“Yes,” he said with a smile, “and I intend to win it.”

“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 finishing 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.