After a few minutes, they remembered that nothing could prevent them now from going with Mr. Harwood to Arthur’s Seat, which put Laura into such a state of ecstacy, that she danced round the room for joy, while Harry jumped upon the tables and chairs, tumbled head over heels, and called Betty to come immediately that they might get ready.

[54]
]When Mrs. Crabtree heard such an uproar, she hastened also into the room, asking what had happened to cause this riot, and she became very angry indeed, to hear that Harry and Laura had both got leave to join in this grand expedition.

“You will be spoiling all your clothes, and getting yourselves into a heat! I wonder her ladyship allows this! How much better you would be taking a quiet walk with me in the gardens! I shall really speak to Lady Harriet about it! The air must be very cold on the top of them great mountains! I am sure you will both have colds for a month after this Tom-foolery.”

“Oh no, Mrs. Crabtree! I promise not to catch cold!” cried Harry, eagerly; “and, besides, you can scarcely prevent our going now, for grandmama has set out on her long airing in the carriage, so there is nobody for you to ask about keeping us at home, except uncle David!”

Mrs. Crabtree knew from experience, that Major Graham was a hopeless case, as he always took part with the children, and liked nothing so much for old and young as “a ploy;” so she grumbled on to herself, while her eyes looked as sharp as a pair of scissors with rage. “You will come back, turned into scare-crows, with all your nice clean clothes in tatters,” said she, angrily; “but if there is so much as a speck upon this best new jacket and trowsers, I shall know the reason why.”

“What a comfort it would be, if there were no such things in the world as ‘new clothes,’ for I am always so much happier in the old ones,” said Harry. “People at the shops should sell clothes that will never either dirty or tear!”

“You ought to be dressed in fur, like Robinson Crusoe, or sent out naked, like the little savages,” said Mrs. Crabtree, “or painted black and blue like them wild old Britons that lived here long ago!”

[55]
]“I am black and blue sometimes, without being painted,” said Harry, escaping to the door. “Good-bye, Mrs. Crabtree! I hope you will not die of weariness without us! On our return we shall tell you all our delightful adventures.”

About half an hour afterwards, Harry and Laura were seen hurrying out of the pastry-cook, Mrs. Weddell’s shop, bearing little covered baskets in their hands, but nobody could guess what was in them. They whispered and laughed together with very merry faces, looking the very pictures of happiness, and running along as fast as they could to join the noisy party of their cousins and companions, almost fearing that Mr. Harwood might have set off without them. Frank often called him “Mr. Punctuality,” as he was so very particular about his scholars being in good time on all occasions; and certainly Mr. Harwood carried his watch more in his hand than in his pocket, being in the habit of constantly looking to see that nobody arrived too late. Mail-coaches or steamboats could hardly keep the time better, when an hour had once been named, and the last words that Harry heard when he was invited were, “Remember! sharp twelve.”

The great clock of St. Andrew’s Church was busy striking that hour, and every little clock in the town was saying the same thing, when Mr. Harwood himself, with his watch in his hand, opened the door, and walked out, followed by a dozen of merry-faced boys and girls, all speaking at once, and vociferating louder than the clocks, as if they thought everybody had grown deaf.