The Underworld Part 19

Stirred by the warning, Robert tried to rise. He raised himself to his knees, but the pain in his injured foot was too great, and he fell forward on his face unconscious, and the race ended with Paterson as winner. It was an ironical situation, and soon the crowd were over the ropes, and the two opponents were carried to the dressing tent, where restoratives were applied under which they soon came round.

It was a poor ending to such a fine exhibition. A terrible anger smoldered in Robert's breast against the mine-owner's son for his unconscious action, an action which Robert, blinded by anger at losing, was now firmly convinced was deliberate, and he felt he would just like to smash Rundell's face for it.

Robert went home to have his injured foot attended to. He was too disgusted to feel any more interest in the games that day, and so he remained in the house, nursing his foot for the rest of the day, which pa.s.sed as such days usually do. Everyone talked about his misfortune and regretted in a casual way the accident which had deprived him of the coveted honor.

It was in late June, and that night Peter Rundell, as he was returning from the games after every event had been decided, overtook Mysie on her way to Rundell House, after having spent the evening at her parents'

home.

"It's a lovely evening, Mysie," he said, as he walked along by her side.

"What did you think of the games to-day?"

"Oh, no' bad," replied Mysie, not knowing what else to say. "It was a gran' day, an' kept up fine," she continued, alluding to the weather.

"Yes. Didn't I make a horrible mess of things in the Red Hose?" he asked. Then, without waiting, he went on: "I was sorry for Sinclair.

He's a fine chap, and ought to have won. It was purely an accident, and I couldn't help myself. I was beaten and done for, and it was hard lines for him to be knocked out in the way he was, just as he was on the point of winning, too."

"Oh, but ye couldna' help it," Mysie returned. "It was an accident."

"Yes; and I would rather Sinclair had got in, though. It was a good race, and Sinclair ought to have got the prize. It was rotten luck. I'm sorry, and I hope the poor beggar does not blame me. We seem always to be fated to be rivals," he continued, his voice dropping into reminiscent tones. "Do you remember how we used to fight at school? I've liked Sinclair always since for the way he stood up for the things he thought were right. I believe you were the cause of our hardest battle, and that also was an accident."

"Yes," replied Mysie, her face flus.h.i.+ng slightly as she remembered the incident, and how Peter had been chosen, when her heart told her to choose Robert.

"Oh, well," said Peter, "I suppose we can't help these things. Fate wills it. Let's forget all about such unpleasant things. It's a lovely night. We might go round by the wood. It's not so late yet," and putting Mysie's arm in his, he turned off into the little pathway that skirted the wood, and she, caught by the glamor of the gloaming, as well as flattered by his attentions, acquiesced.

Plaintive and eerie the moor-birds protested against this invasion of their haunts. The moon came slowly up over the eastern end of the moor, flinging a silver radiance abroad, and softening the shadows cast by the hills. A strange, dank smell rose from the mossy ground--the scent of rotting heather and withered gra.s.s, mixed with the beautiful perfume from beds of wild thyme.

A low call came from a brooding curlew, a faint sigh from a plover, and the wild rasping cry of a lapwing greeted them overhead. Yet there was a silence, a silence broken for a moment by the cries of the birds, but a silence thick and heavy. Between the calls of the birds Mysie could almost hear her heart's quickened beat. Blood found an eager response, and the magic of the moonlight and the beauty of the night soon wrought upon the excited minds of the pair. Mysie looked in Peter's eyes more desirable than ever. The moonlight on her face, the soft light within her eyes, her shy, downcast look, and the touch of her arm on his charmed him.

"There are some things, Mysie, more desirable than the winning of the Red Hose," he said after a time, looking sideways at her, and placing his hand upon hers, which had been resting upon his arm. "Don't you think so?"

"I dinna ken," she answered simply, a strange little quiver running through her as she spoke.

"Isn't this better than anything else, just to be happy with everything so peaceful? Just you and I together, happy in each other's company."

"Ay," she answered again, a faint little catch in her voice, her heart a-tremble, and her eyes moist and s.h.i.+ning. Then silence again, while they slowly strayed through the heather towards the little wooded copse, and Mysie felt that every thump of her heart must be heard at the farthest ends of the earth. Chased by the winds of pa.s.sion raging within him, discretion was fast departing from Peter, leaving him more and more a prey to impulse and the unwearying persistence of the fever of love that was consuming him.

"Listen, Mysie, I read a song yesterday. It's the sort of thing I'd have written about you:

"In the pa.s.sionate heart of the rose, Which from life its deep ardor is feeing.

And lifts its proud head to disclose Its immaculate beauty and being.

I can see your fine soul in repose, With an eye lit with love and all-seeing, In the pa.s.sionate heart of the rose, All athrob with its beauty of being."

He quoted, and Mysie's pulse leapt with every word, as the low soothing wooing of his voice came in soft tones like a gentle breeze among clumps of briars.

"Isn't it a beautiful song, Mysie?" he said. "The man who wrote that must have been thinking of someone very like you," and as he said this, he gave her hand a tender squeeze. Mysie thrilled to his touch and her heart leapt and fluttered like a bird in a snare, her breath coming in short little gasps, which were at once a pain and a joy.

"Dinna say that," she said, a note of alarm in her voice as she tried to withdraw her hand.

But he only held it closer, and bent his lips over it, his manner gentle but firm.

"Ay, it is true, Mysie; but I am so stupid I can't do anything of that kind. I'm merely an ordinary sort of chap."

Mysie did not answer, and once again silence fell between them, broken only occasionally by the cry of the birds or the bleating of a sheep.

"I believe I'm in love with you, Mysie," he said at last. "You've grown very beautiful. Could you care for me, Mysie?" he asked, looking at her in the soft moonlight, a smile on his lips, his voice keeping its seductive wooing tone, and his eyes kindling.

Mysie's experience of life had been gleaned from the love stories of earls and lords marrying governesses and ladies' maids after a swift and very eventful courts.h.i.+p. Already she saw herself Peter's wife, her carriage coming at her order, everyone serving her and she the queen of all the district. Illiterate but romantic, she was swept off her feet at the first touch of pa.s.sion, and the flattery of being recognized!

She did not answer. She did not know what to say; and Peter stole his arm about her waist, so tempting, so sweet to touch, and they pa.s.sed beneath the shadow of the trees as they entered the little wooded copse.

The moonlight filtered down through the trees, working silvery patterns upon the pathway. The silence, heavy and scented, was broken only by the far-away wheepling of a wakeful whaup and the grumbling of the burn near by, which bickered and hurried to be out in the open again on its way to the river.

Mysie heard the sounds, felt the fragrance of young briars and hawthorn mingled with the smell of last year's decaying leaves which carpeted the pathway. She noted the beauty of the foliage against the moon, heard the swift scurry of a frightened rabbit and the faint snort of a hedge-hog on the prowl for food.

"What have you to say to me, Mysie?" Peter persisted, his hot breath against her cheek, his blood coursing through his veins in red-hot pa.s.sion. "Could you care for me, Mysie? I want you to be mine!"

"I dinna ken what to say," she at last answered, distress in her voice, yet pleased to be wooed by this young man. "Wad it no' be wrang to ha'e onything to dae wi' me? I'm only your mither's servant." She felt it was her duty to put it this way.

"No, you are my sweetheart," he cried, discretion all gone now in his eager furtherance of his pleading. "I want you--only you, Mysie," and he caught her in his arms in a strong burst of desire for her. "Mine, Mysie, mine!" he cried, his lips upon hers and hers responding now, his hot eyes greedily devouring her as he held her there in his strong young arms. "Say, Mysie, that you are mine, that I am yours, body and soul belonging to each other," and so he raved on in eager burning language, which was the sweetest music in Mysie's ears.

His arms about her, he made her sit down, she still unresisting and flattered by his words, he fondling and kissing her, his hands caressing her face, her ears, her hair, her neck, his head sometimes resting upon her breast.

Maddened and scorched by the pa.s.sion raging within him, lured by the magic of the night, and impelled by the invitation of the sweet dewy lips that seemed to cry for kisses, he strained her to his breast.

He praised her eyes, her hair, her voice, whilst he poured kisses upon her, his fire kindling her whole being into response.

Then a thick cloud came over the face of the moon, darkening the dell, blotting out the silvery patterns on the ground, chasing the light shadows into dark corners; and a far-off protest of a whaup shouting to the hills was heard in a shriller and more anxious note that had something of alarm in it; the burn seemed to bicker more loudly in its anxiety to hurry on out into the open moor; and the scents and perfumes of the wood sank into pale ghosts of far-off memories.

When pa.s.sion, red-eyed and fierce for conquest, had driven innocence from the throne of virtue the guardian angels wept; and all their tears, however bitter, could not obliterate the stains which marked the progress of destruction.

At the end of the copse, when Mysie and Peter emerged, they neither spoke nor laughed. There was shame in their downcast faces, and their feet dragged heavily. His arm no longer encircled her waist, he did not now praise her eyes, her hair, her figure. Lonely each felt, afraid to look up, as if something walked between them. And far away the whaup wheepled in protest, the burn still grumbled, and the perfumes, and the sounds of the glen and all its beauty were as if they had never existed, and the thick cloud grew blacker over the face of the moon.

CHAPTER XIV

THE AWAKENING

Night after night for a week afterwards, Mysie lay awake till far on into the morning. She seemed to be face to face with life's realities at last. The silly, shallow love stories held no fascination for her. The love affairs of "Jean the Mill Girl" could not rouse her interest. Often she cried for hours, till exhaustion brought sleep, troubled and unrefres.h.i.+ng.

She grew silent and avoided company. She sang no more at her work, and she avoided Peter, and kept out of his way. She often compared Robert with him now, and loved to let her mind linger on that one mad moment of delirious joy a year ago, when he had crushed her to his breast, and cried to her to be his. Thus womanhood dawned for her, and its great responsibilities frightened her.

Robert, on the other hand, spent a week nursing his injured foot, but apart from the week's idle time, he suffered very little. He felt sore at losing the race, but was able now to look upon it as an unfortunate accident. But that smile which he had seen on the face of Mysie made him strangely happy, and it helped him to get over his disappointment. He was impatient to be out upon the moor again. He would wait for Mysie some night, he concluded, and tell her calmly that he wanted her to marry him.

His mother's prospects were fairly good now. The youngest boy would soon be working; besides, two other brothers were at work, while Jennie, his eldest sister, was in service, and Annie, the younger one, was helping in the house. He waited, night after night, after his injured foot was better--lingering on the moor by the path which Mysie must travel. He lay among the heather and read books, or dreamed of a rosy future, with her the center of his dreams; but no Mysie came along, and he began to grow anxious.

He wanted to make enquiries about her, but feared to arouse suspicion of having too keen an interest in her. By various ways he sought information, but never heard anything definite.