Several days passed away, in which Elsie said nothing more to Duncan of her plans. Robbie's birthday passed off, and Elsie did serve the cake and milk under the alder-tree, after all. She was even kind to the little lad, and played with the two boys. Robbie was trying hard to deserve her attention, running himself quite out of breath after the ball she threw, and using all his strength to keep up with Duncan, who was ever so much stronger.
By-and-by, when Elsie proposed a run on the moor, Robbie looked timidly in her face, and said, "I wish I might come too."
"Well, go an' ask," Elsie said, condescendingly; and Robbie having obtained permission, coupled with many injunctions not to go far or run too much, they started, with Robbie in a radiant state of delight. And Elsie was so gentle with him that Robbie could not help saying, "I do like coming out here with you," in his own little gentle way; and Duncan, who loved peace, was quite happy.
Two or three days later there was a slaying of fowls, while Elsie and Duncan were set to pick a gathering of plums, apples, and beans, and arrange them in baskets. As a rule, Elsie disliked this day, and went about when she was at home with a cloudy face and many an impatient exclamation. This time, however, she seemed quite cheerful, and helped readily.
Very early the next morning Mrs. MacDougall was waiting at the cottage door in her bonnet and shawl for Farmer Jarrett's cart. Presently it came along, the farmer's round jolly face surmounting a heap of baskets, packed with butter, cheese, eggs, and poultry. Mrs. MacDougall handed her few baskets up to him, and when these were arranged in various odd corners she put her foot on the cart-wheel, jumped up by his side, and off they started for the little market town, where Mrs. MacDougall could get a better price for the few things she had to sell than in the village shop, and could also purchase more cheaply the groceries, calicoes, and other necessaries of her household.
"Tell granny to take care o' Robbie," Mrs. MacDougall called, as she waved her good-bye. "I shan't be later than six about."
"Take care o' Robbie, indeed!" muttered Elsie, just loud enough for Duncan to hear. "It's always Robbie. Why should he be taken more care of than any other body? P'raps she thinks he'll melt in the sun, or be drowned by the rain, or blown away by the wind, which can't never hurt us."
As Mrs. MacDougall drove off in the early morning, she looked somewhat anxiously at the heavy mist which hung over the moor, and remarked to her neighbour that there was a chilliness about the air this morning which felt like the approach of cold weather.
"Well, we mustn't grumble," the farmer said, in his northern dialect; "it's over fine for the time o' year; but when the weather does break we shall have the winter early upon us, and a long, hard one too, I reckon."
"If I have a good day I'll just take some warm stuff home for the children," Mrs. MacDougall said to herself. Then she pulled out her purse and looked over its contents, turning them over and over, and reckoning them up, as if by dint of careful arithmetic they might, perchance, come to a little more. In one part of it there was a little packet of money done up in paper, marked "Robbie." There was more there than in all the other divisions put together. It was clear Robbie would not go short. Mrs. MacDougall looked at it with a little sigh.