Robin went on stubbornly.
“Nobody is ever going to do it,” he said, “if we live to be hundreds of years old. I’ve thought of it when I’ve been working in the fields with Jones, and I’ve thought of it when I’ve been lying awake at night. It’s kept me awake many and many a time.”
“So it has me,” said Meg.
“And since this thing began to be talked about everywhere, I’ve thought of it more and more,” said Rob. “It means more to people like us than it does to any one else. It’s the people who never see things, who have no chances, it means the most to. And the more I think of it, the more I—I won’t let it go by me!” And all at once he threw himself face downward on the straw, and hid his face in his arms.
Meg lifted hers. There was something in the woful desperation of his movement that struck her to the heart. She had never known him do such a thing in their lives before. That was not his way. Whatsoever hard thing had happened—howsoever lonely and desolate they had felt—he had never shown his feeling in this way. She put out her hand and touched his shoulder.
“Robin!” she said. “Oh, Robin!”
“I don’t care,” he said, from the refuge of his sleeves. “We are little when we are compared with grown-up people. They would call us children; and children usually have some one to help them and tell them what to do. I’m only like this because I’ve been thinking so much and working so hard—and it does seem like an Enchanted City—but no one ever thinks we could care about anything more than if we were cats and dogs. It was not like that at home, even if we were poor.”
Then he sat up with as little warning as he had thrown himself down, and gave his eyes a fierce rub. He returned to the Treasure again.
“I’ve been making up my mind to it for days,” he said. “If we have the money we can buy our tickets and go some night without saying anything to any one. We can leave a note for Aunt Matilda, and tell her we are all right and we are coming back. She’ll be too busy to mind.”
“Do you remember that book of father’s we read?” said Meg. “That one called ‘David Copperfield.’ David ran away from the bottle place when he was younger than we are, and he had to walk all the way to Dover.”