Armine hid his face in
his mother's dress, and burst out crying; but Jock stepped forth and,
with that impish look of fearlessness, said, "I did it, Uncle Robert!
I wanted to make Aunt Ellen laugh. Did she laugh, mother?" he asked
in so comical and innocent a manner that, in spite of her full
consciousness of the heinousness of the offence, and its general
unluckiness, Mother Carey was almost choked. This probably added to
the gravity with which the other lady decreed with Juno-like
severity, "Robin and John must be flogged. Joe is too young."
"Certainly," responded the Colonel; but Caroline, instead of, as they
evidently expected of her, at once offering up her victim, sprang
forward with eager, tearful pleadings, declaring it was all Jock's
fault, and he did not know how naughty it was-—but all in vain.
"Robert knew. He ought to have stopped it," said the Colonel. "Go
to the study, you two."
Jock did not act as the generous hero of romance would have done, and
volunteer to share the flogging. He cowered back on his mother, and
put his arm round her waist, while she said, "Jock told the truth, so
I shall not ask you to flog him, Uncle Robert. He shall not do such
mischief again."
"If he does," said his uncle, with a look as if her consent would not
be asked to what would follow.
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