Little Folks (October 1884) / A Magazine for the Young

rimson and gold. As far as one could see across the moor it was one broad expanse of purply heather, kindled into a glowing crimson by the blaze of ruddy sunshine, and lighted here and there by bright patches of the thorny golden rod. Dame Nature had evidently painted out of her summer paint-box, and had not spared her best and brightest colours. Crimson-lake, children; you know what a lovely colour it is, and how fast it goes, for you are very fond of using it, and there is only one cake in each of your boxes.

But here was crimson-lake enough to have emptied all the paint-boxes in the world, you might suppose, and the brightest of goldy yellows, and the greenest of soft transparent greens, such as no paint-box ever did, nor ever will, possess; and over all the most azure of blues, flecked with floating masses of soft indescribable white, looking to Elsie like the foamy soapsuds at the top of the tub when mother had been having a rare wash, but to Duncan like lumps of something he had once tasted and never forgotten, called cocoa-nut ice.

It seemed a pity when Dame Nature had spent her colours so lavishly that there should be no one to see her bright handiwork. Yet, sad to tell, there lay the broad sheet of crimson and gold day after day unnoticed and unheeded, till, in despair, it at length began to wither and blacken and die.

For this was a lonely moor, where the heather and gorse bloomed so bravely, so lonely that even along the road which skirted it the number of those who passed by in a day could be counted on the fingers of your hand; and as for the moor itself, it seldom had any visitors but the cows from the little farm which nestled away in one corner; and do you suppose such lazy, cupboard-loving creatures cared whether the heather bloomed or not, so long as they found grass enough to eat?

But the glorious moor had a worse indignity than this to endure, for there was a cottage here and there whose inhabitants frequently crossed by the beaten tracks, and never so much as lifted their eyes as they passed along, to notice the gorgeous dress their moor had put on. They were so used to it. Had she not worn it every year since they could remember? and so they sauntered by, thinking about eating or drinking, or how they would serve their neighbours out, sometimes even quarrelling loudly, and never giving so much as a passing thought to all the beauty God had spread around them, and which we who dwell in towns would give so much to see.

The sun was shining down very hotly, but it had not yet begun to wither the heather and gorse, on the day when I want you to notice two little children going across the moor. I told you there were cottages here and there, and in a pretty little green hollow just beyond a fair-sized hillock was one where lived the MacDougalls. These two children were Elsie and Duncan MacDougall. They very often crossed the moor, for the farm was on the other side of it, and the milk and butter had all to be fetched from it, the milk twice a day, whether the sun blazed, or the chilly Scottish drizzle blotted out the hills in a misty haze, or the north wind swept across it, and shook the gaunt fir-trees to and fro in its noisy wrath.

"Ain't you coming on, Elsie?" Duncan cried impatiently, for Elsie had seated herself on a big stone, pushed back her sun-bonnet from her damp freckled forehead, crossed her brown arms defiantly over her holland pinafore, and was swinging her bare feet as if she never meant to move another step to-night.

"No, I ain't coming, Duncan, and that's all about it," Elsie replied, sulkily, only she said it in a broad Scottish accent which you would hardly have understood had you heard it, and certainly could make nothing of if I were to try to write it.

"Then we'll get beaten when we get back," Duncan said, miserably. "Mother's always scolding, and it's your fault, Elsie."

Elsie looked at him contemptuously. "Go on by yourself," she cried; "I ain't afraid. It's only Robbie that they're in such a hurry to get the milk for, and I'm not going to hurry for Robbie. Go on by yourself, do."

But this was more than Duncan dared do, and Elsie knew it, for, in the first place, it would have seemed as if he sided with Robbie against Elsie, which would have been quite untrue; and, in the second, it would have got Elsie into trouble with their mother, and that Duncan would not have done for anything in the world. If Elsie had been a queen, then Duncan would have been one of her most willing subjects, and done her bidding whatever it might cost.

So there stood Duncan, fidgeting to get on, yet bound to the spot where Elsie stayed by a bond stronger than links of iron. It was in vain that he fidgeted from one bare foot to the other, or vented his impatience by flinging his Scottish bonnet high in the air and catching it again. Elsie was immovable, for Elsie was in one of her very contrariest moods to-day, and I can hardly describe to you how very contrary she could be.

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."

"But it's ever so much longer, and we're so late," grumbled Duncan.

"Who cares?" cried Elsie, stolidly. "I'm a girl and I'm not going to climb up the hill in this heat."

Duncan stared again. He had never heard Elsie complain of the hill before. Usually they scampered up it, and rolled down the steepest side-not, truly, when there was milk to carry, but at other times. And now Elsie was walking along in a languid, mincing fashion, as if she had no more fun in her than Robbie himself, and had never scampered bare-foot over the moor six days out of every week, no matter what the weather might be.

"There's Robbie at the garden gate beckoning us. I expect mother's very angry," cried Duncan, despairingly.

"Who cares? let him beckon," Elsie replied, with the most provoking indifference. "Run on by yourself if you're afraid."

Most unkind taunt of all. Did not Elsie well know that Duncan was bound to her by the chains of a most unswerving, unquestioning loyalty? and that though he was, so to speak, ready to jump out of his skin with impatient anxiety, to forsake Elsie would never enter his simple little head.

When Robbie saw that they did not hurry, he came running towards them, calling out, "Elsie, Duncan, do make haste! Mother's so cross. You are late."

"Are we? And are you in a hurry, Robbie? because if you are you'd better fetch the milk yourself another time. Duncan and I are not your servants," Elsie replied, loftily.

Robbie stared, as well he might. "I only know mother's very cross," he reiterated dubiously, as if not quite knowing what to say; "and I don't think you know how late it is."

"Look here," cried Elsie, standing stock still: "suppose I tip this milk over on to the heather, what'ud you say to that?" and she lifted up the lid, and tilted the can, until the foaming white milk was just ready to pour over the side.

"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."

"Mother means it," Duncan cried. "She has never done it before, but she will now, Elsie."

Elsie had often dared her mother, but never so flagrantly as this; and Mrs. MacDougall was not a woman to be dared with impunity. Elsie was going a little too far; every one saw that except herself.

"Stay here," Mrs. MacDougall said sternly to the two boys when they entered the cottage kitchen. Then she took Elsie by the shoulder, and marched her up the few stairs. Robbie and Duncan stood stock still, looking blankly at each other.

he came running towards them (p. 3).

Presently there came from the room overhead a low sobbing sound, and a minute or two afterwards Mrs. MacDougall appeared, stern and frowning.

It was an unhappy supper they sat down to. Robbie was very wretched, and as for Duncan, each mouthful threatened to choke him. Mrs. MacDougall wore a troubled face. After it was ended Duncan crept away to his sister's room.

"I knew mother would," he said, sympathisingly, "and I know she'll do it again, if you do it. You wouldn't, would you, Elsie? Mother never whipped you before, never in all our lives, Elsie, but you didn't care. What was the matter with you?"

"You little stupid!" Elsie replied patronisingly; "I won't fetch the milk at all, not if mother whips me every day. I don't care. You don't know what I know, and you don't know what I'm going to do, but I know myself; and you little cowardy custard, you don't know what secret I could tell you if I liked."