‘Never, Francis! The girl rides like a lady!’
Francis smiled, perhaps a little triumphantly. Something like what lay in the smile the mother read in it, for it roused at once both her jealousy and her pride. Her son to fall in love with a girl that was not even a lady! A Gordon of Weelset to marry a tenant’s daughter! Impossible!
Kirsty was now in the road before them, riding slowly in the same direction. It was the progress, however, not the horse that was slow: his frolics, especially when the other horses drew near, kept his rider sufficiently occupied.
Mrs. Gordon quickened her pace, and passed without turning her head or looking at her, but so close, and with so sudden a rush that Kirsty’s horse half wheeled, and bounded over the dyke by the roadside. Her rudeness annoyed her son, and he jumped his horse into the field and joined Kirsty, letting his mother ride on, and contenting himself with keeping her in sight. After a few moments’ talk, however, he proposed that they should overtake her, and cutting off a great loop of the road, they passed her at speed, and turned and met her. She had by this time got a little over her temper, and was prepared to behave with propriety, which meant—the dignity becoming her.
‘What a lovely horse you have, Miss Barclay!’ she said, without other greeting. ‘How much do you want for him?’
‘He is but half-broken,’ answered Kirsty, ‘or I would offer to change with you. I almost wonder you look at him from the back of your own!’
‘He is a beauty—is he not? This is my first trial of him. The laird gave me him only this morning. He is as quiet as a lamb.’
‘There, Donal,’ said Kirsty to her horse, ‘tak example by yer betters! Jist luik hoo he stan’s!—The laird has a true eye for a horse, ma’am,’ she went on, ‘but he always says you gave it him.’
‘Always! hm!’ said Mrs. Gordon to herself, but she looked kindly at her son.
‘How did you learn to ride so well, Kirsty?’ she asked.