At the abrupt close of the story the children
looked not a little surprised, nor did they
manifest their usual eagerness to rush out of doors
and instantly to reduce the tale to action.
The first difficulty was as to who the real
highwayman could be.
"Did Frank _really_ take the man's bag with the
money and things?" ventured Maid Margaret, a little
timidly. She knew that she would be promptly
contradicted.
"No, of course not," shouted Hugh John, "it was the
Scotch drover, Campbell,--for how else could he
know so well about it? Of course it was--_I_ knew
it from the first."
Meantime Sweetheart had been musing deeply.
"Do you know," she said gently, "I am most of all
sorry for Die Vernon. I don't think that I want to
play in this story. It is too real. I think Die
Vernon lived."
"Why--didn't they all live?" said Maid Margaret,
plaintively. For the world of books was still
quite alive for her. She had not lost the most
precious of all the senses. Dream-gold was as good
as Queen's-head-gold fresh out of the mint for her.
Happy Maid Margaret!
"I am sure Die Vernon was real," Sweetheart went
on; "last night when you were all out cycle-riding
and I was waiting for my Latin lesson, I read a bit
of the book--a chapter that father has not told us.
And it made me sorry for Die. She wished that she
had been born a man, so that she might say and do
the same things as others. She was alone in the
world, she said. She needed protection, yet if she
said or did anything naturally, every one thought
what a bold, forward girl she was! I have felt that
too!"
"Rubbish!" said Hugh John, in high remorseless
scorn, "_you_ are not 'alone in the world!' No, not
much. And if we say or do anything to you, you
jolly well whack us over the head. Why, the last
time I called you--"
"That will do, Hugh John," interrupted Sweetheart,
in very Die Vernonish voice.
"Well, when I called you--'Thinggummy'--_you
know_--you hit me with a stick and the mark lasted
three days!"
"And served you right!" said Sweetheart, calmly.
"Well, I'm not saying it didn't, am I?" retorted
honest Hugh John, "but anyway _you_ needn't go
about doing _wooly-woo_--
"'My nest it is harried,
My children all gone!'"
"Oh, you are a boy and can't understand--or
won't!" said Sweetheart, with a sigh, "I needn't
have expected it. But Diana Vernon did make me cry,
especially the bit about her being a
Catholic--stop--I will find it!"
And she foraged among the books on the shelf for
the big Abbotsford edition of _Rob Roy_, the one
with the fine old-fashioned pictures.
"Here it is," she said with her finger on the
place.
"'I belong to an oppressed sect and antiquated
religion (she read), and instead of getting credit
for my devotion, as is due to all other good girls,
my kind friend Justice Inglewood might send me to
the house of correction for it. . . . I am by
nature of a frank and unreserved disposition,--a
plain, true-hearted girl, who would willingly act
honestly and openly by all the world, and yet fate
has entangled me in such a series of nets and
toils and entanglements, that I dare not speak a
word for fear of consequences, not to myself but to
others.'"
Sweetheart sighed again and repeated thoughtfully,
"I _am_ sorry for Die Vernon!"
"Humph," said Hugh John, with dogged masculine
logic, "girls are always making up troubles, I
think. I don't see what she has to 'whimp'
about--everybody did just as she said at that
Hall--more than I would do for any silly girl, I
bet! Just you try it on, only once, Miss
Sweetheart, that's all! She has all she can eat and
can order it herself--lots of horses and riding--a
gun--cricky, I only wish I had her chances! Think
of it--just oblige me by thinking of it--secret
passages to come and go by, night and day, right
plumb in the wall under your nose, mysterious
priests, Jesuits, Jacobites, and things. Why, it's
nearly as good as Crusoe's Island, I declare."
Sweetheart looked at Hugh John with the far-away
gentle compassion which always drove that
matter-of-fact warrior wild.
"All girls are the same," he asserted insultingly,
"they always get thinking they are going to die
right off, if only their little finger aches!"
"You'll be sorry!" said Sweetheart, warningly.
"Oh, will I?" said Hugh John, truculently, "isn't
what I say true, Toady Lion?"
But Toady Lion was sitting upon a buffet, in the
character of Morris upon his portmanteau. He was
shaking and chattering with such exaggerated terror
that Maid Margaret, wrapped in a dust-sheet for a
disguise and armed with the kitchen poker, could
not rob him for very laughter. So neither of them
paid any heed.
"You'll be sorry for speaking like that about Die
Vernon," Sweetheart went on; "I've looked and I
know. She was a true heroine. And she is worth a
whole pack of your heroes any day."
"And, indeed, that's not saying much!" said Hugh
John, who also had his sorrows. "But at any rate
that was no proper place to break off a story. And
I'll tell father so. Let's tease to have some more.
It's a wet day, and we can't do anything else!"
"Oh, yes--let's!" said Sweetheart. "Stop all that,
Toady Lion, and you, Maid Margaret. We are going to
ask for the second tale from _Rob Roy!_"
"Well," grumbled Hugh John, "I hope that there will
be more about Rob Roy in it this time. It's not too
soon."
And Sweetheart only continued to regard him with
the same quiet but irritating smile, and nodded
her head as who would say, "Those who live the
longest see the most!"