other to be worried by them.

And Shenac had many anxieties about this time. Of course she had none
peculiar to herself; that is, she had none which were not shared by
Hamish, and in a certain sense by Dan. But Hamish would have been
content with moderate things. Just to rub on as quietly and easily as
possible till Allister came home, was all he thought they should try to
do. And as for Dan, the future and its troubles lay very lightly on
him.

But with Shenac it was different. That the hay and grain were safely in
was by no means enough to satisfy her. If Allister had been coming
soon, it might have been; but now there was the fall ploughing, and the
sowing of the wheat, and the flax must be broken and dressed, and the
winter's wood must be got up, and there were fifty other things that
ought to be done before the snow came. There was far more to do than
could be done by herself, or she would not have fretted. But when
Hamish told her to "take no thought for the morrow," and that she ought
to trust as well as work, she lost patience with him. And when Dan
quoted Angus Dhu, and spoke vaguely of what must be done in the spring,
quite losing sight of what lay ready at his hand to do, she nearly lost
patience with him too. Not quite, though. It was a perilous experiment
to try on Dan--a boy who might be led, but who would not be driven; and
many a time Shenac wearied herself with efforts so to arrange matters
that what fell to Dan to do might seem to be his own proposal, and many
a time he was suffered to do things in his own way, though his way was
not always the best, because otherwise there was some danger that he
would not do them at all.

Not that Dan was a bad boy, or very wilful, considering all things. But
he was approaching the age when boys are supposed to see very clearly
their masculine superiority; and to be directed by a woman how to do a
man's work was more than a man could stand.

If he could have been trusted, Shenac thought, she would gladly have
given up to him the guidance of affairs, and put herself at his disposal
to be directed. Perhaps she was mistaken in this. She enjoyed the
leadership. She enjoyed encountering and conquering difficulties. She
enjoyed astonishing (and, as she thought, disappointing) Angus Dhu; and
though she would have scorned the thought, she enjoyed the knowledge
that all the neighbours saw and wondered at, and gave her the credit of,
the successful summer's