“Well! Yuh traveling, or just goin’ somewhere?” A young voice yelled at her as she went past the stable.
“My horse––is––he rinned away wi’ me!” screamed Mary Hope, her pigtails snapping as Rab slowed up and stopped.
“He rinned away wi’ you? When? You musta been purty young for riding when that horse rinned away!” Lance came toward her, grinning 39 and slapping his hat against his fringed chaps before he set it upon his head; an uncommonly handsome head, by the way, with the Lorrigan’s dark eyes and hair and his mother’s provocative mouth. “Well, seeing your horse ain’t going to rin no further, you might as well git down and stay awhile.”
“I will not. I didna come to visit, if you please.”
Mary Hope’s cheeks were hot but confusion could not break her Scotch spirit.
“Want to borrow something?” Lance stood looking at her with much enjoyment. A girl in short skirts was fair game for any one’s teasing, especially when she blushed as easily as did Mary Hope. “Want to borrow a horse that will rin away wi’ you.”
“Lance, you devil, get out and leave the girl alone. I’m ashamed of you! Haven’t you got any manners at all?––after all the willows and the good powder I’ve wasted on you! Get back to that pasture fence before I take a club to you for such acting!”
Before Belle’s wrath Lance retreated, and Mary Hope found the courage to wrinkle her nose at him when he glanced her way. “He rinned away to save himself a whupping,” she commented, and made sure that he heard it, and hoped that he would realize that she spoke “Scotchy” just for his special benefit.
“All right for you, Belle Lorrigan!” Lance called back, retaliating for Mary Hope’s grimace by a kiss thrown brazenly in the expectation of seeing her face grow redder; which it did immediately. “Careful of that horse––he might rinned away again!”