“It’s not a bit like this in Chicago,” said the child, and her uncle chuckled.
“I daresay not,” said he. “What a pity for Chicago! Are you wearying for Chicago, lassie?”
“No,” said Bud, deliberating. “It was pretty smelly, but my! I wish to goodness folk here had a little git-up-and-go to them!”
“Indeed, I daresay it’s not a bit like Chicago,” admitted Auntie Bell. “It pleases myself that it’s just like Bonnie Scotland.”
“It’s not a bit like Scotland either,” said Bud. “I calc’lated Scotland ’d be like a story-book all the time, chock-full of men-at-arms and Covenanters, and things father used to talk about, Sundays, when he was kind of mopish, and wanted to make me Scotch. I’ve searched the woods for Covenanters and can’t find one; they must have taken to the tall timber, and I haven’t seen any men-at-arms since I landed, ’cepting the empty ones up in the castle lobby.”
“What did you think Scotland would be like, dear?” asked Ailie.
“Between me and Winifred Wallace, we figured it would be a great place for chivalry and constant trouble among the crowned heads. I expected there’d be a lot of ‘battles long ago,’ same as in the Highland Reaper in the sweet, sweet G.T.”
“What’s G.T.?” asked Auntie Bell; and Bud laughed slyly, and looked at her smiling Auntie Ailie, and said: “We know, Auntie Ailie, don’t we? It’s GRAND! And if you want to know, Auntie Bell, it’s just Mister Lovely Palgrave’s ‘Golden Treasury.’ That’s a book, my Lord! I expected there’d be battles every day—”
“What a bloodthirsty child!” said Miss Ailie.
“I don’t mean truly truly battles,” Bud hurried to explain, “but the kind that’s the same as a sound of revelry off—no blood, but just a lot of bang. But I s’pose battles are gone out, like iron suits. Then I thought there’d be almost nothing but cataracts and ravines and—and—mountain-passes, and here and there a right smart Alick in short trunks and a feather in his hat, winding a hunting-horn. I used to think, when I was a little, wee, silly whitterick, that you wound a horn every Saturday night with a key, just like a clock; but I’ve known for years and years it’s just blowing. The way father said, and from the things I read, I calc’lated all the folk in Scotland ’d hate each other like poison, and start a clan, and go out chasing all the other clans with direful slogans and bagpipes skirling wildly in the genial breeze. And the place would be crowded with lovelorn maidens—that kind with the starched millstones round their necks, like Queen Mary always wore. My, it must have been rough on dear old Mary when she fell asleep in church! But it’s not a bit like that; it’s only like Scotland when I’m in bed, and the wind is loud, and I hear the geese. Then I think of the trees all standing out in the dark and wet, and the hills too, the way they’ve done for years and years, and the big lonely places with nobody in them, not a light even; and I get the croodles and the creeps, for that’s Scotland, full of bogies. I think Scotland’s stone-dead.”