"Oh! Elsie, Elsie, what are you doing?" cried Duncan, in a panic; while Robbie exclaimed, "Wouldn't mother make you go back and fetch some more, Elsie, with the pennies out of your box?"
Perhaps Elsie thought it might be so. Any way, she put the can straight, and moved on again, but as she did so she said to Robbie, "You'd like to tell mother what I said, wouldn't you, duckie? So you can if you like; I don't care what you tell mother."
"No, I don't want to tell," Robbie said, almost angrily, with a pink face and a moist look in the eyes.
As the three children walked along you could hardly help noticing what a difference there was between the two elder and Robbie. Elsie and Duncan were big-limbed, ruddy-cheeked children, with high cheek-bones, fair-skinned, but well freckled and tanned by the sun. Their younger brother was like them, and yet so different. His skin was fair, but of milky whiteness, showing too clearly the blue veins underneath it. The ruddy colour in their faces was in his represented by the palest tinge of pink. His bare arms were soft and white and thin. Their abundant straw-coloured hair had in his case become palest gold, of silky texture, falling in curling locks almost on to his shoulders. He was, in short, a smaller, weaker, more delicate edition of these two elder ones. They looked the very embodiment of health and strength, he fragile, timid, and delicate. No wonder he never scampered across the heath or rolled down the hillsides. The mists were too chilly for him, the sun too hot; and so it came about that Elsie and Duncan went together, and Robbie was left behind, for Elsie was selfish, and hadn't it in her nature to wait about for the little one, and suit her steps or her play to his, and Duncan did whatever she did. Perhaps their mother did not care to trust the little fellow with Elsie, knowing too well that she was thoughtless, and unable in her own robust strength to understand the fatigue and listlessness of her little brother. Elsie told him he would run well enough without shoes and stockings, but their mother had most particularly charged him that he was never to take them off without special permission, for he was too delicate to run the risk of damping his feet. Elsie and Duncan thought it great nonsense, and both pitied and despised Robbie for being such a miserable molly-coddle.
"Now here's mother herself coming after us," cried Duncan, anxiously scanning Elsie's face to see how she would act now.
But Elsie was still unflurried. Duncan almost held his breath, for there were signs of a storm. Mrs. MacDougall's face was red, her mouth ominously screwed up; she waved her hand angrily towards them—an action which Elsie pretended not to see.
"Where have you been all this time, madam?" she burst forth, when they reached her. "I will teach you to hasten your footsteps. Did I not send Robbie to the gate to beckon you to be quick? You suppose you may do as you like, but you are mistaken, you lazy, ill-behaved wench. The new frock I had bought you shall be given to Nannie Cameron, and you shall wear your old one to the kirk. How will that suit your vanity? And you may be off to bed now directly, without any supper. There are twigs enough for a birch rod, my lady, if bed does not bring you to a better frame of mind. Run in now, and don't let me see your face before six o'clock to-morrow morning."
What could Elsie be thinking of? She did not run. Robbie looked at her in piteous distress; Duncan was beside himself. He cast a beseeching glance at Elsie, a momentary one of resentful anger at his mother, an impatient one at Robbie, the unfortunate messenger of their mother's anger.
Then a look of great determination settled over their mother's face. "Do you dare me?" she cried. "Did I ever threaten and not perform? Will you compel me to whip you? Then if you would not have it so, hasten your footsteps at once."
Duncan caught hold of Elsie's hand and tried to pull her, but those sturdy, legs had the very spirit of obstinacy in them. "Be quiet," she said; "I want to be whipped."