It was not so with Winnie. Through her indignation and disgust a dim suspicion, which she had herself rejected before, flashed suddenly into belief. Mr. Plunkett was doing it on purpose. He did not really believe Murtagh guilty, but he had a spite against him for what had happened in the barn-yard, and this was his mean way of revenging himself.
Her cheeks flamed, and her eyes flashed with indignation; she clasped her hands on the back of her head, and waited till Mr. Plunkett wound up a somewhat elaborate argument by asking every one in the room to decide whether he had not good grounds for believing Murtagh to be guilty.
Then before any one could answer, she said in a cool, aggravating voice:
"Yes, I daresay, if we didn't all know you're doing this just because you have a spite against Murtagh."
"Well!" exclaimed Cousin Jane, "these children are allowed to talk in the funniest way I ever heard."
"I don't see why things shouldn't be fair," returned Winnie. "Mr. Plunkett keeps on telling us we are telling lies, and why mayn't we tell him the same? If you won't believe what Murtagh says, I don't see why you should believe what Mr. Plunkett says. Mr. Plunkett says Murtagh did this because of what happened in the barn-yard, but it's a great deal more likely Mr. Plunkett's trying to get Murtagh into a scrape to revenge himself for what happened. Just as if Murtagh would ever bother his head to be revenged on anybody like him!"
The supreme scorn of the last words was unmistakable, and Mr. Blair, in some astonishment, said with quiet dignity: "Winnie, that seems a strange way to speak to Mr. Plunkett. Every one who knows him knows that nothing could be more impossible to him."
"The idea of children talking like that to a grown-up person!" remarked Cousin Jane.
"That's always the way," cried Winnie, her pent-up wrath bursting forth at last. "Just because we are children, we're to hold our tongues and let people say what they like to us, and tell all sorts of lies about our doing things we didn't do; and then if we say a word about them doing a thousand times worse things, we're told to be quiet. But I don't care what five hundred million grown-up people say, Murtagh didn't do this, and Mr. Plunkett knows he didn't just as well as I do."
Mr. Blair looked at her in still greater surprise. At last, with a sort of instinct that it would be safest to have her near Nessa, he said: