Part 17 (2/2)

”Do you?” returned Peter light-heartedly. ”I have also entered for it, though I had no intention of doing so when I came over; but Mr. Walker, who, as you know, is on the committee, pressed me to go in, and so I consented.”

”Oh!” said Robert, in surprise, ”I thought after last year's success you were not going to run again.” Then, in a bantering tone, and with a smile upon his lips, ”I suppose we'll be rivals in this, then; but I gi'e you fair warning that I'm gaun to lift the Red Hose if I get a decent chance at all.”

”Well, I have set my mind on winning it, too,” replied Peter. ”I'd like to lift it, just to be able to say in after years that I had done so.”

”That's just hoo I feel aboot the matter too,” lightly answered Robert.

”I'd like jist to be able to say that I had won the Red Hose. I feel in good form for it, so you'd better be on your mettle.”

”Well, I shall give you the race of your life for it,” said Peter, entering into the same light spirited boasting. ”I hear Mair and Todd and Semple are also entered, but with a decent handicap I won't mind these, even with their international reputation.”

”All right,” said Robert. ”I suppose I shall have the greater pleasure in romping home before you all. Are the handicaps out yet?”

”Yes, I saw the list just before I spoke to you. Semple and Mair are scratch, with Todd at five yards. You start at twenty-five, and I get off at the limit forty.'

”Oh!” said Robert, a note of surprise in his voice. ”Walker has surely forgotten who are the runners! Why, last year you won nearly all the confined events, and you were second in the Red Hose with twenty-five yards. He means you to romp home this year!” and there was heat in Robert's voice as he finished.

”Well, I daresay it is a decent handicap,” said Peter, ”and even though Semple is among the crowd, I should manage, I think, to pull it off with anything like luck.”

”I should think so,” said Robert. ”Walker has just made you a present of the race. But I suppose it can't be helped, though it isn't fair.

Anyhow, I'll give you a chase for it.”

”All right. Half an hour and we shall be on,” and Peter went on round the field, exchanging greetings with most of the villagers.

He was finis.h.i.+ng his education at a Technical College in Edinburgh, and at present was home on holidays. He was a well set up young man, and though popular with most people, yet he brought with him an air of another world among the villagers, which made them feel uncomfortable.

They recognized that his life was very different from their own, and while they talked to him when he spoke to them, and were agreeable enough to him, they felt awed and could not break down the natural reserve they always had towards people of another station of life. He was perhaps a little too thoughtless and impulsive, though generous-hearted enough. He drifted into things, rather than shaped them to his own ideas, and was often not sufficiently careful of the positions in which he found himself as a consequence of thoughtless acts.

The week before he had caught and kissed Mysie Maitland, who was now serving at Rundell House, merely because he was taken with her pretty face. From that Peter already believed himself in love with her, because she had not resented his action. He had even walked over with her from the village, when she had been home visiting her parents one night, and had felt more and more the witchery of her pretty face and the lure of her fine little figure.

Up to this time Mysie had always believed herself in love with Robert--Robert who was always so strange from the rest of young men. He had always been her hero, her protector; but there was something about him for which she could not account and which she could not have defined. Such was her admiration that she believed it was in his power to do anything he cared to attempt; it was just possible that it was this strange sense of unknown power which fascinated her. They had never been lovers in the accepted sense of the word. They had never ”walked out” as young people in their social station usually do, but yet had always felt that they were meant for one another.

Only once had Robert kissed her, and that moment ever lived with her a glowing memory. She had been home and was returning through a moorland pa.s.s, when she came across him lying upon the rough heather, his thoughts doubtless full of her, for he had seen her in the village, and knew she must return that way.

”Oh, Rob!” she cried, her face flus.h.i.+ng with excitement as she saw him.

”Ye nearly frichted me oot o' my wits the noo.”

”Did I, Mysie?” he answered, springing to his feet. ”I didna mean to dae that. Ye'll be getting back, I suppose.”

”Ay,” she returned simply, and a silence fell upon them, in which both seemed to lose the power of speaking.

Robert looked at her as she stood there, her full, curved b.r.e.a.s.t.s rising and falling with the excitement of the unexpected meeting, the long lashes of her eyes sweeping her flushed cheeks, as she stood with downcast eyes before him. The last rays of the setting sun falling upon her brown hair touched it with a rare strange beauty. Her red lips like dew-drenched roses--luscious, pure, alluring, were parted a little in a half smile. But it was the fascinating movement of the breast, full, round and sensuous, that stirred and made an overpowering appeal to every pulse within him. It seemed so soft, so tender, so wonderfully alluring. At the moment he could not understand himself or her. There was a strange, surging impetus raging through him that he felt absolutely powerless to subdue, and he swayed a little as he stood.

”Oh, Mysie!” he cried, leaping forward and clasping her in his strong, young arms, and crus.h.i.+ng her against him, holding her there, gasping, powerless but happy.

”You are mine, Mysie. Mine!” and he kissed her budded lips in an ecstasy of pa.s.sion and warm-blooded feeling, while a thousand fevers seemed to course through him as he felt the contact of her body and her warm, eager lips on his. Blinded and delirious, he kissed her again and again in an impa.s.sioned burst of fervor, pa.s.sion scorching his blood and filling his whole heart with the enjoyment of possession. She closed her eyes, and her head touched his shoulder, while the faint scent of her hair and its soft caressing touch upon his cheek maddened him to a fury of love.

”Say you are mine, Mysie! Say you are mine!” he cried, and his voice was strange and hoa.r.s.e and dry with the desire within him. He felt her body yielding as it relaxed in his arms, as if in answer to some unspoken demand, and in a moment he realized himself and started back, hot shame surging over his face and conquering the pa.s.sion in his blood. In that strange mad moment he had felt capable of anything--powerful, overmastering, relentless in his desires; and now--weak, shame-stricken and helpless. Ere he could say anything, Mysie had come to herself with a shock, and started away over the moor as if possessed by something that was mysterious and terrible.

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