"I do sympathise in your work, Mr Stewart, and I would like it to be
mine in a humble way; but there are so many things that I cannot speak
about. Think of your own sisters. How different I must be from them!
Allister and Shenac saw your sister Jessie when they were in M---, and
they said she was so accomplished--such a perfect little lady--and yet
so good and sweet and gentle. No, Mr Stewart, I could never bear to
have people say your wife was not worthy of you, even though I might
know it to be true."
"I was thinking how our bonnie little Jessie might sit at your feet to
learn everything--almost everything--that it is worth a woman's while to
know."
"You are laughing at me now," said she, troubled.
"No, I am not; and, Shenac, you must not go. I have a question to ask.
I should have begun with it. Will you answer me simply and truly, as
Hamish would have wished his sister to answer his friend?"
"I will try," said she, looking up with a peculiar expression that
always came at the name of Hamish. He bent down and whispered it.
"I have always thought you wise and good, more than any one, and--"
There was another pause.
"It is a pleasant thing to hear that you have always thought me wise and
good; but you have not answered my question, Shenac."
"Yes, I do care for you, Mr Stewart. It would make me happy to share
your work; but I am not fit for it--at least, not yet."
In his joy and simplicity he thought all the rest would be easy; and, to
tell the truth, so did Allister and his wife, who ought to have known
our Shenac better. When Shenac Dhu kissed her, and whispered something
about Christmas, and how they could ever bear to lose her so soon,
Shenac spoke. She was going away before Christmas, and they could spare
her very well; but she was not going with Mr Stewart for two years at
the very least Allister had told her there was something laid up for her
against the time she should need it, and it would be far better that she
should use it to furnish her mind than to furnish her house; and she was
going to school.
"To school!" repeated Mrs Allister in dismay. "Does Mr Stewart know?"
"No; you must tell him, Shenac--you and Allister. I am not fit to be
his wife. You will not have people saying--saying things. You must see
it, Shenac. I know so little; and it makes me quite wretched to think
of going among strangers, I am so shy and awkward. I am not fit to be a
minister's wife," she added with a little laugh that was half a sob.
Shenac Dhu laughed too, and clapped her hands.
"A minister's wife, no less! Our Shenac!" And then she added gravely,
"I think you are right, Shenac. I know you are good enough and dear
enough to be Mr Stewart's wife, though he were the prince of that name,
if there be such a person. But there are little things that folk can
only learn by seeing them in others, and I think you are quite right;
but you will not get Mr Stewart to think so."
"If it is right he will come to think so; and you must be on my side,
Shenac--you and Allister, too."
Shenac Dhu promised, but in her heart she thought that her sister would
not be suffered to have her own way in this matter. She was mistaken,
however. Shenac was firm without the use of many words. She cared for
him, but she was not fit to be his wife yet. This was the burden of her
argument, gone over and over in all possible ways; and the first part
was so sweet to Mr Stewart that he was fain to take patience and let
her have her own way in the rest.
In Shenac's country, happily, it is not considered a strange thing that
a young girl should wish to pursue her education even after she is
twenty, so she had no discomfort to encounter on the score of being out
of her 'teens. She lived first with her cousin, Christie More, who no
longer occupied rooms behind her husband's shop, but a handsome house at
a reasonable distance towards the west end of the town. Afterwards she
lived in the school-building, because it gave her more time and a better
chance for study. She spent all the money that Allister had put aside
for her; but she was moderately successful in her studies, and
considered it well spent.
And when the time for the furnishing of the western manse came, there
was money forthcoming for that too; for Angus Dhu had put aside the
interest of the sum sent to him by Allister for her use from the very
first, meaning it always to furnish her house. It is possible that it
was another house he had been thinking of then; but he gave it to her
now in a way that greatly increased its value in her eyes, kissing her
and blessing her before them all.
All these years Shenac's work has been constant and varied; her duties
have been of the humblest and of the highest, from the cutting and
contriving, the making and mending of little garments, to the guiding of
wandering feet and the comforting of sorrowful souls. In the manse
there have been the usual Saturday anxieties and Monday despondencies,
needing cheerful sympathy and sometimes patient forbearance. In the
parish there have been times of trouble and times of rejoicing; times
when the heavens have seemed brass above, and the earth beneath, iron;
and times when the church has been "like a well-watered garden," having
its trees "filled with the fruits of righteousness." And in the manse
and in the parish Shenac has never, in her husband's estimation, failed
to fill well her allotted place.
The firm health and cheerful temper which helped her through the days
before Allister came home, have helped her to bear well the burdens
which other years have brought to her. The firm will, the earnest
purpose, the patience, the energy, the forgetfulness of self, which made
her a stronghold of hope to her mother and the rest in the old times,
have made her a tower of strength in her home and among the people. And
each passing year has deepened her experience and brightened her hope,
has given her clearer views of God's truth and a clearer sense of God's
love; and thus she has grown yearly more fit to be a helper in the great
work beside which all other work seems trifling--the work in which God
has seen fit to make his people co-workers with himself--the work of
gathering in souls, to the everlasting glory of his name.
And so, when her work on earth is over, there shall a glad "Well done!"
await her in heaven.