He even respectfully delivered himself of this opinion to the inventor–to Toandoah, with the hungry look of loss in his eye, which occasionally wrought Pemrose to the point of choking sobs and to clenching her fists at the mysterious robber.
And he repeated it, with elaborations, did Andrew, on the second June morning after the loss when Professor Lorry, declaring that it would take a year to search every foot of Greylock Peak, and that he was not going to waste time in crying over spilt milk, went down the mountain with his young assistant and Mr. Grosvenor, who had business in the valley, to procure materials for another experiment–although not on the same scale as the first–the girls being left behind with the landlady of the little mountain inn where they were staying.
The chauffeur wore a “dour” look as he saw them depart, Una’s father driving his own car; for the first time in all his well-trained service, the true-penny was inclined to sulk over being told to keep an eye on two “daft lassies”, who refused to go down to the town, because they wanted to search some more–or Pemrose did.
So he sat on a bench outside the little mountain house, thirty-six hundred feet above sea-level, where there were no visitors at this early season, with the exception of the experimenting party, and, between whiffs of his pipe, discoursed upon the folly of simple earth folk in “ganging beyant themselves, thinking o’ clacking wi’ the Man in the Moon, forbye”–and, in tones seemingly bewitched, of the black shape he had seen jump forth from the woods.
“Pshaw! I do believe you think that it was some bad fairy, Andrew,–fairy or mountain ‘deev’, who stole the little record, and part of the parachute, too–spirited them away,” said Una, with fanciful relish, having not quite grown beyond the fairy-tale age, herself.
“If that’s so, girlie,” said the mountain landlady–alas! for Andrew True-penny, alias Campbell, now came the evil chance over which he sulked–“if that’s so, and you could only find the mountain wishing-stone, stand on it and wish three times–wish har-rd–maybe, the good fairies would give you back what you’re looking for!”
“Where–where is it–the wishing-stone?” The little fixed star in Una’s eye was never so bright–a twinkling star of portent. “The wishing stone on Greylock! Oh! I never knew there was one.”
“Havers, woman! Dinna ye ken that ye hae a tongue to hold?” muttered the grizzled chauffeur, in a stern aside.
But the motherly New Englander–who, with her old husband, could not for a moment be suspected of the theft–had her heart full for two sorrowing girls.
“Why! it’s a little over a mile from here, I guess, down the Man Killer trail, the third flat slab you come to. I’d go with you myself–though it’s rough traveling, the steepest trail on the mountain–only my man is laid up with the rheumatiz, hangin’ on to him like a puppy-dog to a root.”