with her good
constitution and naturally cheerful spirit, she would have recovered
herself in time, even if something had not happened to rouse and
interest her.
But something did happen. Shenac went one fair October afternoon over
the fields to the beech woods to gather nuts with Flora and the young
lads, and before they returned a visitor had arrived. They fell in with
Dan on their way home, and as they came in sight of the house, chatting
together eagerly, there was something like the old light in Shenac's eye
and the old colour in her cheek. If she had known whose eyes were
watching her from the parlour window, she would hardly have lingered in
the garden while the children spread their nuts on the old house-floor
to dry. She did not know till she went into the house--into the room.
She did not know till he was holding her hands in his, that Mr Stewart
had come.
"Shenac, good, dear child, is it well with you?"
She had heard the words before. All the scene came back--the
remembrance of the summer days, her dying brother and his friend--all
that had happened since then. She strove to answer him--to say it was
well, that she was glad to see him, and why had he not come before? But
she could not for her tears. She struggled hard; but, long restrained,
they came in a flood now. When she felt that to struggle was vain, she
would have fled; but she was held fast, and the tears were suffered to
have way for a while. When she could find voice, she said,--
"I am not grieving too much; you must not think that. Ask Allister. I
did not mean to cry, but when I saw you it all came back."
Again her face was hidden, for her tears would not be stayed; but only
one hand was given to the work. Mr Stewart held the other firmly,
while he spoke just such words as she needed to hear of her brother and
herself--of all they had been to each other, of all that his memory
would be to her in the life that might lie before her. Then he spoke of
the endless life which was before them, which they should pass together
when this life--short at the very longest--should be over. She
listened, and became quiet; and by-and-by, in answer to his questions,
she found herself telling him of her brother's last days and words, and
then, with a little burst of joyful tears, of Dan, and all that she
hoped those days had brought to him.
Never since the old times, when she used "to empty her heart out" to
Hamish, had she found such comfort in being listened to. When she came
to the tea-table, after brushing away her tears, she seemed just as
usual, Shenac Dhu thought; and yet not just the same, she found, when
she looked again. She gave a little nod at her husband, who smiled back
at her, and then she said softly to Mr Stewart,--
"You have done her good already."
Of course Mr Stewart, being a minister, whose office it is to do good
to people, was very glad to have done good to Shenac. Perhaps he
thought it best to let _well_ alone, for he did not speak to her again
during tea-time, nor while she was gathering up the tea-things--"just as
she used to do in the old house long ago," he said to himself. She
washed them, too, there before them all; for it was Shenac Dhu's new
china--Christie More's beautiful wedding present--that had been spread
in honour of the occasion, and it was not to be thought of that they
should be carried into the kitchen to be washed like common dishes. She
was quiet, as usual, all the evening and at the time of worship, when
Angus Dhu and his wife and Evan and some other neighbours, having heard
of the minister's arrival, came in. She was just as usual, they all
said, only she did not sing. If she had raised her voice in her
brother's favourite psalm,--
"I to the hills will lift mine eyes,"
she must have cried again; and she was afraid of the tears which it
seemed impossible to stop when once they found a way.
Mr Stewart fully intended for that night to "let well alone." Shenac
had welcomed him warmly as the dearest friend of her dead brother, and
he would be content for the present with that. He had something to say
to her, and a question or two to ask; but he must wait a while, he
thought. She must not be disturbed yet.
But when the neighbours were gone, and he found himself alone with her
for a moment, he felt sorely tempted to change his mind. As he watched
her sitting there with folded hands, so quiet and grave and sweet, so
unconscious of his presence, as it seemed to him, a fear came over him--
a fear as to the answer his question might receive. It was not at all a
pleasant state of mind. He endured it only while he walked up and down
the room two or three times; then pausing beside her, he said softly,--
"Is this my Shenac?"
She looked up with only wonder in her eyes, he saw, with a little shock
of pain; but he went on,--
"Hamish gave his sister to me, to keep and cherish always. Did he never
tell you?"
"I do not understand you, Mr Stewart," said Shenac; but the sudden
drooping of the eye and the rush of colour over her face seemed to say
something else.
"To be my wife," he said, sitting down beside her and drawing her gently
towards him. She did not resist, but she said hastily,--
"Oh, no; I am not fit for that."
"But if I am content, and can make you content?"
"But that is not enough. I am not fit. No; it is _not_ humility. I
know myself, and I am not fit."
It is just possible that Mr Stewart wished that he had for that night
"let well alone."
"But I must have it out with her, now that I have begun," he said to
himself as he rose and went to the door, at which a footstep had paused.
Whoever it was, no one came in; and, shutting the door, he came and sat
down again.
In the meantime, Shenac had been calling up a vision of the new
minister's wife, the one who had succeeded old Mr Farquharson, and, in
view of the prettily-dressed, gentle-mannered, accomplished little lady
that presented herself to her mind, she had repeated to herself, more
emphatically,--
"No, I am _not_ fit."
So when Mr Stewart came back she was sitting with closely-folded hands,
looking straight before her, very grave indeed. They were both silent
for a moment; then Mr Stewart said,--
"Now, Shenac, tell me why."