Project Gutenberg's Shenac's Work at Home, by Margaret Murray Robertson

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Title: Shenac's Work at Home

Author: Margaret Murray Robertson

Release Date: April 27, 2007 [EBook #21227]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHENAC'S WORK AT HOME ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Shenac's Work at Home

By Margaret Murray Robertson
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SHENAC'S WORK AT HOME

BY MARGARET MURRAY ROBERTSON

CHAPTER ONE.

A long time ago, something very sad happened in one of the districts of
Scotland. I cannot tell you how it all came about, but a great many
people were obliged to leave their homes where they and their
forefathers had lived for many generations. A few scattered themselves
through other parts of the country; a few went to the great towns to
seek for a livelihood; but by far the greater number made up their minds
to leave for ever the land of their birth, and rose in the new, strange
world beyond the sea a home for themselves and their children.

I could never make you understand what a sorrowful time that was to
these poor people, or how much they suffered in going away. For some of
the old left children behind them, and some of the young left their
parents, or brothers, or sisters; and all left the homes where they had
lived through happy years, the kirks where they had worshipped God
together, and the kirkyards where lay the dust of the dear ones they had
lost.

And, besides all this, they knew little of the land to which they were
going, and between them and it lay the great ocean, with all its
terrors. For then they did not count by days, as we do now, the time
that it took to cross the sea, but by weeks, or even by months; and many
a timid mother shrank from the thought of all her children might have to
suffer ere the sea was passed. Even more than the knowledge of the many
difficulties and discouragements which might await them beyond it, did
the thought of the dangers of the sea appal them. And to all their
other sorrows was