With Elsie, he was
subdued and almost tender in his manner; with the few visitors whom they
saw, shy and silent,--perhaps a little watchful, if any young man happened
to be among them.
Young fellows placed on their good behavior are apt to get restless and
nervous, all ready to fly off into some mischief or other. Dick Venner had
his half-tamed horse with him to work off his suppressed life with. When
the savage passion of his young blood came over him, he would fetch out the
mustang, screaming and kicking as these amiable beasts are wont to do,
strap the Spanish saddle tight to his back, vault into it, and, after
getting away from the village, strike the long spurs into his sides and
whirl away in a wild gallop, until the black horse was flecked with white
foam, and the cruel steel points were red with his blood. When horse and
rider were alike tired, he would fling the bridle on his neck and saunter
homeward, always contriving to get to the stable in a quiet way, and coming
into the house as calm as a bishop after a sober trot on his steady-going
cob.
After a few weeks of this kind of life, he began to want some more fierce
excitement. He had tried making downright love to Elsie, with no great
success as yet, in his own opinion. The girl was capricious in her
treatment of him, sometimes scowling and repellent, sometimes familiar,
very often, as she used to be of old, teasing and malicious. All this,
perhaps, made her more interesting to a young man who was tired of easy
conquests.
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