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Robert turned from the group of young men who had been discussing the event with him, and met the smiling face of Peter Rundell, dressed in immaculate style and looking as fresh and fine a specimen of young manhood as anyone could wish to see. "Yes," he said with a smile, "and I intend to win it." "Do you?" returned Peter light-heartedly.
Rundell quickly organized a band of men to descend the shaft and recover Mag's body, and soon the whole village was in possession of the news, and the excitement was intense. They gathered her up, a mass of dirty, pulpy flesh, scraping the remains together and shoveling them into a rude improvised box, the head and eyes being the only part of the body that resembled anything like a human being.
"What's that?" asked Matthew, somewhat nettled at this manner of describing Robert's slightly bent legs. "He canna rin, ye say! Weel, if he couldna' rin better than Peter Rundell, he should never try it. Look at Rundell!" he went on scathingly, "doubled up like a fancy canary, and a hump on his back like a greyhound licking a pot. Rinnin'! He's mair like an exhibition o' a rin-a-way toy rainbow.
"Just you try and gang to sleep and I'll soon finish up. I'll have to try and get up early in the morning, for I have to go to Mrs. Rundell and wash. She always gi'es me twa shillings, and that's a good day's pay. The only thing I grudge is being away all day, leaving you and the bairns, for I ken they're no' very easy to put up with. They're steerin' weans, and are no' easy on a body who is ill."
Then Robert was conscious that others were in the room, and looking up he beheld his mother and Jenny Maitland and behind them with anxious face and frightened eyes stood Peter Rundell, the picture of misery and despair. "She's kind o' wanderin', puir thing," he heard the mother say in explanation to the others. "She's kind o' wanderin' in her mind."
Again, Jamie knew that Rundell was a man of hasty temper and impulsive judgments, and could not brook trouble, and he began to think that perhaps it might be better to hold the meeting as suggested and tell the men what he had heard, and appeal to them to go back to work. "All right," he said to Walker, "I'll call a meeting to-night and put the case as you have said, and ask them to go back.
It's enough to tempt Providence, an' had it no' been for the tumblerful o' whisky that Mr. Rundell gied us I dinna think I could hae faced it. It's awfu'!" "What the hell are ye girnin' at?" asked Archie, turning round on him. "Are ye feart Mag bites ye? Man, she's got a' her bitin' by noo, although I admit she's made a hell o' a mess at the end.
"Is there no'?" he replied, trying hard to bring his mind back to the realities. "What kind o' word did Jenny get frae the polis?" "Oh, they ken naething aboot her," said Nellie. "A' that is kenned is jist what we heard already. The polis hae been searchin' noo for a fortnight an' nae trace o' her can be got. Mr. Rundell has pit it in the papers; but I hae my doots aboot ever seeing her again.
"I heard that she had disappeared frae her place, an' that nae news o' her could be got. Is it true, mither?" "Ay, it's true, Rob," she replied. "But I hinna got ony richt waye o' it yet. Jenny's awa' owre to Rundell Hoose, an' we'll no' ken onything till she comes back. It's an awfu' business, an' will pit her faither an' mither a guid lot aboot. I wonder what'll hae ta'en her."
"Can ye tell me where Black Jock is a' this time?" enquired Andrew, as Peter and Matthew and he sat back the road, resting while the others worked. "Rundell has been here twa or three times, for hours at a time, but I hae never seen Walker yet."
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