After driving some way along the road, leaving the loch behind them they mounted a hill, and to Fanny’s surprise, she found that they were close to Alec Morrison’s cottage. The laird called him out.
“We are going to Glen Corpach, and as I am not sure whether we shall find any one to row the boat there, I wish you would come with us.”
Alec said he could not leave Robby.
“Bring him, then,” said the laird. “You get up by the side of me, and Robby can go in the other carriage with the children.”
They stopped a few minutes while his grandfather helped Robby to put on his best clothes. His toilet was quickly finished, and Alec lifted him into the carriage with the children.
Fanny was very glad to see him, but Norman looked at him askance, as if he was an intruder, and was afraid besides that he would ask after the little bird. Fanny also was afraid that he might do so, and she was very unwilling to have to tell him that it was dead. She therefore talked to him about as many things as she could think of. She asked him how Lory was, and if he had ever been in a carriage before? Robby answered that Lory was very well, and that he had once been in a carrier’s cart, but that it did not move as fast as they were going, and seemed highly delighted with the drive. The question both the children dreaded came at last.
“Don’t be teasing us by your questions, you stupid little fellow,” said Norman hastily, “I wonder you are not ashamed of your impudence.”
Poor little Robby looked much abashed at this rebuke.
“I only asked after the young lady’s bird,” he said.
“Hold your tongue, you little monkey,” cried Norman, giving him a kick, “that’s just what I don’t choose you should talk about.”