At last, very slowly and deliberately, she got off the stone, and began slowly to stretch herself. "Do make haste!" cried Duncan, almost tired out.
"I can't be hurried," Elsie replied, with a grand air, stooping down to pick up the milk-can, which she had deposited at the side of the stone. "It's much too hot and I'm much too tired, and I don't see why I should be expected to fetch the milk at all. You and Robbie ought to do it. You're boys, and I'm a girl. It's a shame, and I mean to tell mother so."
Duncan gazed at her in amazement. He knew Elsie was very daring, but did she really mean to tell their mother that?
"Me and Robbie?" he gasped. "Robbie never goes nowhere with us, Elsie, don't you know?"
"Yes, I know, child," Elsie replied, with a lofty toss of her head. "It's just what I do know. Robbie stops at home while you and me do all the errands and everything else too, and it isn't fair."
"But you wouldn't like Robbie to come with us: you know you wouldn't," Duncan exclaimed, in perplexity.
"With us! No, indeed," Elsie cried, with a little contemptuous laugh. "I don't want any spoilt little namby-pamby cry-babies along with me; but that's no reason why I, a girl, should fetch milk for Robbie to drink while he stays at home. Can't you see that, stupid-head?"
Duncan said "Yes," but he didn't, all the same. He and Elsie went together, and it never had occurred to him that it ought to be different. He didn't care for Robbie: Elsie didn't, and so he didn't. Elsie said he was a spoilt baby, therefore Duncan knew he must be one; and certainly he couldn't scamper over the moor, and climb the trees, and fly here, there, and everywhere, like he and Elsie could.
Elsie had begun to move slowly along, carrying the basin, in which was butter wrapped in wet cloths and a cool cabbage-leaf. Duncan had the milk-can, and would have been almost home by now, had he not been obliged to keep on waiting for Elsie to come up with him, his eager footsteps continually carrying him far on ahead of her sauntering pace.
"I'm just not going over that hill," she said, deliberately, when at length they reached the purple hillock on the other side of which stood the cottage. "Come on, Duncan; I'm going round."