"It's an awful bother, Dan."

"But it would be a pity to lose it. What a lot of it there is!" And the boy walked round his sister, touching it as he went.

"She never meant to do it; but after that she could not," said Shenac Dhu, pretending to whisper.

"Our Shenac never says what she doesn't mean," said Dan hotly.

"Whatever other people's Shenacs do," said Hamish laughing.

Shenac Dhu made as if she would charge him with the great shears.

"Give them to Christie," said Shenac Bhan. "What a work to make about nothing!"

"She does not mean to do it yet," said Shenac Dhu; but she handed the shears to her sister.

"I don't like to do it, Shenac," said Mrs More. "Think how long it will take to grow again; and it is beautiful hair," she added, as she came near and pa.s.sed her fingers through it.

"Nonsense, Christie, she's not in earnest," persisted Shenac Dhu.

With a quick, impatient motion, Shenac Bhan took the shears from her cousin's hand and severed one--two--three of the bright curls from the ma.s.s. Shenac Dhu uttered a cry.

"There! did I not tell you?" cried Dan, forgetting everything else in his triumph over Shenac Dhu. Hamish turned and went out without a word.

"There," said Shenac Bhan; "you must do it now, Christie."

Mrs More took the great shears and began to cut without a word; and no one spoke again till the curls lay in a shining heap at their feet.

Then Shenac Dhu drew a long breath, and said,--

"Don't say afterwards it was my fault."

"It was just your fault, Shenac Dhu, you envious, spiteful thing,"

exclaimed the indignant Dan.

"Nonsense, Cousin Shenac.--Be quiet, Dan. She had nothing to do with it. It has been a trouble all summer, and I'm glad to be rid of it. I only wish I could spin it, like the wool."

"What a lot of it there is!" And Shenac Dhu stooped down and lifted a long tress or two tenderly, as if they had life.

"What will you do with it, Shenac?"

"Burn it, since I cannot make stockings of it. Put them in here." And she held up her ap.r.o.n.

"Will you give your hair to me, Shenac?" asked Mrs More.

"What can you do with it?" asked Shenac in some surprise. "Surely I'll give it to you, so that I hear no more about it." The curls were carefully gathered, and tied in Mrs More's handkerchief.

"Shenac Bhan," said the other Shenac solemnly, "you look like a shorn sheep. I shall never see you again without thinking of the young woman tied to the stake on the sands, and the sea coming up and up--"

"Shenac, be quiet. It is sinful to speak lightly of so solemn a thing,"

said her sister gravely.

"Solemn!" said Shenac. "Lightly! By no means. I was putting two solemn things together. I don't know which is more solemn. For my part, I would as soon feel the cold water creeping up my back, like--"

"Shenac," said our Shenac entreatingly, "don't say foolish things and vex my mother and Hamish."

Her cousin put her hand on her mouth.

"You have heard my last word."

But the last word about the shining curls was not spoken yet.

CHAPTER SIX.

The day when the haying was to have commenced was very rainy, and so was every day for a week or more. People were becoming a little anxious as to the getting in of the hay; for in almost all the fields it was more than ripe, and everybody knows that it should not stand long after that.

The fields of the Macivors were earlier than those of most people, and Shenac was especially careful to get the hay in at the right time and in good condition, because they had so much less of it than ever before.

And besides, the wheat-harvest was coming on, and where there were so few to help, every day made a difference. Whenever there came a glimpse of sunshine, Dan was out in the field, making good use of his scythe; for mowing was new and exciting work to him, though he had seen it done every summer of his life. It is not every boy of fourteen that could swing a scythe to such good purpose as Dan, and he might be excused for being a little proud and a little unreasonable in the matter. And after all, I daresay he knew quite as much about it as Shenac. When she told him how foolish it was to cut down gra.s.s when there was no chance of getting it dried, he only laughed and pointed to the fields of Angus Dhu, where there were three men busy, and acres and acres of gra.s.s lying as it had fallen.

"You are a good farmer, Shenac, but Angus Dhu, you must confess, has had more experience, and is a better judge of the weather. We're safe enough to follow him."

There was reason in this, but it vexed Shenac to have Angus Dhu quoted as authority; and it vexed her too that Dan should take the matter into his own hands without regard to her judgment.

"Angus Dhu can get all the help he needs to make the hay when it fairs,"

said she. "But if we have too much down we shall not be able to manage it right, I'm afraid."

"There's no fear of having too much down. I must keep at it. Where there's only one man to cut, he must keep at it," said Dan gravely. "If you and the rest of the children are busy when the sun shines, you will soon overtake me."

"Only one man!" "You and the rest of the children!" Vexed as Shenac was, she could not help being amused, and fortunately a good deal of her vexation pa.s.sed away in the laugh, in which Dan heartily joined.

This week of rain was a trying time to Shenac. Nothing could be done out of doors, for the rain was constant and heavy. If she could have had the wheel to herself, she would have got on with the spinning, and that would have been something, she thought. Her mother was spinning, however; and though she could not sit at the wheel all day, she did not like to have her work interfered with, and Shenac could not make use of the time when her mother was not employed, and very little was accomplished. There was mending to be done, which her mother could have done so much better than she could, Shenac thought. But her mother sat at the wheel, and Shenac wearied herself over the shirts and trousers of her brothers, and at last startled herself and every one else by speaking sharply to little Flora and shaking Colin well for bringing in mud on their feet when they came home from school.

After that she devoted her surplus energies to the matter of house-cleaning, and that did better. Everything in the house, both upstairs and down, and everything in the dairy, pa.s.sed through her hands. Things that could be scrubbed were scrubbed, and things that could be polished were polished. The roof and the walls were whitewashed, and great maple-branches hung here and there upon them, that the flies might not soil their whiteness; and then Shenac solemnly declared to Hamish that it was time the rain should cease.

Hamish laughed. The week had pa.s.sed far less uncomfortably to him than to his sister. He had made up his mind to the necessity of staying within-doors during such weather; and he could do so all the more easily as, with a good conscience, he could give himself up to the enjoyment of a book that had fallen into his hands. It was not a new book. Two or three of the first pages were gone, but it was as good as new to Hamish.

It was a new kind of arithmetic, his friend Rugg, the peddler, told him. He knew Hamish liked that sort of thing, and so he had brought it to him.

Hamish was quite occupied with it. He forgot the hay, and the rain, and even his own rheumatic pains, in the interest with which he pored over it. Shenac did not grudge him his pleasure. She even tried to get up an interest in the unknown quant.i.ties, whose values, Hamish a.s.sured her, were so easily discovered by the rules laid down in the book. But she did not enter heartily into her brother's pleasure, as she usually did.

She wondered at him, and thought it rather foolish in him to be so taken up with trifles when there was so much to think about. She forgot to be glad that her brother had found something to keep him from vexing himself, as he had done so much of late, by thinking how little he could do for his mother and the rest; and she said to herself that Christie More had been right when she said that it was upon her that the burden of care and labour must fall.

"You are tired to-night, Shenac," said Hamish, as she sat gazing silently and listlessly into the fire.

"Tired!" repeated Shenac scornfully. "What with, I wonder. Yes, I am tired with staying within-doors, when there is so much to be done outside. If my mother would only let me take the wheel, that would be something."

"But my mother is busy with it herself," said Hamish. "Surely you do not think you can do more or better than my mother?"

"Not better, but more; twice as much in a day as she is doing now.

We'll not get our cloth by the new year, at the rate the spinning is going on, and the lads' clothes will hardly hold together even now."