Suddenly, the boy drew in his oars, resting on them and allowing the boat to drift. "It isn’t like my home," he cried passionately; a wild thrill of homesickness surging over him, "It isn’t like _my_ Scotland—one little bit! We have great big rocks rising out of the water—not long beaches like this! And the sea beats and beats and _beats_ against them—it doesn’t just lap the sand as it does here—" the boy drew in his breath quickly, hurrying on, "And you haven’t got our heather and our bracken, and our country isn’t flat—except the moorlands where Mactier used to take me to hunt, and even our moors are not like this!"
He stopped suddenly; and he buttoned and unbuttoned his pea-jacket. He wouldn’t for the world have let Johnny see his eyes, but Johnny was looking at Cary. The child was leaning forward with angry face.
"You’re a horrid, horrid boy!" she cried, "You haven’t a single nice thing to say about us or our flag or—or me! You’re impolite and you’re dreadfully rude and I’ll never play with you again!"
Trevelyan’s boy continued to button and unbutton his pea-jacket. He didn’t care now if Johnny did see his eyes. Johnny saw them, too, and he was frightened. One day, Rob’s eyes had had that look when their tutor had threatened to strike him. He spoke hastily.
"Rob didn’t mean to be rude, Cary," he said; "but Rob’s home was beautiful—a great deal more beautiful than mine, and—and even more beautiful than your home, and so you mustn’t—"
Cary’s anger melted like a mist before the sun. She slid to the bottom of the boat and then crept along to Rob on the rower’s seat. She pulled at his sleeve.
"Rob—I’m sorry—I didn’t mean—really truly mean—"
Trevelyan’s boy shook away the child’s clinging fingers.
"I’m cold," she said, for Cary never would have admitted that a boy could hurt her so, "I’m cold, and—and tired. Can’t we go home, Johnny?"
"No, we won’t," said Rob, moodily, "the oars are gone."
The oars were gone—slipped from the locks when he had drawn them in, and in the excitement of the quarrel they had floated away. The two boys knew that the oars were not the only things on the surface of the deep, drifting out to sea.
Behind them a bank of storm clouds was gathering and a sudden stone-color fell upon the face of the waters.