"Even the Highlanders were never so wicked," she objected; "they did not eat one another."
"Well, anyway," retorted Sir Toady Lion, unabashed, "Sawney Bean did. Perhaps he was a cousin of Donald's, though in the history it says that he came from East Lothian."
"Yes," cried Hugh John, "and in an old book written in Latin it says (father read it to us) that one of his little girls was too young to be executed with the rest on the sands of Leith. So the King sent her to be brought up by kind people, where she was brought up without knowing anything of her father, the cannibal, and her mother, the cannibaless—"
"Oh," cried Sweetheart, who knew what was coming, putting up her hands over her ears, "please don't tell that dreadful story all over again."
"Father read it out of a book—so there!" cried Sir Toady, implacably, "go on, Hugh John!"
"And so when this girl was about as big as Sweetheart, and, of course, could not remember her grandfather's nice cave or the larder where the arms and legs were hung up to dry in the smoke—"
"Oh, you horrid boy!" cried Sweetheart, not, however, removing herself out of ear-shot—because, after all, it was nice to shiver just a little.
"Oh, yes, and I have seen the cave," cried Sir Toady, "it is on the shore near Ballantrae—a horrid place. Go on, Hugh John, tell about Sawney Bean's grandchild!"
"Well, she grew up and up, playing with dolls just like other girls, till she was old enough to be sent out to service. And after she had been a while about the house to which she went, it was noticed that some of the babies in the neighbourhood began to go a-missing, and they found—"
"I think she was a nursemaid!" interrupted Sir Toady, dispassionately. "That must have been it. The little wretches cried—so she ate them!"