THE LONE 
 ADVENTURE 
 
 HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE
 
 *r
 
 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 . OF CAMF. imnmr. TO* ANCTI.W
 
 THE 
 LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 BY 
 HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE 
 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 NEW YORK 
 
 Publishers in America for H odder & Stoughton
 
 Copyright, 1911, 
 By George H. Do ran Company
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. 
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE MOOR .... 
 
 . . . I 
 
 II. 
 
 THE NIGHT-RIDER 
 
 ... 2 4 
 
 III. 
 
 THE HURRIED DAYS 
 
 ... 45 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE LOYAL MEET 
 
 ... 66 
 
 V. 
 
 THE HORSE-THIEF 
 
 ... 74 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE PRINCE COMES SOUTH 
 
 . . . 91 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE HEIR RETURNS . . 
 
 . . . 104 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE ROAD TO THE THRONE 
 
 . . . 122 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 
 
 ... ISO 
 
 X. 
 
 HOW THE PIPES PLAYED DREARILY 
 
 . . .182 
 
 XI. 
 
 THE TALE COMES TO WINDYHOUGH . 
 
 . . . 202 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE GALLOP 
 
 - 232 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE RIDING IN 
 
 . . .256 
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE GLAD DEFENCE 
 
 . . . 263 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE BRUNT OF IT 
 
 . . . 28l 
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE NEED OF SLEEP 
 
 . . . 302 
 
 XVII. 
 
 THE PLEASANT FURY 
 
 . . . 319 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 THE RIDING OUT 
 
 330 
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE FORLORN HOPE 
 
 . . 343 
 
 XX. 
 
 THE GLORY OF IT 
 
 ... 363 
 
 XXI. 
 
 LOVE IN EXILE 
 
 ... 383 
 
 2133769
 
 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE MOOR 
 
 IN a gorge of the moors, not far away as the crow flies from 
 Pendle Hill, stood a grim, rambling house known to the heath- 
 men as Windyhough. It had been fortified once; but after- 
 wards, in times of ease, successive owners had thought more of 
 dice and hunting than of warfare, and within-doors the house 
 was furnished with a comfort that belied its loop-holed walls. 
 
 It stood in the county of Lancaster, famed for its loyalty 
 and for the beauty of its women two qualities that often run 
 together and there had been Royds at Windyhough since 
 Norman William first parcelled out the County Palatine among 
 the strong men of his following. The Royd pride had been 
 deep enough, yet chivalrous and warm-hearted, as of men 
 whose history is an open book, not fearing scrutiny but ask- 
 ing it. 
 
 The heir of it all house, and name, and lusty pride came 
 swinging over the moor-crest that gave him a sight of Windy- 
 hough, lying far below in the haze of the November after- 
 noon. It was not Rupert's fault that he was the heir, and less 
 strong of body than others of his race. It was not his fault 
 that Lady Royd, his mother, had despised him from infancy, 
 because he broke the tradition of his house that all its sons 
 must needs be strong and good to look at. 
 
 The heir stood on the windy summit, his gun under his 
 arm, and looked over the rolling, never-ending sweep of hills. 
 The sun, big and ruddy, was dipping over Pendle's rounded 
 slope, and all the hollows in between were luminous and still. 
 He forgot his loneliness forgot that he could not sit a horse 
 with ease or pleasure to himself; forgot that he was shy of 
 his equals, shy of the country-folk who met him on the road,
 
 2 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 that his one respite from the burden of the day was to get up 
 into the hills which God had set there for a sanctuary. 
 
 Very still, and straight to his full height, this man of five- 
 and-twenty stood watching the pageant of the sun's down- 
 going. It was home and liberty to him, this rough land where 
 all was peat and heather, and the running cry of streams 
 afraid of loneliness, and overhead the snow-clouds thrusting 
 forward from the east across the western splendour of blue, 
 and red, and sapphire. 
 
 He shivered suddenly. As of old, his soul was bigger than 
 the strength of his lean body, and he looked down at Windy- 
 hough with misgiving, for he was spent with hunger and long 
 walking over the hills he loved. He thought of his father, 
 kind always and tolerant of his heir's infirmities ; of his mother, 
 colder than winter on the hills; of Maurice, his younger 
 brother by three years, who could ride well, could show 
 prowess in field-sports, and in all things carry himself like 
 the true heir of Windyhough. 
 
 A quick, unreasoning hatred of Maurice took him unawares 
 Esau's hate for the supplanter. He remembered that Mau- 
 rice had never known the fears that bodily weakness brings. 
 In nursery days he had been the leader, claiming the toys he 
 coveted; in boyhood he had been the friend and intimate of 
 older men, who laughed at his straightforward fearlessness, 
 and told each other, while the heir stood by and listened, that 
 Maurice was a pup of the old breed. 
 
 There was comfort blowing down the wind to Rupert, had 
 he guessed it. The moor loves her own, as human mothers 
 do, and in her winter-time she meant to prove him. He did 
 not guess as much, as he looked down on the huddled chim- 
 ney-stacks of Windyhough, and saw the grey smoke flying 
 wide above the gables. His heart was there, down yonder 
 where the old house laughed slyly to know that he was heir 
 to it, instead of Maurice. If only he could take his full share 
 in field-sports, and meet his fellows with the frank laugh of 
 comradeship if he had been less sensitive to ridicule, to the
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE MOOR 5 
 
 self-distrust inbred in him by Lady Royd's disdain his world 
 might have worn a different face to-day. He stooped to pat 
 the setter that had shared a day's poor sport with him, and 
 then again his thoughts went roving down the years. 
 
 He did not hear the sound of hoofs behind him, till Roger 
 Demaine's daughter rode close up, reined in, and sat regard- 
 ing him with an odd look of pity, and liking, and reproach. 
 
 "You look out of heart, Rupert. What ails you?" she 
 asked, startling him out of his day-dream. 
 
 " Life. It is life that ails me," he muttered, then laughed 
 as if ashamed of his quick outburst. " I've been tramping the 
 moors since daybreak, Nance," he went on, in a matter-of-fact 
 voice, " and all for three brace of grouse. You know how 
 much powder goes to every bird I kill." 
 
 "But, Rupert, why are you so bitter?" 
 
 " Because I'm your fool," he broke in, with easy irony. 
 " Oh, they think I do not know ! They call me the scholar 
 or the dreamer or any other name but we know what they 
 mean, Nance." 
 
 The girl's face was grave and puzzled. Through all the 
 years they had known each other, he and she, he had seldom 
 shown her a glimpse of this passionate rebellion against the 
 world that hemmed him in. And it was true pitiably true. 
 She had seen men smile good-naturedly when his name was 
 spoken good-naturedly, because all men liked him in some 
 affectionate, unquestioning way had heard them ask each 
 other what the Royds had done in times past to deserve such 
 ill-luck as this heir, who was fit only for the cloisters where 
 scholars walked apart and read old tomes. 
 
 And yet, for some odd reason, she liked him better for the 
 outburst. Here on his own moors, with the tiredness in his 
 face and the ring of courage in his voice, she saw the man- 
 hood in him. 
 
 " Rupert," she said, glancing backward, and laughing to hide 
 her stress of feeling. " You've lost me a race to-day." 
 
 " Very likely," he said, yielding still to his evil humour. "I
 
 4 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 was always in the way, Nance. My lady mother told me as 
 much, no longer ago than yesterday. This race of yours ? " 
 he added, tired of himself, tired of the comrade moor, weary 
 even of Nance Demaine, who was his first love and who would 
 likely, if he died in his bed at ninety, be his last. 
 
 She glanced over her shoulder again, and saw two horsemen 
 cantering half a mile away through the crimson sunset-glow. 
 " It was a good wager, Rupert, and you've spoilt it. The hunt 
 was all amiss to-day whenever we found a fox, we lost him 
 after a mile or two and Will Underwood and your brother, 
 as we rode home " 
 
 " My brother, and Will Underwood yes. They hunt in 
 couples always." 
 
 " Be patient, Rupert ! Your temper is on edge. I've never 
 known it fail you until to-day." 
 
 " Fools are not supposed to show temper," he put in dryly. 
 " It is only wise men who're allowed to ride their humours on 
 a loose rein. So you had a wager, Nance ? " 
 
 "Yes. We had had no real gallop; so, coming home, 
 Maurice said that he would give me a fair start as far 
 as Intake Farm and the first home to father's house 
 should " 
 
 She halted, ashamed, somehow, of Rupert's steady glance. 
 
 "And the wager?" 
 
 She glanced behind her. The two horsemen were climbing 
 Lone Man's Hill, and the sight of them, just showing over 
 the red, sunset top, gave her new courage. " You're brave, 
 Rupert, and I was full of laughter till you spoiled my ride. 
 It was so slight a wager. Maurice has a rough-haired terrier 
 I covet. If Rupert, you look as if I were a sinner absolute 
 if I were first home, Maurice was to give me the dog and, 
 if not " 
 
 "And if not?" 
 
 She was dismayed by his cold air of question. " If I lost 
 the wager? Your brother was to have my glove. What 
 harm was there? He's a boy, Rupert besides," she added,
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE MOOR 5 
 
 with the unheeding coquetry that was constantly leading her 
 astray, " it is you who make me lose the wager. See them, 
 how close they are! And I'd kept my lead so splendidly 
 until you checked me." 
 
 He was not heeding her. His eyes were fixed on the up- 
 coming horsemen, and Nance could not understand this new, 
 tense mood of his. It was only when Will Underwood and 
 young Maurice reined up beside them that she knew there 
 was trouble brewing, as surely as snow was coming with the 
 rising wind. 
 
 " We've caught you, Nance," laughed Maurice. " Will you 
 settle the wager now, or later?" 
 
 He was big and buoyant, this lad of two-and-twenty. Life 
 had used him well, had given him a hale body, and nerves 
 like whipcord, and a good temper that needed little discipline 
 to train it into shape. 
 
 Will Underwood laughed. " Best hasten, Maurice, or I'll 
 claim the forfeit for you." 
 
 Rupert glanced from Will Underwood to Maurice. There 
 was no hurry in his glance, only a wish to strike, and a tem- 
 perate, quiet question as to which enemy he should choose. 
 Then, suddenly, the indignities of years gone by came to a 
 head. He recalled the constant yielding to his brother, the 
 gibes he had let pass without retaliation, the long tale of re- 
 nunciation, weakness. 
 
 " Maurice," he said, with a straightening of his shoulders, 
 " I want a word with you. Mr. Underwood, you will ride 
 home with Nance? We shall not need you." 
 
 Will Underwood gave a smothered laugh, but Nance was 
 grave. She looked first at Maurice's boyish, puzzled face, 
 then at Rupert. 
 
 " I claim your escort, Mr. Underwood," she said sharply. 
 
 Some reproof in her tone ruffled Will Underwood and kept 
 him silent as they rode over the crest of the moor and down 
 the long, rough slopes that led them to the pastures. He was 
 assured of his reputation as a hard rider and a man of the
 
 6 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 world; and it piqued him to be given marching orders by a 
 boy of five-and-twenty. 
 
 " Rupert thought himself his own father just now, Miss 
 Demaine," he said in his deep, pleasant voice. "For the first 
 time since I've known him, he had something of the grand 
 air. What mischief are the two lads getting into up yonder ? " 
 
 Nance did not know her own mood. She seemed to be free, 
 for the moment, of her light-hearted, healthy girlhood, seemed 
 to be looking, old and wise, into some muddled picture of the 
 days to come. " No mischief," she answered, as if some other 
 than herself were speaking. " Rupert is finding his road to 
 the grand air, as you call it. It is a steep road, I fancy." 
 
 Up on the moor Maurice was facing his elder brother. 
 "What fool's play is this, Rupert?" he asked. "Why don't 
 you hunt instead of prowling up and down the moor with a 
 gun till your wits are addled? Your face is like a hatchet." 
 
 "You made a wager?" said Rupert, with the same desper- 
 ate quiet. 
 
 " Yes, and I've won it Come, old monk, admit there are 
 worse gloves to claim in Lancashire." 
 
 Rupert winced. His thoughts of Nance Demaine were so 
 long, so fragrant. Since his boyhood struggled first into the 
 riper understanding, he had cloistered her image from the 
 world's rough usage. She had been to him something magical, 
 unattainable, and he was paying now for an homage less 
 healthy than this world's needs demand. It was all so tri- 
 fling, this happy-go-lucky wager of a dog against a glove; but 
 he saw in it a supplanting more bitter than any that had gone 
 before. 
 
 He stood there for a moment, irresolute, bound by old sub- 
 servience to Maurice, by remembrance of his weakness and his 
 nickname of " the scholar." Then the moor whispered in his 
 ear, told him to be a fool no longer ; and a strength that was 
 almost gaiety came to him. 
 
 " Get out of the saddle, Maurice," he said peremptorily. " I 
 want to talk to you on foot."
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE MOOR 7 
 
 Maurice obeyed by instinct, as if a ghost had met him in 
 the open and startled him. Here was the scholar the brother 
 whom he could not any way despise, because he loved him 
 with a red spot of colour in each cheek, and in his voice 
 the ring of true metal. 
 
 " Well ? " asked the younger. 
 
 " You never would have claimed that glove." 
 
 The boy's temper, easy-going as it was, was roused. 
 "Would you have hindered me?" 
 
 " Yes. I I love her. That is all." 
 
 So young Maurice laughed aloud, and Rupert ran in sud- 
 denly and hit him on the mouth, and the fight began. In his 
 dreams the heir of Windyhough had revelled in battles, in 
 swift assaults, forlorn and desperate hopes ; for he had known 
 no waking pleasures of the kind. And always, in his dreams, 
 there had been a certain spaciousness and leisure ; he had found 
 time, in between giving and receiving blows, to feel himself 
 the big man of his hands, to revel in the sheer bravery of the 
 thing. 
 
 In practice, here on the open moor, with snow coming up 
 across the stormy, steel-grey sky, there was no leisure and no 
 illusion. He had no time to feel, no luxury of sentiment. 
 He knew only that, in some muddled way, he was fighting 
 Nance's battle; that, by some miracle, he got a sharp blow 
 home at times; that twice Maurice knocked him down; that, 
 by some native stubbornness, he got up again, with the moor 
 dancing in wide circles round him, and hit his man. 
 
 It was swift and soon over, as Rupert thought of this battle 
 afterwards. No pipes were playing up and down the hills, to 
 hearten him. Even the wind, whose note he loved, blew swift 
 from the east about deaf ears. He and his brother were 
 alone, in a turmoil of their own making, and his weakening 
 arms were beating like a flail about the head of Maurice, the 
 supplanter. Then the moors whirled round him, a world big 
 with portent and disaster ; and dimly, as from a long way off, 
 he heard Maurice's voice.
 
 8 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " 111 have to kill him before he gives in. Who ever thought 
 it of the scholar?" 
 
 The gibe heartened Rupert. He struggled up again, and 
 by sheer instinct skill he had little, and strength seemed to 
 have left him long ago he got another swift blow home. 
 And then darkness settled on him, and he dreamed again of 
 battle as he had known it in the fanciful days of boyhood. 
 He revelled in this lonely moorland fight, counted again each 
 blow and wondered at its strength, knew himself at last a proven 
 man. His dreams were kind to him. 
 
 Then he got out from his sickness, little by little, and looked 
 about him, and saw a half-moon shining dimly through a 
 whirl of snow. The east wind was playing shrewdly round 
 his battered face, as if a man were rubbing salt into his 
 wounds. He tried to get up, looked about him again, and saw 
 Maurice stooping over him. 
 
 A long glance passed between the brothers, Rupert lying on 
 the heather, Maurice kneeling in the sleety moonlight. There 
 was question in the glance, old affection, some trouble of the 
 jealousy that had bidden them fight just now. Then a little 
 sob, of which he was ashamed, escaped the younger brother. 
 
 Rupert struggled to a sitting posture. He could do no more 
 as yet. " So I'm not just the scholar? " he asked feebly. 
 
 Maurice, young as he was, was troubled by the vehemence, 
 the wistfulness, of the appeal. Odd chords were stirred, un- 
 der the rough-and-ready view he had of life. This brother with 
 whom he had fought just now he understood, in a dim way, 
 the pity and the isolation of his life, understood the daily suf- 
 fering he had undergone. Then, suddenly and as if to seek 
 relief from too much feeling, the younger brother laughed. 
 
 " The next time a man sneers at you for being a scholar, 
 Rupert, give him a straight answer." 
 
 " Yes ? " The heir of Windyhough was dazed and muddled 
 still, though he had got to his feet again. 
 
 " Hit him once between the eyes. A liar seldom asks a 
 second blow, so father says."
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE MOOR 9 
 
 Then a silence fell between them, while the last of the sun- 
 set red grew pale about the swarthy line of heath above 
 them, and the moon sailed dim and phantom-like through the 
 sleety clouds. They had been fond of each other always, but 
 now some deeper love, some intimate communion, gathered 
 the years up and bound them into lasting friendship. Maurice 
 had been jealous of his brother's heirship, contemptuous of his 
 -scholarship. And Rupert had been sick at heart, these years 
 past, knowing how well the supplanter sat his horse, and car- 
 ried a gun, and did all things reckoned worthy. 
 
 And now they met on equal terms. They had fought to- 
 gether, man against man; and their love ripened under the 
 bitter east wind and the stinging sleet, as the man's way is. 
 
 They went down the moor together, Maurice leading his 
 horse by the bridle. They were no heroic figures, the three 
 of them. The horse was shivering, after long waiting in the 
 cold while his master settled private differences ; and the two 
 brothers limped and stumbled as they picked their way down 
 the white slope of the moor. There was no speed of action 
 now ; there was, instead, this slow march home that in its very 
 forlornness touched some subtle note of humour. Yet Rupert 
 was warm, as if he sat by a peat-fire ; for he felt a man's soul 
 stirring in him. 
 
 " What did we fight about ? " asked Maurice suddenly. 
 " The fun was so hot while it lasted and, gad, Rupert, I've 
 forgotten what the quarrel was." 
 
 Again the elder brother grew quick, alert. It seemed he 
 was ready to provoke a second fight. " It was Nance's 
 glove," he said quietly. "You said you meant to claim it, and 
 I said not. I say it still." 
 
 " There, there, old lad ! " laughed Maurice, patting him 
 lightly on the shoulder. " You shall have the glove. She'd 
 rather give it to you than to any man in Lancashire. I said 
 as much to Will Underwood just now, and he didn't relish it." 
 
 " Rather give it me ? " echoed the other, with entire sim- 
 plicity. " I can do nothing that a woman asks, Maurice."
 
 10 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 A sudden dizziness crossed his eagerness. He could not 
 keep the path, until Maurice steadied him. 
 
 " You can hit devilish hard," said the younger dryly. 
 
 The three of them went down the moor, counting the fur- 
 longs miles. And again the brothers met on equal terms ; for 
 each was bruised and hungry, and body-sickness, if it strike 
 deep enough, is apt to bring wayfarers to one common level. 
 
 Nance and Will Underwood had reached the lower lands 
 by now, and she turned to him at the gate of Demaine House 
 with some reluctance. 
 
 " You will let my father thank you for your escort ? " she 
 asked, stroking her mare's neck, 
 
 " I'll come in," he answered, with the rollicking assurance 
 that endeared him to the hard riders of the county " if only 
 for an hour more with you." He leaned across and touched 
 her bridle-hand. " Nance, you've treated me all amiss these 
 last days. You never give me a word apart, and there's so 
 much " 
 
 " I'm tired and cold," she broke in, wayward and sleety as 
 this moorland that had cradled her. " You may spare me 
 what shall I say ? the flattery that Mr. Underwood gives every 
 woman, when other women are not there to hear." 
 
 She did not know what ailed her. Until an hour ago she 
 had been yielding, little by little, to the suit which Will Under- 
 wood had pressed on her in season and out, as his way was. 
 There had been sudden withdrawals, gusts of coquetry, on her 
 part ; for the woman's flight at all times is like a snipe's zig- 
 zag, and only to be reckoned with according to the rule of 
 contraries. 
 
 But now, as she went into the house, not asking but simply 
 permitting him to follow her, there was a real avoidance of 
 him. She could not rid herself of the picture of Rupert, 
 standing desolate up yonder on the empty moors Rupert, 
 who was heir to traditions of hard riding and hard fighting; 
 Rupert, with the eyes of a dreamer and the behaviour of a 
 hermit. She wondered what he and Maurice were doing on
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE MOOR 11 
 
 the moor. His last words had not suggested need of her 
 had hinted plainly that he had a man's work to do. 
 
 Her father was in the hall as they came in. A glance at his 
 face told her that Roger Demaine was in no mood for trifles, 
 and she stood apart, willingly enough, while he gravely offered 
 wine to Underwood, and filled his glass for him, and scarcely 
 paused to let him set lips to it before he ran into the middle 
 of his tale. 
 
 " There's muddled news from Scotland. I can't make head 
 or tail of it," he said, glancing sharply round to see that no 
 servants were in earshot. " We expected him to come south 
 with the New Year, and I've had word just now that he'll be 
 riding through Lancashire before the month is out that he 
 means to keep Christmas in high state in London." 
 
 " I'll not believe it," said Will Underwood lazily. " The 
 clans up yonder need more than a week or two to rally to the 
 muster." 
 
 " You were always slow to believe," snapped the Squire. 
 " Have a care, Will, or they'll say you're like nine men out of 
 ten loyal only until the test comes." 
 
 The other glanced at Nance, then at his host. " I would not 
 permit the insult from a younger man, sir," he said. 
 
 " Oh, fiddle-de-dee ! " broke in old Roger. " Fine phrases 
 don't win battles, and never did. Insult? None intended, 
 Will. But I'm sick with anxiety, and you younger men are 
 the devil and all when you're asked to ride on some one else's 
 errand than your own." 
 
 Roger Demaine, big of height and girth, his face a fine, fox- 
 hunter's red, stood palpably for the old race of squires. In his 
 life there were mistakes enough mistakes of impulse and of 
 an uncurbed temper but there was no pandering to shame of 
 any sort. 
 
 " When I'm asked, sir, I shall answer," said Will Under- 
 wood, moving restlessly from foot to foot. 
 
 " Well, I hope so. You'll not plead, eh, that you are pledged 
 to hunt six days a week, and cannot come ? that you've a snug
 
 12 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 house and some thought of bringing a wife to it one day, and 
 cannot come? that you are training a dog to the gun, and 
 cannot come " 
 
 It was Nance who broke in now. She had forgotten Rupert, 
 standing hungry and forlorn up the high moor and looking 
 down on his inheritance of Windyhough. Her old liking for 
 Will Underwood a liking that had come near, during these 
 last days, to love and hero-worship bade her defend their 
 guest against a tongue that was sharper than her father 
 guessed. 
 
 " I know he will be true. Why should you doubt him, 
 father?" 
 
 "Oh, there, child! Who said I doubted him? It's the 
 whole younger race of men I distrust. Will here must be 
 scapegoat and, by that token, your glass is empty, Will." 
 
 With entire disregard of anything that had gone before, 
 Squire Demaine rilled another measure for his guest, pointed 
 to the chair across the hearth, and was about to give the news 
 from Scotland, word by word, when he remembered Nance. 
 " It will be only recruiting-talk, Nance men to be counted 
 on in one place, and men we doubt in t'other. It would only 
 weary you." 
 
 Nance came and stood between them, slim and passionate. 
 " I choose to stay, father. Your talk of men, of arms hidden 
 in the hay-mows and the byres, of the marching-out that is 
 your part of the battle. But what afterwards?" 
 
 They glanced at her in some perplexity. She was so reso- 
 lute, yet so remote, in her eager beauty, from the highways 
 that men tramp when civil war is going forward. 
 
 " What afterwards? " grumbled Squire Roger. " Well, the 
 right King on the throne again, we hope. What else, my 
 girl?" 
 
 " After you've gone, father, and left the house to its women ? 
 I'm mistress here, since since mother died." 
 
 Roger Demaine got to his feet hurriedly and took a pinch 
 of snuff. " Oh, have a care, Nance ! " he protested noisily.
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE MOOR 18 
 
 " There's no need to remind me that your mother died. I 
 should have taken a whole heart to the Rising, instead of 
 half o' one, if she'd been alive." 
 
 Nance touched his hair lightly, in quick repentance of the 
 hurt she had given him. But she would not yield her point. 
 " I shall be left mistress here mistress of a house made up 
 of women and old men and you? You will be out in the 
 open, giving blows instead of nursing patience by the hearth." 
 
 " Perhaps Nance, perhaps the Rising will not need us, 
 after all," said Will Underwood, with a lame attempt to shirk 
 the issue. 
 
 " I trust that it will need you, sir will need us both," she 
 said, flinging round on him with the speed of her father's 
 temper. " You thought I complained of the loneliness that is 
 coming? No but, if I'm to take part in your war, I'll know 
 what news you have." 
 
 Roger Demaine patted her gently on the shoulder, and smiled 
 as if he watched a kitten playing antics with a serious face. 
 " The child is right, Will," he said. " It will be long and 
 lonely for her, come to think of it, and there's no harm in 
 telling her the news." 
 
 "Who was the messenger, father?" she asked, leaning 
 against the mantel and looking down into the blazing log-fire. 
 
 " Oh, Oliphant of Muirhouse, from the Annan country. 
 The best horseman north of the Solway, they say. He was 
 only here for as long as his message lasted, and off again for 
 Sir Jasper's at Windyhough." 
 
 " And his news ? " asked Will Underwood, watching the 
 fireglow play about Nance's clear-cut face and maidish figure. 
 
 The Squire drew them close to him, and glanced about him 
 again and, for all his would-be secrecy, his voice rang like a 
 trumpet-call before he had half told them of the doings up in 
 Scotland. For his loyalty was sane and vastly simple. 
 
 They were silent for a while, until Nance turned slowly and 
 stood looking at the two men. " It is all like a dream come 
 true. The hunger and the ache, father the King in name
 
 14 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 reigning it here, and that other over-seas and grooms riding 
 while their masters walk " 
 
 " We'll soon be up in saddle again," broke in old Roger 
 brusquely. " Oliphant of Muirhouse brings us news that will 
 end all that. The country disaffected, the old loyalty waiting 
 for a breeze to stir it how can we fail? I tell you there's 
 to be another Restoration, and all the church bells ringing." 
 
 He halted, glancing at Will Underwood, who was pacing up 
 and down the room. 
 
 "You've the look of a trapped wild-cat, Will," he said 
 irascibly. " I fancied my news would please you but, dear 
 God, you younger men are cold! You can follow your fox 
 over hedge and dyke and take all risks. It's only when the 
 big hunt is up that you begin to count the value of your necks." 
 
 Underwood turned sharply. Some trouble of his own had 
 stood between him and the Rising news, but the Squire's gibe 
 had touched him now. " The big hunt has been up many 
 times, sir," he said impatiently. " We've heard the Stuart 
 shouting Tally-ho all down from Solway to the Thames but 
 we've never seen the fox. Oliphant is too sanguine always." 
 
 Old Roger cut him short. " Oliphant, by grace o' God, is 
 like a bit of Ferrara's steel. I wish we had more like him. 
 In my young days we did not talk, and talk we got to saddle 
 when such as Oliphant of Muirhouse came to rouse us. 
 You're cold, I tell you, Will. Your voice rings sleety." 
 
 Will Underwood glanced slowly from his host to Nance. 
 He saw that she was watching him, and caught fire from her 
 silent, half-disdainful question. Hot words of loyalty and 
 daring ran out unbidden. And Nance, in turn, warmed to 
 his mood; for it was so she had watched him take his fences 
 on hunting-days, so that he had half persuaded her to love him 
 outright and have done with it. 
 
 But old Roger was still unconvinced. " We may be called 
 out within the month. Have you set your house in order, 
 Will?" 
 
 Again the younger mar. seemed to be looking backward to
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE MOOR 15 
 
 some trouble that had dwarfed his impulse. " Why, no, sir," 
 he answered lamely. " Surely I have had no time ? " 
 
 " Just so," put in the other dryly. " At my time of life, 
 Will, men learn to set things in order before the call comes. 
 Best have all in readiness." 
 
 A troubled silence followed. They stood in the thick of 
 peril soon to come, and Squire Roger, haphazard and unthink- 
 ing at usual times, had struck a note of faith that was deep, 
 far sounding, not to be denied. As if ashamed of his feeling, 
 openly expressed, the Squire laughed clumsily. 
 
 " I was boasting, Nance," he said, putting a rough hand on 
 her shoulder, " and that's more dangerous than hunting foxes 
 bagged foxes brought over-seas from Hanover. Bless me! 
 you were talking of staying here as mistress, and I'll not 
 allow it. I've had a plan in my head since Oliphant first 
 brought the news." 
 
 "But, father, I must stay here. Where else?" 
 
 " At Windyhough. No, girl, I'll have no arguments about 
 it. You'll be protected there." 
 
 Will Underwood laughed, and somehow Nance liked him 
 none the better for it. " Sir Jasper will go with us, and 
 Maurice, and every able-bodied man about the place who 
 will be left to play guardian to Nance?" 
 
 " Rupert, unless I've misjudged the lad," snapped the Squire. 
 
 " He cannot protect himself, sir." 
 
 " No. May be not just yet. But I've faith in that lad, 
 somehow. He'll look after other folk's cattle better than his 
 own. Some few are made in that mould, Will. It's a good 
 mould, and rare." 
 
 His secret trouble, and his jealousy of any man who threat- 
 ened to come close to Nance, swept Will Underwood's pru- 
 dence clean away. He should have known by now this bluff, 
 uncompromising tone of the Squire's. " She's safer here, sir," 
 he blundered on. " We all know Rupert for a scholar I'd 
 rather trust Nance to her own women-servants." 
 
 " But I would not," put in old Roger dryly, " and I happen
 
 16 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 to have a say in the matter. If Rupert's a fool well, he 
 shall have his chance of proving it. Nance, you go to Windy- 
 hough. That's understood? The house down yonder can 
 stand a siege, and this cannot. My fool of a grandfather 
 God rest him, all the same ! dismantled the house here. He 
 thought there'd never again be civil war in Lancashire but 
 down at Windyhough they lived in hope." 
 
 Nance laughed the brave laugh of a woman cradled in a 
 house of gallant faith, of loyalty to old tradition. She un- 
 derstood her father's breezy, offhand talk of civil war, as if 
 it were a pleasant matter. He would have chosen other means, 
 she knew, if peace had shown the road; but better war, of 
 friend against friend, than this corroding apathy that had 
 fallen on men's ideals since the King-in-name ruled England 
 by the help of foreign mercenaries. 
 
 Will Underwood caught infection from these two. The one 
 was hale, bluff and hard-riding, a man proven ; the other was 
 a slip of a lassie, slender as a reed and fanciful; yet each 
 had the same eager outlook on this matter of the Rising an 
 outlook that admitted no compromise, no asking whether the 
 time were ripe for sacrifice and peril. The moment was in- 
 stinct with drama to Underwood, and he was ready always to 
 step into the forefront of a scene. 
 
 "When are we needed, sir?" he asked, with a grave sim- 
 plicity that was equal to their own. 
 
 " Within the month, if all goes well with the march. 
 There's little time, Will, and much to do." 
 
 " Ay, there's much to do but we shall light a fire for every 
 loyalist to warm his hands at. May the Prince come soon, 
 say I." 
 
 The Squire glanced sharply at him. Will's tone, his easy, 
 gallant bearing, removed some doubts he had had of late touch- 
 ing the younger man's fidelity ; and when, a little later, Nance 
 said that she would leave them to their wine, he permitted 
 Will to open the door for her, to follow her for a moment into 
 the draughty hall. He noticed, with an old man's dry and
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE MOOR 17 
 
 charitable humour, that Nance dropped her kerchief as she 
 went out, and that Will picked it up. 
 
 " The hunt is up," he muttered. " The finest hunt is up 
 that England ever saw and these two are playing a child's 
 game of drop-kerchief. There'll be time to make love by and 
 by, surely, when peace comes in again." 
 
 The Squire was restless. To his view of the Prince's 
 march from Scotland, there was England's happiness at stake. 
 He would have to wait three weeks or so, drilling his men, 
 rousing his neighbours to the rally, doing, fifty things a day to 
 keep his patience decently in bounds. He needed the gallop 
 south, and the quick dangers of the road; and here, instead, 
 were two youngsters who fancied love was all. 
 
 Outside in the hall Nance and Will Underwood were facing 
 each other with a certain grave disquiet. The wind was ris- 
 ing fast; its song overhead among the chimney-stacks was 
 wild and comfortless; the draught of it crept down 
 the stairs, and under the main door, and through ill- 
 fitting casements, blowing the candle-flames aslant and shap- 
 ing the droppings into what the country-folk called " candle- 
 corpsies." Somewhere from the kitchen a maidservant was 
 singing a doleful ballad, dear to rustic Lancashire, of one Sir 
 Harry of Devil sbridge, who rode out to his wedding one day 
 and never was seen again save as a ghost that haunted Lang 
 Rigg Moss. 
 
 " There's a lively tune for Rising men to march to," said 
 Underwood, ill at ease somehow, yet forcing a gay laugh. 
 " If I were superstitious " 
 
 " We are all superstitious," broke in the other, restless as 
 her father. " Since babyhood we've listened to that note 
 i' the wind. Oh, it sobs, and will not any way be still ! It 
 comes homeless from the moors, and cries to us to let it 
 in. Martha is right to be singing yonder of souls crying 
 over the Moss." 
 
 Again Will Underwood yielded to place and circumstance. 
 He had watched Nance grow up from lanky girlhood into a
 
 18 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 womanhood that, if it had no extravagance of beauty, arrested 
 every man's attention and made him better for the pause. 
 He had hunted with her, in fair weather and in foul, had sat 
 at meat with her in this house that kept open, hospitable doors. 
 Yet, until to-night, he had not seen her as she was, a child 
 of the moors, passionate, wayward, strong for the realities of 
 human pity, human need for faith and constancy. 
 
 " I have your kerchief, Nance," he said. The gravity, the 
 quietness of his tone surprised her. " I'll keep it, by your 
 leave." 
 
 She glanced at him, and there was trouble in her eyes. 
 This news of the Rising had stirred every half-forgotten 
 longing, inbred in her, that a Stuart might reign again, gallant 
 and debonair and kingly, over this big-little land of England. 
 She wished the old days back, with desperate eagerness the 
 days when men were not blameless, as in a fairy-tale, but when, 
 at any rate, they served their King for loyalty instead of pru- 
 dence. Yet, now, with Will Underwood here, her hopes of the 
 Rising grew shadowy and far-away. She was not thinking of 
 England or the Stuart; she was asking herself, with piteous 
 appeal for help, whether her own little life was to be marred or 
 made by this big, loose-built man whom all women were sup- 
 posed to love at sight. She drew her skirts away from such in- 
 temperate, unstable love ; but she had known Will Underwood 
 long, had dreamed of him o' nights, had shaped him to some 
 decent likeness of a hero. 
 
 " No, you'll not keep it. You will give it back to me. 
 Oh, I insist ! " she broke off, again with her father's quick, 
 heedless need to be obeyed. 
 
 He put the kerchief into her hand. " So you're sending me 
 a beggar to the wars," he said sullenly. 
 
 " If you go to the wars " she was looking wistfully at 
 him, as if asking for some better answer to her need of 
 faith "you shall take it with you, Mr. Underwood." 
 
 " You doubt me, Nance? " 
 
 " Doubt ? I doubt everything these days : you, and the
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE MOOR 19 
 
 Prince's march from Scotland, and all why, all I'm too 
 tired to hope for. You do not guess how tired I am. To- 
 morrow, may be, the wind will be quieter and Martha will 
 not be singing from the kitchens how Sir Harry rode over 
 Devilsbridge and came back, without his body, to haunt the 
 moors. Good-night, Mr. Underwood. Go talk with father of 
 the Rising." 
 
 Yet still they lingered for a moment. Through all her 
 weariness through the vague distrust that was chilling her 
 she remembered the day-time intimacy, the nights of long, 
 girlish dreams, that had gone to the making of her regard 
 for Will. It was untrue it must be untrue that he was half- 
 hearted in this enterprise that was to set England free of the 
 intolerable yoke. If Will's honour went by the board, she 
 would begin to doubt her own good faith. 
 
 What was passing in Will Underwood's mind he himself 
 scarcely knew, perhaps. He was full of trouble, indecision; 
 but he glanced at Nance, saw the frank question and appeal 
 in her face, and his doubts slipped by him. 
 
 " I shall claim that kerchief, Nance," he said " before the 
 month is out, if Oliphant brought a true message south." 
 
 Nance glanced at him. " Mr. Oliphant never lies. His 
 enemies admit as much. So come for what I'll give if you 
 come before the month is out." 
 
 She was gone before he could insist on one last word, and 
 Will Underwood turned impatiently to seek his host. A 
 half-hour later, after she had heard him get to saddle and 
 ride away, Nance came downstairs, and found her father 
 pacing up and down the dining-chamber. 
 
 " What, you ? " growled old Roger. " I thought you were 
 in bed by this time, child." 
 
 " I cannot sleep." She came to his side, and put a friendly 
 arm through his. " Father, am I right ? It seems there are 
 so many so many of our men who are cold " 
 
 " Why, damme, that's just what I was thinking," roared 
 the Squire, his good-humour returning when another shared
 
 20 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 his loneliness. " It's the older men who are warm the older 
 men who are going to carry this business through. It was 
 not so in my young days. Our fathers licked us into better 
 shape, and we'd fewer luxuries, may be. Why, child, we 
 dared not play fast and loose with loyalty, as some of these 
 young blades are doing." 
 
 " They ask for reasons, father. Young Hunter of Hun- 
 terscliff rode up to me to-day, as we were waiting for hounds 
 to strike the scent. And I spoke of the Rising, because I can 
 think of little else these days; and he yawned, in the lacka- 
 daisical way he brought from London a year ago, and said 
 the Prince was following a wild-goose chase. And he, too, 
 asked for reasons asked why he should give up a hunting 
 life for the pleasure of putting his neck into a halter." 
 
 Roger Demaine stood, square and big, with his back to the 
 fire. His fine apparel, the ordered comfort of the room, 
 could not disguise his ruggedness. He was an out-of-doors 
 man, simple, passionate, clean as the winds and an open life 
 could make him. " Hunter of Hunterscliff will put his neck 
 into a worse halter if he airs such shallow stuff. I'd have had 
 him ducked in the nearest horse-pond if he'd said that to me." 
 
 The two looked quietly at each other, father and daughter, 
 ea:ch knowing that there was need of some deeper confi- 
 dence. 
 
 " You dropped your kerchief just now, Nance," said Roger 
 dryly, "and Will Underwood picked it up. Did he keep 
 it?" 
 
 The girl was full of trouble. Her father's happiness, the 
 welfare of the English land which she loved almost to idolatry, 
 her trust in Underwood's honour, were all at stake. But she 
 stood proud and self-reliant. " Did you train me to drop my 
 kerchief for any man to keep? I tell you, sir as I told Mr. 
 Underwood just now that he may claim it when when he 
 has proved himself." 
 
 The Squire was in complete good-humour now. This girl 
 of his was as a woman should be, suave and bendable as a
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE MOOR 21 
 
 hazel-twig, yet strong, not to be broken by any onset of the 
 wind. He could afford to tease her, now that his mind was 
 easy. 
 
 " Why, surely Will has proved himself," he said, smiling 
 down at her from his big height. " He can take his fences with 
 any man. He can take his liquor, too, when need asks, and 
 watch weaker men slide gently under-table. He can hit four 
 birds out of five, Nance, and is a proper lady's man as well. 
 Dear heart ! what more does the child ask from a lover ? " 
 
 " I ask so little of him just to ride out, and ride in again 
 after the bells are ringing, a Stuart home. To risk a little 
 hardship. To come out of his hunting and his pretty parlour 
 ways, and face the open. What else does any woman claim 
 from any man, when oh, when the need is urgent? Father, 
 it was you who taught me what this Rising means it is 
 Faith, and decency, and happiness for England, fighting 
 against a rabble brought over-seas from Germany, because 
 they cannot trust the English army. It is the breath of our 
 English gardens that's at stake, and yet such as this Hunters- 
 cliff lad can yawn about it." 
 
 " Will Underwood yawns, you mean," snapped the Squire. 
 " It was Underwood you were thinking of. I share your 
 doubts, Nance. He is this and that, and a few men speak- 
 ing well of him but there's a flaw in him somewhere. I 
 never could set a finger on it, but the flaw is there." 
 
 She turned on him, with hot inconsequence. " He is not 
 proved as yet. I said no more than that. You never liked 
 him, father. You you are unjust." 
 
 " Well, no ; I never liked him. But I'm content to wait. 
 If I've misjudged him, I'll admit it frankly. Does it go 
 so very deep, child, this liking for Wild Will ? " he broke off, 
 with rough, anxious tenderness. " I'm clumsy with women 
 I always was and you've no mother to go to in search of 
 a good, healthy cry." 
 
 " Why should it go deep ? " she asked, with a pride that 
 would not yield as yet.
 
 22 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " Oh, I've watched you both. The ways of a man and a 
 maid bless me, they are old as the hills. Of course, he's 
 good to look at, and there's naught against him, so far as I 
 know; but " 
 
 "You will let him prove himself. His chance will not be 
 long in coming, father." 
 
 She bade him good-night gravely, yet with a shy, impulsive 
 tenderness, and went up to her own room. The moon was 
 staring in through the low, broad window-space. A keen 
 frost was setting fingers on the glass already; she brushed 
 away the delicate tracery and stood watching the silent, empty 
 lands without. No sleet was falling now. She could see 
 each line of wall that climbed, dead-black by contrast, up the 
 white slope of the pastures. Beyond and high above, a steel- 
 blue sky marked, ridge by ridge, the rough, uncompromising 
 outline of the moor. 
 
 It was a scene desolate beyond belief, and would have chilled 
 one foreign to the country; but Nance looked up the wintry 
 slopes as if she found a haven there. There was no illusion 
 attaching to this riding-out of the war-men from Lancashire. 
 She was not swayed by any casual glamour of the pipes, any 
 kilted pageantry of warfare. Her father had taught her, pa- 
 tiently enough, that the Stuarts, though they chanced to capture 
 the liking of most decent women, were intent on graver business. 
 Not once, in the years that had gone before this call to arms, 
 had he trained her to an ideal lower than his own. The Stu- 
 art, to his belief, stood for charity, for sacrifice, for unbend- 
 ing loyalty to the Faith once delivered. And such outlook, 
 as he had told her plainly, made neither for pageantry nor 
 sloth. 
 
 Nance, watching the sleety wilderness outside, hearing the 
 yelp of the wind as it sprang from the bitter, eastern bank 
 of cloud, recalled her father's teaching with a new, sudden 
 understanding. This sleety land, with its black field-walls 
 climbing to the windy moor above, was eloquent in its appeal 
 to her. There was storm and disaster now but there was
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE MOOR 23 
 
 heather-time to come, and bees among the ling, and the clear, 
 high sunshine over all. Old Squire Demaine, with all his 
 rough-and-ready faults, had taught her faith. 
 
 She forgot her trouble touching. Will Underwood. The 
 rough, moonlit moor reminded her, in some odd way, .of Ru- 
 pert of the scholar who a little while ago, up yonder, had 
 taken some fancied quarrel of her own upon his slim shoul- 
 ders. Somewhere, hidden by the easy pity of the years, was 
 a faith in this scholar who caused misgiving to his friends. 
 She remembered that her father the last man in Lancashire 
 to be tolerant of a fool would listen to no gibes at Rupert's 
 expense, that he had bidden her, soon as the hunt was up in 
 earnest, seek refuge at Windyhough. 
 
 These white, rough uplands did not bring Will Underwood 
 back to mind at all. They brought only the picture of a lean, 
 wind-driven dreamer, who had tramped the moors all day for 
 the pleasure of sharing his own thoughts with the wilder- 
 ness. She recalled the look in his face when she had sur- 
 prised him the tired question in it, as if he were asking why 
 circumstances had piled up so many odds against him ; then the 
 welcome, idolatrous almost in its completeness, that his eyes 
 had given her when he realised that she was near, and after 
 that the curt request that Will Underwood should ride with 
 her, while he settled some difference with his brother. 
 
 A woman likes to be worshipped, likes a man to show fight 
 on her behalf; and Nance, watching the stark, moonlit fields, 
 for the first time felt a touch of something more than pity for 
 the heir of Windyhough.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE NIGHT-RIDER 
 
 DOWN at Windyhough, where the old house thrust its gables 
 up into the shelter of its firs and leafless sycamores, Sir Jasper 
 Royd sat listening to the messenger who had ridden from 
 Squire Roger's. Lady Royd, who kept her beauty still at five- 
 and-forty, and with it some air of girlish petulance and wilful- 
 ness, sat on the other side of the hearth. Oliphant of Muir- 
 house stood between them, after supping hastily, with the air 
 of a man who cannot sit unless the saddle carries him. 
 
 " We owe you a great debt for bringing in the news," Sir 
 Jasper was saying. 
 
 " I am not so sure of that, sir," put in Lady Royd, with 
 sharpness and a hint of coquetry. " You are robbing me of a 
 husband." 
 
 " Nay, surely," said Oliphant, with a touch of his quick hu- 
 mour. "The Prince will restore him to you by and by. 
 We're all for Restoration these days, Lady Royd." 
 
 " Oh, I know ! And you've passed your wine over the 
 water before you set lips to it. I know your jargon, Mr. Oli- 
 phant but it is lives of men you are playing with." A 
 stronger note sounded in her spoiled, lazy voice; she glanced 
 at her husband, asking him to understand her passion. 
 
 " Not playing with," said the messenger, breaking an un- 
 easy pause. " Lives of men were given them to use." 
 
 " Yes, by gad ! " broke in Sir Jasper unexpectedly. " I'm 
 sixty, Mr. Oliphant, and the Prince needs me, and I feel a 
 lad again. I've been fox-hunting here, and shooting, and 
 what not, just to keep the rust out of my old bones in case 
 I was needed by and by but I was spoiling all the while 
 for this news you bring." 
 
 24
 
 THE NIGHT-RIDER 25 
 
 "What are the chances, Mr. Oliphant?" asked Lady Royd, 
 with odd, impulsive eagerness. " For my part, I see a county 
 of easy-going gentlemen and bacon-eating clowns, who 
 wouldn't miss one dinner for the Cause. The Cause? A few 
 lean Highlanders ; a lad who happens to carry the name of 
 Stuart; the bagpipes waking our hills in protest with their 
 screeching righteous protest, surely I see no hope in this 
 affair." 
 
 Oliphant was striding up and down the room. He halted, 
 faced this petted woman of the world ; and she wondered how 
 it came that a man so muddied and so lined with weariness 
 could smile as if he came down to breakfast after a night of 
 pleasant sleep. 
 
 " The chances ? All in our favour, Lady Royd. We're 
 few, and hold the Faith. We never count the chances; we 
 just march on from day to day." His smile grew broader. 
 " And, by your leave, you'll not speak ill of the pipes. They're 
 food and drink to us, when other rations fall a little short. 
 The pipes? You've never heard them, surely." 
 
 " Yes, to my cost," put in the other shrewishly. " They're 
 like like an east wind singing out of tune, I think." 
 
 So then Oliphant grew hot on the sudden, as Highlanders 
 will when they defend a thing that is marrow of their bones. 
 " The pipes ? You'll hear them rightly, I hope, before you 
 die. The soft, clear tongue of them! They'll drone to ye, 
 soft as summer, Lady Royd, and bring the slopes o' Lomond 
 to your sight and you'll hear the bees all busy in the thyme ; 
 and then they'll snarl at you, and stretch your body tight as 
 whipcord and then you taste the fight that's brewing up" 
 
 " True," said Lady Royd ; " but you ask me for my husband, 
 and I'm loth to part with him. Not all the pipes in Scotland 
 may comfort me after after this fight that you say is brew- 
 ing up." 
 
 Sir Jasper glanced at her. He had followed her whimsies 
 with great chivalry and patience for six-and-twenty years, 
 because it happened that he loved her, once for all ; but he had
 
 26 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 not heard, till now, this answering care for his safety, this 
 foolish and tempestuous wish to keep him by her side. 
 
 Oliphant of Muirhouse understood their mood. He had 
 ridden through the lonely places, counting life cheap; and 
 such men grow quick of intuition. " Your husband ? " he 
 echoed. " I only claim his promises. He'll return to you, 
 after paying pleasant debts." 
 
 "Ah! but will he return?" 
 
 The messenger was surprised again into open confession of 
 his faith. " One way or another you will meet yes. The 
 good God sees to that," he answered gravely. " And now, 
 Sir Jasper, we've talked enough, and my bed lies ten miles 
 farther on. Your roads are quagmires the only bad things 
 I've found yet in Lancashire." 
 
 "But, Oliphant, you'll stay the night here? I'll call you at 
 daybreak if needs must." 
 
 " I'll sleep a little later, friend and at your house another 
 day." 
 
 His smile was easy as he bade farewell to Lady Royd and 
 gripped his host's hand for a moment; but Sir Jasper saw 
 him stumble a little as he made towards the door. 
 
 " How far have you ridden to-day ? " he asked sharply. 
 
 " Oh, fifty miles, no more with a change of horses. Why 
 d'ye ask ? " said Oliphant, turning in some surprise. 
 
 " Because you look underfed and over-ridden, man. Stay 
 here the night, I say. The Prince himself would not ask 
 more of you if he could see you now." 
 
 " The Prince least of all, perhaps. It is his way to shift 
 burdens on to his own shoulders if we would let him." 
 
 Lady Royd found a moment's respite from her spoiled and 
 stunted outlook, from the sense of foreboding and of coming 
 loss loss of the husband whom, in some queer way, she 
 loved. She looked at Oliphant of Muirhouse, standing in the 
 doorway and looking backward at them; and she wondered 
 by what gift he could be sleepless and saddle-sore, serene 
 and temperately gay, all at the one time.
 
 THE NIGHT-RIDER 27 
 
 " Mr. Oliphant," she said, " this lad with the Stuart name 
 gets more than his deserts. He has few men like yourself 
 among his following, surely?" 
 
 " He has many better men." Oliphant, weary of every- 
 thing except the need to get his ten-mile errand done and 
 snatch the sleep he needed, bowed prettily enough to his 
 hostess. " The Prince, God bless him, sets the keynote for 
 us all. He makes weaklings into something better, Lady 
 Royd." 
 
 Royd's wife, she knew not why, thought suddenly of Ru- 
 pert, her elder-born, and she yielded to the temper that had 
 not been curbed throughout her married life. " Then would 
 God my son could come under the Prince's discipline ! He's 
 the heir to Windyhough laugh with me, Mr. Oliphant, while 
 I tell you what a weakling he is. He can ride, after a fashion 
 but not to hounds ; he can only read old books in the library, 
 or take his gun up to these evil moors my husband loves." 
 
 Sir Jasper's temper was slow to catch fire, but it was burn- 
 ing now with a fierce, dismaying heat. He would have spoken 
 words that would never be forgotten afterwards between 
 his wife and him if Oliphant had not surprised them both by 
 the quietness of his interruption. 
 
 " He has had no chance to prove himself, I take it ? " he 
 broke in, with a certain tender gravity. " I was in that plight 
 once and the chance came and it seemed easy to accept it. 
 Good-night to you, Lady Royd, and trust your son a little 
 more." 
 
 Sir Jasper was glad to follow his guest out of doors into 
 the courtyard, where a grey-blue moon was looking down on 
 the late-fallen sleet. Oliphant's horse, tied to the bridle-ring 
 at the door, was shivering in the wind, and his master patted 
 him with the instinctive, friendly comradeship he had for all 
 dumb things. 
 
 " Only ten more miles, old lad," he muttered, hunting for 
 sugar in the pockets of his riding-coat, and finding two small 
 pieces.
 
 28 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 As he was untying the bridle a sound of feet came up the 
 roadway. The courtyard gate was opened, and three figures, 
 unheroic all of them, came trudging in. They crossed the 
 yard slowly, and they were strangely silent. 
 
 Sir Jasper and his guest stared at the three in blank sur- 
 prise as they drew near. The moonlight showed them Mau- 
 rice, carrying a black eye and a battered face with the jaunti- 
 ness inborn in him, and Rupert, bending a little under the 
 bruises that were patent enough, and a horse that moved de- 
 jectedly. 
 
 " You've been hunting with a vengeance, boys," said Sir 
 Jasper, after long scrutiny of the sons who stood shame- 
 facedly at attention. " Who was it marked your face so pret- 
 tily, Maurice?" 
 
 " It was Rupert, sir. We had a quarrel and he half-killed 
 me I couldn't make him yield." 
 
 Sir Jasper was aware of an unreasoning happiness, a sense 
 that, in the thick of coming dangers, he had found something 
 for which he had been searching many years. If he had been 
 Squire Demaine, his intimate friend and neighbour, he would 
 have clapped Rupert on the back, would have bidden his sons 
 drown their quarrel in a bumper. But he was more scholarly, 
 less hale of body than Roger Demaine, and he tasted this new 
 joy as if he feared to lose its flavour. He had fought Ru- 
 pert's cause so long, had defended him against the mother 
 who despised and flouted him. Under all disappointment had 
 been the abiding faith that his heir would one day prove him- 
 self. And now here was Rupert, bruised and abashed, and 
 Maurice, proud of this troublesome brother who had fought 
 and would not yield. 
 
 It was all so workaday, so slight a matter; but Sir Jasper 
 warmed to these two lads as if they had returned from cap- 
 turing a city for the rightful King. They were bone of his 
 bone, and they had fought together, and Rupert had forgotten 
 that he was born a weakling. 
 
 Oliphant of Muirhouse looked on. He remembered both
 
 THE NIGHT-RIDER 29 
 
 lads well, for he had halted often at Windyhough during these 
 last troubled years, had seen the heir grow into reedy and neg- 
 lected manhood, the younger brother claiming notice and re- 
 gard from every one, by reason of his ready wit, his cheeri- 
 ness, his skill at sports of all kinds. From the first Oliphant's 
 sympathy had been with the elder-born, with the scholar at 
 whom men laughed ; for he could never quite forget his own 
 past days. He looked on to-night, glad of this touch of human 
 comedy that came to lighten his desolate rides between one post 
 of danger and the next. 
 
 " Come, lads," said Sir Jasper, with gruff kindliness, " you 
 were fools to seek a quarrel. Brother should love brother " 
 he laughed suddenly, a boy's laugh that disdains maxims " but 
 there's no harm in a fight, just now and then. What was your 
 quarrel, eh ? " 
 
 They glanced at each other ; but it was Rupert who first broke 
 the silence, not Maurice as in bygone days. " We cannot tell 
 you, sir," he said, with a dignity in odd contrast with his 
 swollen, red-raw face. " Indeed, we cannot." 
 
 Sir Jasper, out here in the sleety wind, was not aware of cold 
 or the coming hardships. His heir was showing firmness, and 
 he tempted him into some further show of courage. 
 
 " Nonsense, boy ! You tell me all your secrets." 
 
 Rupert lifted his battered face. " Not this one, sir and if 
 Maurice tells it " 
 
 " There, there ! Get indoors, lads, and ask the housekeeper 
 for a raw beefsteak." 
 
 Maurice went obediently enough, knowing this tone of his 
 father's. But Rupert halted on the moonlit threshold, turned 
 in his odd, determined way, and came to Oliphant's side. The 
 messenger, standing with an arm through the bridle of his 
 restive horse, was embarrassed by the look in the boy's 
 eyes the eager glance of youth when it meets its hero face 
 to face. 
 
 " Who is your guest, father ? " asked Rupert, as a child asks 
 a question, needing to be answered quickly. " He has often
 
 30 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 come to Windyhough, but always in haste. You would never 
 tell me what his name was." 
 
 "Mr. Oliphant of Muirhouse. Who else?" Sir Jasper an- 
 swered, surprised by this sudden question. And then he 
 glanced at Oliphant, ashamed of his indiscretion. " The boy 
 will keep your secret," he added hurriedly. 
 
 " I've no doubt at all of that, sir," said the messenger. 
 
 So then Rupert said little, because it seemed this meeting 
 was too good to hope for in a world that had not used him very 
 well. He had heard talk of Oliphant, while his father sat be- 
 side the hearth o' nights and praised his loyalty. From the 
 grooms, too, he had heard praise of the horsemanship of this 
 night-rider, who was here to-day and gone to-morrow, follow- 
 ing the Stuart's business. And, because he had leisure for 
 many dreams, he had made of Oliphant a hero of more im- 
 maculate fibre than is possible in a world of give-and-take. 
 
 " Is father jesting? " asked the boy. " You are " the catch 
 in his voice, the battered face he lifted to the moonlight, were 
 instinct with that comedy which lies very close to tears " you 
 are Oliphant of Muirhouse? Why, sir, I think the Prince him- 
 self could could ask no more from me if only I were able." 
 
 His voice broke outright. And the two elders, somewhere 
 from the haunted lands of their own boyhood, heard the clear 
 music that had been jarred, these many years, by din of the 
 world's making. 
 
 " I'm Oliphant of Muirhouse," said the messenger gruffly, 
 " and that's not much to boast of. Is there any service I can 
 render you ? " 
 
 Rupert, astonished that this man should be so simple and 
 accessible, blurted out the one consuming desire he had in life. 
 " I ride so clumsily : teach me to sit a horse, sir, and gallop on 
 the Prince's business to be like other men." 
 
 Oliphant reached out and grasped his hand. " That will be 
 simple enough one day," he said cheerily. " Sir Jasper, your 
 son is staunch. We'll need him by and by." 
 
 Yet Oliphant, after he had said good-bye and ridden out into
 
 THE NIGHT-RIDER 31 
 
 the white and naked country, was feeling as tired and unheroic 
 as any man in Lancashire. The wind was pitiless, the roads 
 evil, half between thaw and a gaining frost. Sleep was a 
 constant menace to him, for he had had little during the past 
 week. He was saddle-sore, and every bone of a body not too 
 robust at best seemed aching with desire for rest. Moreover, 
 this land of hills, and hills beyond, riding desolate to the grey 
 sky and the shrouded moon, was comfortless as any step- 
 mother. He knew that his faith, his loyalty, were sound ; but 
 no inspiration reached him from these tired and stubborn 
 friends ; he was in that mood it comes equally to those who 
 have done too ill or too well in life when he was ready to ex- 
 change all chances of the future for an hour of rest. He knew 
 that a good horse was under him, that his hands were sure on 
 the reins whenever a sudden hill or a slippery turning met him 
 by the way; for the rest, he was chilled and lifeless. 
 
 The last two miles of his journey asked too much of his 
 strength. He swayed in the saddle, and thought that he must 
 yield to this sickness that was creeping over him. Then quietly 
 from the gaunt and sleety hills, Rupert's voice came whisper- 
 ing at his ear. He recalled the lad's bruised face, the passion- 
 ate idolatry he had shown when he knew that Oliphant of 
 Muirhouse was the guest at Windyhough. 
 
 " By gad ! the boy would think me a fool if I gave in now," 
 he muttered. " And the message it must go forward." 
 
 He rode with new heart for the house where his errand lay. 
 He got indoors, and gave his message. Then he looked round, 
 and saw a couch that was drawn up near the hearth, and for 
 four-and-twenty hours they could not rouse him from the 
 sleep that had carried him back to Rupert's land o' dreams. 
 
 Rupert himself, meanwhile, had stood for a while with his 
 father in the courtyard. The sleet and the east wind could not 
 interrupt the warm friendship that held between them. 
 
 " What is the news, father ? " he asked, breaking the silence. 
 
 " Good news enough, lad. The Prince has left Edinburgh 
 on his march south there has been a ball at Holyrood, all in
 
 32 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 the old way, and they say that only churls were absent. His 
 route lies through Lancashire. At long last, Rupert, we're 
 needed, we men of Lancashire." 
 
 " We shall not fail," said Rupert buoyantly. " How could 
 we, sir? The preparation the loyalty waiting only for its 
 Chance I forgot, sir," he finished, with sudden, weary im- 
 potence. " I'm not one of you. I got all this from books, 
 as mother said to me last night. She was wrong, for all that 
 I learned it at your knee." 
 
 They stood looking at each other, father and son, seeking 
 help in this bleak wilderness of sleet. They were comrades ; 
 yet now there seemed a deep gulf fixed between them, between 
 the strength and pity of the one, the weakness of the other. 
 
 " I taught you no lies, at any rate," said Sir Jasper gruffly. 
 " Let's go indoors and set your face to rights." 
 
 " But, father, I shall ride with you ? " 
 
 " No, no," said the other, with brusque tenderness. " You 
 are not not strong enough you are untrained to stand the 
 hardships of a campaign." 
 
 Rupert's face grew white and set, as he understood the full 
 meaning of that word " untrained." In the peaceful days it 
 had been well enough for him to stand apart, possessed by the 
 belief that he was weaker than his fellows ; it was a matter of 
 his own suffering only ; but now every loyal man in Lancashire 
 was needed by the Prince. His father's hesitancy, the wish to 
 save him pain, were very clear to him. He had thought, in 
 some haphazard, dreamy way, that zeal and complete readi- 
 ness to die, if need be, for the Cause, were enough to make a 
 soldier of him. But now he realised that untrained men would 
 be a hindrance to the march, that he would be thwarting, not 
 aiding, the whole enterprise. 
 
 " There, you take it hardly, lad ! " said Sir Jasper, ill at ease. 
 " Your place is here. You'll be needed to guard Windyhough 
 and the women while we're away." 
 
 " You mean it in kindness, sir, but the fight will sweep 
 south, you tell me."
 
 THE NIGHT-RIDER 33 
 
 " It may sweep any way, once the country is astir. You may 
 find yourself fighting against long odds, Rupert, before you've 
 had time to miss us. Come, it is each to his own work these 
 days." 
 
 In the hall, as they went in, Lady Royd was making much 
 of Maurice, obviously against his will. His hurts must be 
 seen to how had he come by them? he was looking grey 
 and ill Maurice was ashamed of the twenty foolish questions 
 she put to him. 
 
 " Mother, I'm a grown man by now," he was saying as 
 Sir Jasper entered. " The nursery days are over." 
 
 " Yes," put in his elder brother, with a quick, heedless 
 laugh, " the nursery days are over, mother." 
 
 She turned to him, surprised by his tone and new air of 
 command. And on his face, too, she saw the marks of his 
 stubborn fight with Maurice; and something stirred in her 
 some instinct foreign to her easy, pampered life some touch 
 of pride that her elder-born could fight like other men. 
 
 " So it was you who fought with Maurice ? Miracles do 
 not come singly, so they say." From sheer habit she could not 
 keep back the gibe. " We shall have the skies raining, heroes 
 soon if the heir of Windyhough " 
 
 " Be quiet, wife ! " broke in Sir Jasper hotly. " Your sons 
 God help me that I have to say it! your sons will be 
 ashamed of you in years to come." 
 
 Sir Jasper had been bitter once about his heir's weakness. 
 He had met and conquered that trouble long ago, as straight- 
 riding men do, and had found a great love for Rupert, 
 a chivalrous and sheltering love that, by its very pity, broad- 
 ened the father's outlook upon all men. Year by year, as he 
 saw that pride meant more than motherhood, the rift had 
 grown wider between husband and wife, though he had dis- 
 guised it from her; and this sudden, imperative fury of his 
 had been bred by many yesterdays. 
 
 Lady Royd stepped back, as if he had struck her, and a 
 strange quiet fell on all of them. The wind had shifted, for
 
 84 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 the twentieth time to-day, and was crying thinly round the 
 chimney-stacks. A grey, acrid smoke was trailing from the 
 hearth, and hail was beating at the windows. Somewhere, 
 from the stables at the rear, a farm dog was howling dis- 
 mally. 
 
 Lady Royd shivered as she drew the lace more closely round 
 her neck. She was helpless against this storm that had gath- 
 ered out of doors and in. With an understanding too keen 
 for her liking, she realised what this Rising was doing to her 
 men-folk. The breath of it was abroad, stormy and swift. 
 It had made her husband restless, forgetful of the lover's 
 homage that he had given until these last months ; it had made 
 Rupert leave his books and dreams, from sheer desire of lusti- 
 ness ; it had made Sir Jasper, here in the smoky hall, with the 
 thin wind blowing through it, say words of which already, if 
 his face were aught to go by, he repented. 
 
 It was Rupert that broke up a silence that dismayed more 
 practical folk. It had been his way to bear no malice; and 
 now, glancing at Lady Royd, he was aware that she needed 
 help. He came to her side diffidently enough, as if he 
 feared repulse and put a hand on her shoulder. 
 
 " She was right, sir," he said, as if defending her against 
 his father. " I'd not had pluck to fight until to-day. I I 
 was not what the heir should be." 
 
 Sir Jasper saw that tears were in his wife's eyes, saw that 
 she was over-wrought and tired. " Get to bed, my lads," he 
 said, with a friendly laugh " and keep the peace, or I'll lay 
 a heavy hand on the pair of you." 
 
 When they were alone he turned to his wife. The wind's 
 note was louder, the hail beat hard and quick about the win- 
 dows, the farm dog was howling ceaselessly. 
 
 " I was harsh just now," he said. 
 
 " No." Her face was older, yet more comely. " It was I 
 who was harsh. Rupert needed me all these years, and I 
 would not heed and he was generous just now and I'm 
 thinking of the years I've wasted."
 
 THE NIGHT-RIDER 35 
 
 Her repentance yet awhile, at any rate would be short- 
 lived ; for winter is never a sudden and lasting convert to the 
 warmth of spring. Yet her grief was so patent, her voice so 
 broken and so tender, that Sir Jasper, in his simple way, was 
 thankful he was leaving Rupert, since leave him he must, to 
 better cheer than he had hoped for. 
 
 " He'll find his way one day," he said. " Be kind to him, 
 wife it's ill work for a man, I tell you, to be sitting at home 
 while other men are fighting. I'll not answer for his temper." 
 Then suddenly he smiled. He's a game pup, after all. To 
 see Maurice's face when they came home together and to 
 know that it was Rupert who had knocked it so pleasantly out 
 of shape " 
 
 " Is there nothing pleases men but war ? " the wife broke in 
 piteously. " Nothing but blows, and bruised faces " 
 
 " Nothing else in the world, dear heart when war happens 
 to be the day's business. Peace is well enough, after a man 
 has earned it honestly." 
 
 Lady Royd was tired, beaten about by this cold, northern 
 winter that had never tamed her love of ease. " Then women 
 have no place up here," she said fretfully. " Bloodshed how 
 we loathe it and all your needless quarrels ! And all the while 
 we ask ourselves what does it matter which king is on the 
 throne, so long as our husbands are content to stay at home? 
 Women surely have no place up here." 
 
 Sir Jasper, too, was tired in his own way. " Yes, you've a 
 place," he answered sharply " the place we fight to give you. 
 There's only one King, wife I'm pledged to his service, by 
 your leave." 
 
 " Oh, yes," she said, with her pleasant drawl. " I know 
 that by heart. Faith, and the high adventure, and the King. 
 There's only one matter you forget the wife who sits at 
 home, and plies her needle, and fancies each stitch is a wound 
 her husband takes. You never saw that dark side of your 
 Rising?" 
 
 " Wounds ? " said the other gruffly. " We hide them, wife
 
 36 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 that is men's business. The fruits of them we bring home 
 for our wives to spend." 
 
 " Ah, you're bitter," she pleaded. 
 
 " Not bitter," he said. " I'm a man who knows his world 
 or thinks he does. The men earn and the women spend ; 
 and you never guess how hard come by is that delicate gift, 
 honour, we bring you." 
 
 "Honour?" She was peevish now. "I know that word, 
 too, by heart. It brings grief to women. It takes their men 
 afield when they have all they need at home. It brings swords 
 from the scabbard " 
 
 " It brings peace of soul, after the wounds are healed," Sir 
 Jasper interrupted gravely. 
 
 Will Underwood about this time had reached his own house, 
 and had found his bailiff waiting for him. He had added 
 another wing to the house in the summer, and workmen had 
 been busy ever since in getting things to rights indoors in 
 readiness for the ball which Underwood had planned for 
 Christmas Eve a ball that should outmatch in lavishness and 
 pomp all previous revels of the kind. 
 
 "Well, Eli?" growled the master, who was in no good 
 mood to-night. "Your face is sour enough. Have you 
 waited up to tell me that the men are discontented again with 
 their wages ? " 
 
 " Nay, with their King," said the bailiff, blunt and dispas- 
 sionate. " It's a pity, for we were getting gradely forrard with 
 the work and you wanted all done by Kirstmas, so you said. 
 I'd not go up street myself to see any king that stepped. 
 Poorish folk and kings are much o' the same clay, I reckon. 
 Sexton at th' end of all just drops 'em into six feet o' wintry 
 mould." 
 
 Will Underwood's father had held the like barren gospel, 
 expressed in terms more guarded. Perhaps some family in- 
 stinct, at variance with the coat he wore these days, had 
 prompted Will, at his father's death, to keep as bailiff one of 
 the few " levellers " who were to be found in this loyal corner
 
 THE NIGHT-RIDER 37 
 
 of the north. If so, he should have stood by his choice; but 
 instead he yielded to childish and unreasoning passion. 
 
 " D'ye think I'm missing my bed at this time o' night to hear 
 your ranting politics? It would be a poor king that couldn't 
 prick your windbag for you, Eli. Stick to your ledgers and 
 the workmen " 
 
 " It's them I'm trying to stick to," broke in Eli, with that 
 impassive dead-weight of unbelief which is like a buckler to 
 some men. " The workmen are all gone daft about some 
 slip o' Belial they call Stuart Charlie. Squire Demaine has 
 been among and about them, talking of some moonshine about 
 a Rising ; and Sir Jasper Royd has been among 'em ; and, what 
 with one and t' other, the men are gone daft, I tell you. They 
 talk in daylight o' what they dursen't whisper to the dark a few 
 months since; they're off to the wars, they reckon, and you 
 can whistle, maister, for your carpenters and painters." 
 
 Underwood fidgeted up and down the room, and Eli 
 watched him furtively. The bailiff, apart from his negative 
 creed that every man was probably a little worse than his 
 neighbour, and princes blacker than the rest, was singularly 
 alive to his own interests. He had a comfortable billet here, 
 and was aware of many odd, unsuspected channels by which 
 he could squeeze money from the workmen busy with the new 
 wing of the house ; it did not suit his interests that the master 
 should ride out to lose his head in company with Sir Jasper 
 and Squire Demaine. 
 
 " Stick to the chap that's sitting on a throne, maister. 
 That's my advice," he said, gauging the other's irresolution to 
 a nicety. " Weights are heavy to lift, especially when they've 
 been there for a long while." 
 
 Will Underwood found his better self for a moment. He 
 remembered the way of Sir Jasper, the look on Nance's face 
 as she bade him ask for her kerchief when he was ready to go 
 out on a loyal errand. A distaste of Eli seized him ; there 
 was no single line of the man's squat body, no note of his 
 voice, that did not jar on him.
 
 38 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " Your tongue's like a file, Eli," he snapped. " You forget 
 that I'm a King's man, too a Stuart man." 
 
 " Nay, not so much o' one," broke in the other dryly, taking 
 full advantage of an old servant's tyranny. " Your father 
 was weaned on thirst and brimstone, maister; and he was 
 reared, he was, on good, hot Gospeller's stuff, such as they 
 used to preach at Rigstones Chapel ; and he never lost the 
 habit when he gat up i' the world. Nay, there's naught 
 Stuart about ye." 
 
 Will Underwood, standing with a foot in either camp, was 
 accused not so much by Eli's blunt, unlovely harshness as 
 by his own judgment of himself. He knew, now that he was 
 compelled to ask questions of himself, that all his instincts, 
 tap them deeply enough, were against monarchy of any sort 
 against monarchy of soul over body, against the God these 
 Catholic gentry worshipped, against restraints of all kinds. 
 He saw Rigstones Chapel, standing harsh against the moor 
 the home of a lonely, obscure sect unknown beyond its own 
 borders, a sect that had the east wind's bitterness for creed, 
 but no remembrance of the summer's charity. He remem- 
 bered, as a little chap, going to service at his father's side, re- 
 calling the thunder and denunciation from the pulpit, the 
 scared dreams that had shared his bed with him when after- 
 wards he went to sleep on Sabbath nights. 
 
 Underwood got himself in hand again. Those days were 
 far off, surely. Despite Eli's unbelieving face, confronting 
 him, he was striving to forget that he had ever shared those 
 moorland walks to Rigstones Chapel. His father had learned 
 gradually that it was absurd to credit a score of people, as- 
 sembled in a wayside chapel, with the certainty that, out of the 
 world's millions, they alone were saved; and afterwards 
 this same father had bought a fine house, because the 
 squire who owned it had gambled credit and all else away. 
 And the son had found a gift for riding horses, had learned 
 from women's faces that they liked the look of him ; and, from 
 small and crude beginnings, he had grown to be Wild Will, the
 
 THE NIGHT-RIDER 39 
 
 hunter who never shirked his fences, the gay lover who had 
 gathered about himself a certain fugitive romance that had 
 not been tested yet in full daylight. 
 
 Eli watched his master's face. The hour was late. The 
 wind was shrill and busy here, as it was at Windyhough. 
 The world of the open moor, with its tempests and its down- 
 rightness, intruded into this snug house of Underwood. Will 
 was shut off from his intimates, from the easy, heedless life, 
 that had grown to be second nature to him. He was aware of 
 a great loneliness, a solitude that his bailiff's company seemed, 
 not to lessen, but to deepen. In some odd way he was stand- 
 ing face to face with the realities of this Stuart love that had 
 been a pastime to him, a becoming coat to wear when he 
 dined or hunted with his friends. There was no pastime now 
 about the matter. He thought of Sir Jasper Royd, of Squire 
 Demaine, of others he could name who were ready to go out 
 into the wilderness because the time for words was over and 
 the time for deeds had come. 
 
 " You're not just pleased, like, with all this moonshine about 
 the lad wi' yellow hair," said Eli guardedly. " Now, there, 
 maister! I allus said ye had your grandfather's stark com- 
 mon sense." 
 
 Will Underwood did not heed him. He began to pace up 
 and down the floor with the fury that Squire Demaine, not 
 long ago, had likened to that of a wild cat caught in a trap. 
 It was so plain to him, in this moment of enlightenment, how 
 great a price these friends of his were ready to pay without 
 murmur or question of reward. They had schooled them- 
 selves to discipline ; they were trained soldiers, in fact, ready 
 for blows or sacrifice, whichever chanced ; their passing of the 
 loyal toast across the water had been a comely, vital ritual, 
 following each day's simple prayer for restoration * of the 
 Stuart Monarchy. 
 
 And he? Will listened to the gale that hammered at the 
 window, saw Eli's inquisitive, hard face, fancied himself pacing 
 again the moorland road that led to Rigstones Chapel and its
 
 40 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 gospel of negation. His frippery was stripped from him. 
 He felt himself a liar among honest men. He could find no 
 sneer to aim at the high, romantic daring of these folk who 
 were about to follow a Prince they had not seen ; for he knew 
 that he was utterly untrained to such sacrifice as was asked 
 of him. To give up this house of his, the pleasant meetings 
 at the hunt or by the covert-side; to put his neck on the 
 block, most likely, for the sake of a most unbusinesslike trans- 
 action it was all so remote from the play-actor's comedy 
 in which he had been a prime figure all these years. He had 
 not dreamed that Prince Charles Edward, in sober earnest, 
 would ever bring an army into pleasant England to disturb 
 its peace. 
 
 Eli watched the irresolution in his face. He, at least, was 
 business-like. He had none of the spirit that takes men out 
 on the forlorn hope, and he measured each moment of his life 
 as a chance for immediate and successful barter. 
 
 " Maister," he said quietly, " you've not heard, may 
 be, the rumour that's going up and down the country- 
 side?" 
 
 " Bad news ? " snapped Underwood. " You were always 
 ready to pass on that sort of rumour." 
 
 " Well, / call it good news. They say Marshal Wade has 
 men enough under him to kill half Lancashire and he's march- 
 ing down this way from Newcastle to cut off these pesty 
 Scotchmen." 
 
 Will Underwood turned sharply. " Is your news sure, 
 Eli?" 
 
 " Sure as judgment. I had it from one of Wade's own 
 riders, who's been busy hereabouts these last days, trying to 
 keep silly country-folk from leaving their homes for sake o' 
 moonshine. He laughed at this pretty-boy Prince, I tell ye, 
 saying he was no more than a lad who tries to rob an orchard 
 with the big farmer looking on." 
 
 Underwood questioned him in detail about this messenger 
 of Marshal Wade's, and from the bailiff's answers, knowing
 
 THE NIGHT-RIDER 41 
 
 the man's shrewdness, he grew sure that the odds were ludi- 
 crously against the Prince. 
 
 " I'm pledged to the Stuart Cause. You may go, Eli," he 
 said, with the curtness he mistook for strength. 
 
 " Ay, you're pledged, maister. But is it down in black and 
 white? As a plain man o' business, I tell ye no contract need 
 be kept unless it's signed and sealed." 
 
 " And honour, you old fool ? " snapped Underwood, afraid 
 of his own conscience. 
 
 " Honour ? That's for gentry-folk to play with. You and 
 me, maister, were reared at Rigstones Chapel, where there was 
 no slippery talk o' that kind. It's each for his own hand, to 
 rive his way through to the Mercy Throne. It's a matter o' 
 business, surely we just creep and clamber up, knowing 
 we've to die one day and we've to keep sharp wits about us, 
 if we're to best our neighbour at the job. It would be a poor 
 do, I reckon, if ye lost your chance by letting some other body 
 squeeze past ye, and get in just as th' Gates were shutting, 
 leaving ye behind." 
 
 The whole bleak past returned to Will Underwood. He 
 saw, as if it stood before him harsh against the rough hillocks 
 of the moor, the squat face of Rigstones Chapel. He heard 
 again the gospel of self-help, crude, arid, and unwashed, that 
 had thundered about his boyhood's ears when his father took 
 him to the desolation that was known as Sabbath to the sect 
 that worshipped there. It had been all self-help there, in this 
 world's business or the next all a talk of gain and barter 
 and never, by any chance, a hint of the over-glory that counts 
 sacrifice a pleasant matter, leading to the starry heights. 
 
 " Eli, I washed my hands of all that years ago," he said. 
 
 " Ay, and, later on try to wash 'em of burning brimstone, 
 maister it sticks, and it burns, does the hell-fire you used to 
 know." 
 
 There is something in a man deeper than his own schooling 
 of himself a something stubborn, not to be denied, that 
 springs from the graves where his forefathers lie. To-night,
 
 42 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 as he watched Eli's grim mouth, the clean-shaven upper lip 
 standing out above his stubby beard, as he listened to his talk 
 of brimstone, he was no longer Underwood, debonair and glib 
 of tongue. He was among his own people again so much 
 among them that he seemed now, not only to see Rigstones 
 Chapel, but to be living the old life once more, in the little 
 house, near the watermill that had earned the beginnings of 
 his grandfather's riches. Thought by thought, impulse by 
 impulse, he was divided from these folk of later years the 
 men and women who hunted, dined, and danced, with the 
 single purpose behind it all the single hope that one day they 
 would be privileged to give up all, on the instant call, for 
 loyalty to the King who reigned in fact, if not in name. To- 
 night, with Eli's ledger-like, hard face before him, Under- 
 wood yielded to the narrower and more barren teaching that 
 had done duty for faith's discipline at Rigstones Chapel. And 
 yet he would not admit as much. 
 
 " You're a sly old sinner, Eli," he said, with a make-believe 
 of the large, rollicking air which he affected. 
 
 The bailiff, glancing at his master's face, knew that he had 
 prevailed. " Ay, just thereby," he said, his face inscrutable 
 and hard. " But one way or another, I mean to keep free o' 
 brimstone i' the next world. It's all a matter o' business, and 
 I tell ye so." 
 
 Underwood went out into the frosty, moonlit night, and 
 paced up and down the house-front. His forebears had 
 given hrm one cleanly gift, at least he needed always, when in 
 the thick of trouble, to get away from house-walls, out into 
 the open. The night was clear, between one storm and the 
 next, and the seven lamps of Charlie's Wain swung high above 
 his head. He had to make his choice, once for all, and knew 
 it the choice between the gospel of self-help and the wider 
 creed that sends men out to a simple, catholic sacrifice of 
 houseroom and good living. 
 
 He looked at the matter from every side, businesslike as his 
 father before him. There were many pledges he had given
 
 THE NIGHT-RIDER 43 
 
 that he would join his intimates when the summons came. If 
 they returned from setting a Stuart on the throne, the place 
 he had won among them would be valueless. But, on the 
 other hand, Eli's news made it sure that they would not return, 
 that, if they kept whole skins at all, they would be driven into 
 exile overseas. He knew, too, that there were many lukewarm 
 men, prudent doubters, even among the gentry here whose 
 every instinct had been trained to the Stuart's service. The 
 few hot-headed folk the dreamers were riding out to dis- 
 aster certain and foreknown but there would be practical, 
 cool men enough left here in Lancashire to keep him company. 
 
 And there was Nance. He was on ground less sure now. 
 It lay deeper than he guessed, deeper than his love of hunting 
 and good-living, his passion for Nance Demaine. She was 
 at once his good and evil angel, and to-night he had to 
 choose his road. All that was best in his regard for her 
 pointed to the strict, narrow road of honour. And she had 
 promised him her kerchief when he returned from following 
 that road. And yet to lose life and lands, may be at best, 
 to be a fugitive in foreign countries would that help him 
 nearer to the wooing? If he stayed here, she would be dere- 
 lict at Windyhough, would need his help. He could ride 
 down to the house each day, be at hand to tempt her with the 
 little flatteries that mean much when women are left in a 
 house empty of all men-folk. And, if danger came up the 
 moors after the Rising was crushed at birth by Marshal Wade, 
 he would be at hand to protect her. 
 
 To protect her. He knew, down under all subterfuge, that 
 such as Nance find the surest protection when their men are 
 riding straight, and he was not riding straight to-night; and 
 finer impulses were stirring in him than he had felt through 
 five-and-thirty years of self-indulgence. 
 
 He glanced at the moors, saw again the squat, practical face 
 of Rigstones Chapel, heard Eli Fletcher's east-wind, calculat- 
 ing voice. He was true to his breed to-night, as he sur- 
 rendered to the bleak, unlovely past.
 
 44 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " Fools must gang their gait," he muttered, " but wise men 
 stay at home." 
 
 Eli Fletcher was crossing the hall as he went in, and 
 glanced at the master's face. " Shall we get forrard wi' the 
 building ? " he asked, needing no answer. 
 
 "Ay, Eli. And we'll dance at Christmas, after this ill- 
 guided Rising is ended." 
 
 " You're your father over again," said Eli, with grim ap- 
 proval.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE HURRIED DAYS 
 
 UNEASY days had come to Lancashire. The men had grown 
 used to security, save for the risk of a broken neck on hunt- 
 ing-days, their wives pampered and extravagant; for peace, 
 of the unhealthy sort, saps half their vigour from men and 
 women both. They had nothing to fear, it seemed. There 
 had been wars overseas, and others threatened; but their bat- 
 tles had been fought for them by foreign mercenaries of King 
 George's. For the rest, Lancashire hunted and dined and 
 diced, secure in the beauty of her women, the strength of her 
 men who rode to hounds and made love in the sleepy intervals. 
 
 And now the trumpet-call had sounded. None spoke abroad 
 of the news that Oliphant of Muirhouse and other messengers 
 were bringing constantly; but, when doors were closed, there 
 was eager talk of what was in the doing. And the elders of 
 die company were aware that, for every man who held loyalty 
 fast in his two hands, there were five at least who were 
 guarded in devotion, five who spoke with their lips, but whose 
 Hearts were set on safety and the longing to enjoy more hunt- 
 ing days. 
 
 It was this lukewarmness that harassed and exasperated 
 men like Sir Jasper and Squire Demaine. Better open ene- 
 mies, they felt those who were frankly ranged against the 
 Old Faith, the Old Monarchy, the old traditions than easy- 
 going friends who would talk but would not act. Here on 
 the windy heights of Lancashire they were learning already 
 what the stalwarts farther north were feeling an intolerable 
 sickness, an impatience of those who wished for the return 
 of the old order, but had not faith enough to strike a blow for 
 it. 
 
 45
 
 46 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 Yet there were others; and day by day, as news of the 
 Prince's march drifted down to Windyhough, Sir Jasper was 
 heartened to find that after all, he would bring a decent com- 
 pany to join the Rising. Meanwhile, the lives they were liv- 
 ing day by day seemed odd to thinking, men who, like Sir 
 Jasper, understood how imminent was civil war, and what the 
 horrors of it were. The farmers rode to market, sold their 
 sheep and cattle, returned sober or otherwise according to 
 force of habit, just as at usual times. In the village border- 
 ing Windyhough the smith worked at his bellows, the cobbler 
 was busy as ever with making boots and scandal, the labour- 
 ers' wives the shiftless sort scolded their husbands into the 
 alehouse, while the more prudent ones made cheery hearths 
 for them at home. It seemed incredible that before the year 
 was out there would be such a fire kindled in this peaceful 
 corner of the world as might burn homesteads down, and 
 leave children fatherless, if things went amiss with Prince 
 Charles Edward. 
 
 But Sir Jasper let no doubts stay long with him. Things 
 would go well. If the risks were great, so was the recom- 
 pense. A Stuart safely on the throne again; English gentle- 
 men filling high places where foreigners were now in favour; 
 the English tongue heard frequently at Court ; a return of the 
 days when Church and King meant more than an idle toast 
 surely the prize was worth the hazard. 
 
 He carried a sore heart on his own account these days. 
 He had a wife and sons at Windyhough; he loved the house 
 that had grown old in company with his race; he had no per- 
 sonal gain in this adventure of the Prince's, no need of rec- 
 ompense nor wish for it; and sometimes, when he was tired- 
 out or when he had found the younger gentry irresolute in 
 face of the instant call to arms, he grew weak and foolish, 
 as if he needed to learn from the everlasting hills about him 
 that he was human after all. And at these times his faith 
 shone low and smoky, like a fire that needs a keen breath of 
 wind to kindle it afresh.
 
 THE HURRIED DAYS 47 
 
 On one of these days, near dusk, as he rode home across the 
 moor, dispirited because no news had followed Oliphant's mes- 
 sage of a week ago, a rider overtook him at a spurring gal- 
 lop, checked suddenly, and turned in saddle. 
 
 " I was for Windyhough," he panted. " You've saved me 
 three miles, sir and, gad ! my horse will bless you." 
 
 " The news, Oliphant ? The news ? I'm wearying for it." 
 
 " Be ready within the week. The Prince is into Annan 
 Carlisle will fall get your men and arms together. Pass on 
 the word to Squire Demaine." 
 
 "And the signal?" 
 
 " Wait till I bring it, or another. Be ready, and God save 
 the King!" 
 
 Here on the hill-tops, while Oliphant of Muirhouse breathed 
 his horse for a moment, the two men looked, as honest folk 
 do, straight into each other's eyes. Sir Jasper saw that Oli- 
 phant was weary in the cause of well-doing; that was his trade 
 in life, and he pursued it diligently ; but the older man was not 
 prepared for the sudden break and tenderness in the rider's 
 voice as he broke off to cry " God save the King ! " There 
 was no bravado possible up here, where sleety, austere hills 
 were the only onlookers; the world's applause was far off, 
 and in any case Oliphant was too saddle-sore and hungry to 
 care for such light diet ; yet that cry of his resolute, gay al- 
 most told Sir Jasper that two men, here on the uplands, were 
 sharing the same faith. 
 
 " God save the King ! " said Sir Jasper, uncovering ; " and 
 Oliphant, you'll take a pinch of snuff with me.'* 
 
 Oliphant laughed the tired man's laugh that had great 
 pluck behind it and dusted his nostrils with the air of one 
 who had known courts and gallantry. " They say it guards 
 a man against chills, Sir Jasper and one needs protection of 
 that sort in Lancashire. Your men are warm and Catholic 
 but your weather and your roads de'il take them ! " 
 
 " Our weather bred us, Oliphant. We'll not complain." 
 
 Oliphant of Muirhouse glanced at him. " By gad ! you're
 
 48 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 tough, sir," he said, with that rare smile of his which folk 
 likened to sun in mid-winter frost. 
 
 " By grace o' God, I'm tough ; but I never learned your 
 trick of hunting up tired folk along the roads and putting new 
 heart into them. How did you learn the trick, Oliphant?" 
 
 It was cold up here, and the messenger had need to get about 
 his business; but two men, sharing a faith bigger than the 
 hills about them, were occupied with this new intimacy that 
 lay between them, an intimacy that was tried enough to let 
 them speak of what lay nearest to their hearts. Oliphant 
 looked back along the years saw the weakness of body, the 
 tired distrust of himself that had hindered him, the groping 
 forward to the light that glimmered faint ahead. 
 
 " Oh, by misadventure and by sorrow how else ? I'll take 
 another pinch of snuff, Sir Jasper, and ride forward." 
 
 " If they but knew, Oliphant ! " The older man's glance 
 was no less direct, but it was wistful and shadowed by some 
 doubt that had taken him unawares. " We've all to gain, we 
 loyalists, and George has left us little enough to lose. And 
 yet our men hang back. Cannot they see this Rising as I see 
 it? Prosperity and kingship back again no need to have a 
 jug of water ready when you drink the loyal toast the May- 
 pole reared again in this sour, yellow-livered England. Oli- 
 phant, we've the old, happy view of things, and yet our gentle- 
 men hang back." 
 
 A cloud crossed Oliphant's persistent optimism, too. In 
 experience of men's littleness, their shams and subterfuges 
 when they were asked to put bodily ease aside for sake of bat- 
 tle, he was older than Sir Jasper. The night-riders of this 
 Rising saw the dark side, not only of the hilly roads they 
 crossed, but of human character; and in this corner of Lan- 
 cashire alone Oliphant knew to a nicety the few who would 
 rise, sanguine at the call of honour, and the many who would 
 add up gain and loss like figures in a tradesman's ledger. 
 
 " Sir Jasper," he said, breaking an uneasy silence, " the
 
 THE HURRIED DAYS 49 
 
 Prince will come to his own with few or many. If it were 
 you and I alone, I think we'd still ride out." 
 
 He leaned from the saddle, gripped the other's hand, and 
 spurred forward into the grey haze that was creeping up the 
 moor across the ruddy sundown. 
 
 Sir Jasper followed him, at an easier pace. For a while 
 he captured something of Oliphant's zeal a zeal that had 
 not been won lightly and then again doubt settled on him, 
 cold as the mist that grew thicker and more frosty as he gained 
 the lower lands. He knew that the call had come which 
 could not be disobeyed, and he was sick with longing for the 
 things that had been endeared to him by long-continued peace. 
 There was Rupert, needing a father's guidance, a father's help 
 at every turn, because he was a weakling; he had not known 
 till now how utterly he loved the lad. There was his wife, 
 who was wayward and discontented these days ; but he had 
 not forgotten the beauty of his wooing-time. There was all 
 to lose, it seemed, in spite of his brave words not long ago. 
 
 Resolute men feel these things no less nay, more, perhaps 
 than the easy-going. Their very hatred of weakness, of 
 swerving from the straight, loyal path, reacts on them, and 
 they find temptation doubly strong. Sir Jasper, as he rode 
 down into the nipping frost that hung misty about the chim- 
 ney-stacks below him, had never seen this house of his so 
 comely, so likeable. Temptation has a knack of rubbing out 
 all harsher lines, of showing a stark, mid-winter landscape as 
 a land of plenty and of summer. There were the well ordered 
 life, the cheery greetings with farmer-folk and hinds who 
 loved their squire. There was his wife she was young again, 
 as on her bridal-day, asking him if he dared leave her and 
 there was his heir. Maurice, the younger-born, would go out 
 with the Rising; but Rupert must be left behind. 
 
 Sir Jasper winced, as if in bodily pain. Every impulse was 
 bidding him stay. Every tie, of home and lands and tenantry, 
 was pulling him away from strict allegiance to the greater
 
 50 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 Cause. He had but to bide at home, to let the Rising sweep 
 by him and leave him safe in his secluded corner of the 
 moors; it was urgent that he should stay, to guard his wife 
 against the licence that might follow civil war; it was his 
 duty to protect his own. 
 
 The strength of many yesterdays returned to help Sir Jas- 
 per. Because he was turned sixty, a light thinker might have 
 said that he might take his ease; but, because he was turned 
 sixty, he had more yesterdays behind him than younger men 
 days of striving toward a goal as fixed as the pole-star, 
 nights of doubt and disillusion that had yielded to the dawn 
 of each succeeding sunrise. He had pluck and faith in God 
 behind him ; and his trust was keen and bright, like the sword- 
 blade that old Andrew Ferrara had forged in Italy for Prince 
 Charles Edward. 
 
 " The Prince needs me," he muttered stubbornly. " That 
 should be praise enough for any man." 
 
 He rode down the bridle-track to Windyhough; and the 
 nearer he got to the chimneys that were smoking gustily in the 
 shrewd east wind, the more he loved his homestead. It was 
 as if a man, living in a green oasis, were asked to go out across 
 the desert sands, because a barren, thirsty duty called him. 
 
 Again the patient yesterdays rallied to his aid. He shook 
 himself free of doubts, as a dog does when he comes out 
 of cold waters; and he took a pinch of snuff, and laughed. 
 " After all, I was growing fat and sleepy," he thought, 
 stooping to pat the tired horse that carried him. " One can 
 sleep and eat too much." 
 
 He found Lady Royd in the hall, waiting for him, and 
 a glance at her face chilled all desire to tell her the good 
 Rising news. 
 
 " What is the trouble, wife ? " he asked, with sudden fore- 
 boding. " Is Rupert ill ? " 
 
 She stamped her foot, and her face, comely at usual times, 
 was not good to see. " Oh, it is Rupert with you and 
 always Rupert till I lose patience. He is why, just the
 
 THE HURRIED DAYS 51 
 
 scholar. He does not hunt; he scarce dares to ride we'll 
 have to make a priest of him." 
 
 " There are worse callings," broke in Sir Jasper, with the 
 squared jaw that she knew by heart, but would not under- 
 stand. " If my soul were clean enough for priesthood, I 
 should no way be ashamed." 
 
 " Yes, but the lands ? Will you not understand that he 
 is the heir and there must be heirs to follow? We have 
 but two, and you're taking Maurice to this mad rising that 
 can only end on Tower Hill." 
 
 " That is as God wills, wife o' mine." 
 
 Again she stamped her foot. " You're in league together, 
 you and he." 
 
 " We share the same Faith," he put in dryly, " if that is to 
 be in league together." 
 
 " Only to-day an hour before you came I found him 
 mooning in the library, when he should have been out of 
 doors. ' Best join the priests at once, and have done with 
 it,' said I. And ' No,' he answered stubbornly, ' I've been 
 reading what the Royds did once. They fought for Charles 
 the First, and afterwards they died gladly, some of them. 
 I come of a soldier-stock, and I need to fight.' The scholar 
 dreamed of soldiery! I tapped him on the cheek and he a 
 grown man of five-and-twenty and " she halted, some hid- 
 den instinct shaming her for the moment " and he only 
 answered that he knew the way of it all by books dear 
 heart, by books he knew how strong men go to battle ! " 
 
 "Rupert said that?" asked Sir Jasper gently. "Gad! 
 I'm proud of him. He'll come to soldiery one day." 
 
 " By mooning in the library by roaming the moors at all 
 hours of the day and night is that the way men learn 
 to fight?" 
 
 Sir Jasper was :cool and debonair again. " Men learn to 
 fight as the good God teaches them, my lady. We have no 
 part in that. As for Rupert I tell you the lad is staunch 
 and leal. He was bred a Christian gentleman, after all, and
 
 52 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 breed tells it tells in the long run, Agnes, though all the 
 fools in .Lancashire go making mouths at Rupert." 
 
 He strode up and down the hall, with the orderly impa- 
 tience that she knew. And then he told the Rising news; 
 and she ran towards him, and could not come too close 
 into his arms, and made confession, girlish in its simplicity, 
 that she, who cared little for her son, loved her husband bet- 
 ter than her pride. 
 
 "You'll not go? It is a mad Rising here with the 
 Georges safe upon the throne. You need not go, at your 
 age. Let younger men bear the brunt of it, if they've a 
 mind for forlorn hopes." 
 
 He put her arms away from him, though it helped and 
 heartened him to know that, in some queer way, she loved 
 him. 
 
 " At any age one serves the Prince, wife. I'm bidden 
 that is all." 
 
 Lady Royd glanced keenly at her husband. She had been 
 spoilt and wilful, counting wealth and ease as her goal in 
 life; but she was sobered now. Sir Ja,sper had said so 
 little ; but in his voice, in the look of his strong, well-favoured 
 face, there was something that overrode the shams of this 
 world. He was a simple-minded gentleman, prepared for 
 simple duty; and, because she knew that he was unbreak- 
 able, her old wil fulness returned. 
 
 " For my sake, stay ! " she pleaded. " You are my dear, 
 you do not know how much you are to me." 
 
 He held her at arm's length, looking into her face. Her 
 eyes were pixie-like radiant, full of sudden lights and fugi- 
 tive, light-falling tears. So had he seen her, six-and-twenty 
 years before, when he brought her as a bride to Windyhough. 
 For the moment he was unnerved. She was so young in her 
 blandishment, so swift and eager a temptation. It seemed 
 that, by some miracle, they two were lad and lass again, 
 needing each other only, and seeing the world as a vague and 
 sunlit background to their happiness.
 
 THE HURRIED DAYS 53 
 
 " Ah, you'll not go ! " she said softly. " I knew you would 
 not." 
 
 " Not go ? " He stood away from her, crossed to the win- 
 dow that gave him a sight of the last sunset-red above the 
 heath. " You are childish, Agnes," he said sharply. 
 
 " So are all women, when when they care. I need you 
 here need you and you will not understand." 
 
 Sir Jasper laughed, with a gentleness, a command of him- 
 self, that did not date from yesterday. " And a man, when 
 he cares he cares for his honour first because it is his 
 wife's. Agnes, you did not hear me, surely. I said that 
 the Prince commands me." 
 
 " And 7 command you. Choose between us." 
 
 Her tone was harsh. She had not known how frankly and 
 without stint she loved this man. She was looking ahead, 
 seeing the forlornness of the waiting-time while he was ab- 
 sent on a desperate venture. 
 
 He came and patted her cheek, as if she were a baby to 
 be soothed. " I choose both," he said. " Honour and you- 
 dear heart, I cannot disentangle them." 
 
 She felt dwarfed by the breadth and simplicity of his ap- 
 peal. The world thought her devout, a leal daughter of 
 the Church; but she had not caught his gift of seeing each 
 day whole, complete, without fear or favour from the mor- 
 row. And, because she was a spoilt child, she could not 
 check her words. 
 
 " You've not seen the Prince. He's a name only, while 
 I I am your wife." 
 
 Sir Jasper was tired with the long day's hunting, the news 
 that had met him by the way ; but his voice was quiet and 
 resolute. " He is more than a name, child. He's my 
 Prince and one day, if I live to see it, his father will be 
 crowned in London. And you'll be there, and I shall tell 
 them that it was you, Agnes, who helped me fasten on my 
 sword-belt." 
 
 And still she would not heed. Her temperament was of
 
 54 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 the kind that afterwards was to render the whole Rising 
 barren. She had no patience and little trust. 
 
 " Why should I give you God-speed to Tower Hill ? " she 
 snapped. " You think the name of Stuart is one to con- 
 jure with. You think all Lancashire will rise, when this 
 wizard Prince brings the Stuart Rose to them. Trust me 
 I know how Lancashire will wait, and wait; they are cau- 
 tious first and loyal afterwards." 
 
 " Lancashire will rise," broke in Sir Jasper ; " but, either 
 way, I go and all my tenantry." 
 
 " And your heir ? He will go, too, will he not ? " 
 
 She did not know how deep her blow struck. He had 
 resisted her, her passionate need of him. He would leave her 
 for a Rising that had no hope of success, because the name 
 of Stuart was magical to him. In her pain and loneliness 
 she struck blindly. 
 
 He went to the door, threw it open, and stood looking at 
 the grey, tranquil hills. There was the sharp answer ready 
 on his tongue. He checked it. This was no time to yield to 
 anger; for the Prince's men, if they were to win home to 
 London, had need of courage and restraint. 
 
 " My son " he turned at last, and his voice was low and 
 tired " our son, Agnes he is not trained for warfare. I 
 tell you, he'll eat his heart out, waiting here and knowing 
 he cannot strike a blow. His heart is big enough, if only 
 the body of him would give it room." 
 
 She was desperate. All the years of selfishness, with Sir 
 Jasper following every whim for love of her, were prompting 
 her to keep him at her apron-strings. Her own persuasion 
 had failed; she would try another way, though it hurt her 
 pride. 
 
 " He'll eat his heart out, as you say. Then stay for the 
 boy's sake," she put in hurriedly. " He will feel the shame 
 of being left behind he will miss you at every turn it is 
 cruel to leave him fatherless." 
 
 She had tempted him in earnest now. He stood moodily
 
 THE HURRIED DAYS 55 
 
 at the door, watching the hills grow dark beneath a sky of 
 velvet grey. He knew the peril of this Rising knew that 
 the odds were heavy against his safe return and the pity 
 of that one word " fatherless " came home to him. This 
 weakling of his race had not touched compassion in the 
 mother, as the way of weaklings is; but he had moved his 
 father to extreme and delicate regard for him, had threaded 
 the man's hardihood and courage with some divine and silver 
 streak. 
 
 He turned at last. There was something harsh, repellent 
 in his anger, for already he was fighting against dreary 
 odds. 
 
 " Get to your bed, wife ! Fatherless ? He'd be worse 
 than that if I sat by the fireside after the Prince had bidden 
 me take the open. He'd live to hear men say I was a coward 
 he'd live to wish the hills would tumble down and hide 
 him, for shame of his own father. God forgive you, Agnes, 
 but you're possessed of a devil to-night just to-night, when 
 the wives of other men are fastening sword-belts on." 
 
 It was the stormy prelude to a fast and hurrying week. 
 Messengers rode in, by night and day, with news from 
 Scotland. They rode with hazard; but so did the gentlemen 
 of Lancashire, whenever they went to fair or market, and 
 listened to the rider's message, and glanced about to see if 
 George's spies were lingering close to them. 
 
 Men took hazards, these days, as unconcernedly as they 
 swallowed breakfast before getting into saddle. Peril was 
 part of the day's routine, and custom endeared it to them, 
 till love of wife and home grew like a garden-herb, that 
 smells the sweetest when you crush it down. 
 
 Lady Royd watched her husband's face, and saw him grow 
 more full of cheeriness as the week went on. Oliphant's 
 news had been true enough, it seemed, for Scotland had 
 proved more than loyal, and had risen at the Stuart's call 
 as a lass comes to her lover. The Highlanders had sunk 
 their quarrels with the Lowlanders, and the ragged begin-
 
 56 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 ning of an army was already nearing Carlisle. Then there 
 came a morning when Sir Jasper rode into the nearest town 
 on market-day, and moved innocent and farmer-like among 
 the thick-thewed men who sold their pigs and cattle, and 
 halted now and then to snatch news of the Rising from some 
 passer-by who did not seem, in garb or bearing, to be con- 
 cerned with Royal business; and he returned to Windy- 
 hough with the air of one who has already come into his 
 kingdom. 
 
 " They are at Carlisle, wife," he said. " They've taken 
 the Castle there " 
 
 " It's no news to Carlisle Castle, that," she broke in 
 shrewishly, because she loved him and feared to let him go. 
 " It stands there to be taken, if you've taught me my his- 
 tory first by the Scots, and the next day by the English. 
 Carlisle is a wanton, by your leave, that welcomes any man's 
 attack." 
 
 He had come home to meet east wind and littleness the 
 spoilt woman's littleness, that measures faith by present and 
 immediate gains. He was chilled for the moment; but the 
 loyalty that had kept him hale and merry through sixty 
 years was anchored safe. 
 
 " The Prince comes south, God bless him ! " he said 
 gravely. " We shall go out at dawn one of these near days, 
 Agnes. We shall not wait for his coming we shall ride 
 out to meet him, and give him welcome into loyal Lan- 
 cashire." 
 
 She was not shrewish now. Within the narrow walls she 
 had built about her life she loved him, as a garden-flower 
 loves the sun, not asking more than ease and shelter. And 
 her sun was telling her that he must be absent for awhile, 
 leaving her in the cold, grey twilight that women know 
 when their men ride out to battle. 
 
 " You shall not go," she said, between her tears. " Dear, 
 the need I have of you the need " 
 
 He stooped suddenly and kissed her on the cheek. " I
 
 THE HURRIED DAYS 57 
 
 should love you less, my dear, if I put slippers on at home 
 and feared to take the open." 
 
 And still she would not answer him, or look him in the 
 eyes with the strength that husbands covet when they are 
 bent on sacrifice and need a staff to help them on the road. 
 
 " You're not the lover that you were say, more years ago 
 than I remember," she said with a last, soft appeal. 
 
 He laughed, and touched her hand as a wooer might. " I 
 love you twice as well, little wife. You've taught me how 
 to die, if need be." 
 
 She came through the door of the garden that had shel- 
 tered her. For the first time in her life she met the open 
 winds; and Sir Jasper's trust in her was not misplaced. 
 
 " Is that the love you've hidden all these years ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " Yes, my dear. It's the love you had always at command, 
 if you had known it. Men are shy of talking of such mat- 
 ters." 
 
 She ran to get his sword, docile as a child, and laid it on 
 the table. " I shall buckle it on for you, never fear," she 
 said, with the light in her eyes at last the light he had 
 sought and hungered for. 
 
 " Sweetheart, you you care, then, after all ? " He kissed 
 her on the lips this time. " We shall go far together, you 
 and I, in the Prince's cause. Women sit at home, and pray 
 and their men fight the better for it. My dear, believe me, 
 they fight the better for it." 
 
 They faced each other, searching, as wind-driven folk do, 
 for the larger air that cleanses human troubles. And sud- 
 denly she understood how secure was the bond that intimacy 
 had tied about them. She had not guessed it till she came 
 from her sheltered garden and faced the breezy hills of Lan- 
 cashire at last. 
 
 And her husband, seeing her resolute, allowed himself a 
 moment's sickness, such as he had felt not long ago after 
 saying goodbye to Oliphant high up the moor. He might
 
 58 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 not return. The odds were all against it. He was bidding 
 a last farewell, perhaps, to the ordered life here, the lover's 
 zeal which his wife commanded from him still to the son 
 whom he had watched from babyhood, waiting always, with a 
 father's dogged hope, for signs of latent strength. In some 
 queer way he thought most of his boy just now; the lad was 
 lonely, and needed him. 
 
 Then he crushed the sickness down. The night's road was 
 dark and troublesome; but, whether he returned or no, there 
 must needs be a golden end to it. 
 
 " What does it matter, wife ? " he said, his voice quiver- 
 ing a little. "A little loneliness in any case it would not 
 be for long, sweetheart and then why, just that the Prince 
 had called me, and we had answered, you and I " 
 
 She swept round on him in a storm of misery and doubt. 
 " Oh, Faith's good enough in time of Peace. Women cher- 
 ish it when days go easily, and chide their men for slack- 
 ness. And the call comes and then, God help us! we cling 
 about your knees while you are resolute. It is the men who 
 have true faith the faith that matters and that helps them." 
 
 He took her face into his two hands. She remembered 
 that he had worn just this look, far off in the days of laven- 
 der and rosemary, when he had brought her home a bride 
 to Windyhough and had kissed her loneliness away. 
 
 "What's to fear? War or peace what's to fear? 
 We're not children, wife o' mine." 
 
 And " No ! " she said, with brave submissiveness. And 
 then again her face clouded with woe, and tenderness, and 
 longing, as when hill-mists gather round the sun. " Ah, but 
 yes ! " she added petulantly. " We are like children like chil- 
 dren straying in the dark. You see the Prince taking Lon- 
 don, with skirl of the pipes and swinging Highland kilts. 
 / see you kneeling, husband, with your head upon the 
 block." 
 
 Sir Jasper laughed quietly, standing to his full, brave 
 height. "And either way it does not matter, wife so long
 
 THE HURRIED DAYS 59 
 
 as the Prince has need of me. You'll find me kneeling, one 
 way or the other." 
 
 From the shadowed hall, with the candles flickering in the 
 sconces, their son came out into the open their son, who 
 could not go to war because he was untrained. He had been 
 listening to them. 
 
 " Father," he said, " I must ride with you. Indeed, I can- 
 not stay at home." 
 
 Sir Jasper answered hastily, as men will when they stand 
 in the thick of trouble. " What, you ? You cannot, lad. 
 Your place is here, as I told you to guard your mother and 
 Windyhough." 
 
 The lad winced, and turned to seek the shadows again, 
 after one long, searching glance at the other's unrelenting 
 face. And Lady Royd forgot the past. She followed him, 
 brought him back again into the candlelight. One sharp 
 word from the father had bidden her protect this son who 
 was bone of her bone. Rupert looked at her in wonder. 
 She had been his enemy till now; yet suddenly she was his 
 friend. 
 
 He looked gravely at her a man of five-and-twenty, who 
 should have known better than to blurt out the deeper 
 thoughts that in prudent folk lie hidden. " Mother," he said, 
 striving to keep the listless, care-naught air that was his 
 refuge against the day's intrusions " mother " 
 
 She had not heard the word before not as it reached her 
 now because she had not asked for it. It was as if she 
 had lived between four stuffy walls, fearing to go out into 
 the gladness and the pain of motherhood. 
 
 " Yes, boy ? " she asked, with lover-like impatience for the 
 answer. 
 
 " You are kind to to pity me. But it seems to make it 
 harder," he said with extreme simpleness. " I'm no son to 
 be proud of, mother." His voice was low, uncertain, as he 
 looked from one to the other of these two who had brought 
 him into a troubled world.
 
 60 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 Then he glanced shyly at his father. " I could die, sir, 
 for the Prince," he added, with a touch of humour. " But 
 they say I cannot live for him." 
 
 The wife looked at the husband. And pain crossed be- 
 tween them like a fire. He was so big of heart, this lad, 
 and yet he was left stranded here in the backwater of life. 
 
 Sir Jasper laid a hand on his shoulder. " You're no fool, 
 Rupert," he said, fierce in his desire to protect the lad from 
 his own shame. " I give you the post of honour, after all 
 to guard your mother. We cannot all ride afield, and I'm 
 leaving some of our men with you." 
 
 " Yes," said Rupert ; " you leave the lamesters, father 
 the men who are past service, whose joints are crazy." 
 
 He was bitter. This Rising had fired his chivalry, his 
 dreams of high adventure, his race-instinct for a Stuart and 
 the Cause. He had dreamed of it during these last, eager 
 nights, had freed himself from daytime weakness, and had 
 ridden out, a leader, along the road that led through Lan- 
 cashire to London. And the end of it was this he was to 
 be left at home, because straight-riding men were hindered 
 by the company of an untrained comrade. 
 
 The father saw it all. He had not watched this son of his 
 for naught through five-and-twenty years of hope that he 
 would yet grow strong enough to prove himself the fitting 
 heir. It was late, and Sir Jasper had to make preparation 
 for a ride to market at dawn; but he found time to spare 
 for Rupert's needs. 
 
 " Come with me, Rupert," he said, putting an arm through 
 his son's. " It was always in my mind that Windyhough 
 might be besieged, and I leave you here in command, you 
 understand." 
 
 " In command ? " Rupert was alert, incredulous. " That 
 was the way my dreams went, father." 
 
 " Dreams come true, just time and time. You should 
 count it a privilege, my lad, to stay at home. It is easier to 
 ride out."
 
 THE HURRIED DAYS 61 
 
 Lady Royd, as she watched them go arm-in-arm together 
 through the hall, was in agreement with her husband. It 
 was easier to ride out than to sit at home, as scholars and 
 women did, waiting emptily for news that, when it came, 
 was seldom pleasant. Already, though her husband had not 
 got to saddle, she was counting the hazards that were sure 
 to meet him on the road to London. And yet some sense 
 of comfort whispered at her ear. Her son was left behind 
 to guard her. She lingered on the thought, and with twenty 
 womanish devices she hedged it round, until at last she half 
 believed it. This boy of hers was to guard her. In her heart 
 she knew that the storm of battle would break far away from 
 Windyhough, that in the event of peril Rupert must prove 
 a slender reed ; but she was yielding to impulse just now, and 
 felt the need to see her son a hero. 
 
 Sir Jasper, meanwhile, was going from room to room of 
 the old house, from one half -forgotten stairway to another. 
 He showed Rupert how each window old loop-holes, most 
 of them, filled in with glass to fit modern needs commanded 
 some useful outlook on an enemy attacking Windyhough. 
 He showed him the cellars, where the disused muskets and 
 the cannon lay, and the piles of leaden balls, and the kegs 
 of gunpowder. 
 
 " You're in command, remember," he said now and then, 
 as they made their tour of the defences. " You must carry 
 every detail with you. You must be ready." 
 
 To Sir Jasper all this was a fairy-tale he told a clumsy 
 tale enough, but one designed to soften the blow to his heir; 
 to Rupert it was a trumpet-note that roused his sleeping 
 manhood. 
 
 " I have it all by heart, father," he said eagerly. Then he 
 glanced sharply at Sir Jasper. " No one ever ever trusted 
 me till now," he said. " It was trust I needed, maybe." 
 
 Sir Jasper was ashamed. Looking at Rupert, with his 
 lean body, the face that was lit with strength and purpose, he 
 repented of the nursery-tale he had told him the tale of
 
 62 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 leadership, of an attack upon the house, of the part which one 
 poor scholar was asked to play in it. 
 
 " Get up to bed, dear lad," he said huskily. " I've told 
 you all that need be. Sleep well, until you're wanted." 
 
 But Rupert could not sleep. He was possessed by the 
 beauty of this hope that had wound itself, a silver thread, 
 through the drab pattern of his life. He let his father go 
 down into the hall, then followed, not wishing to play eaves- 
 dropper again, but needing human comradeship. 
 
 Lady Royd, weaving dreams of her own downstairs, 
 glanced up as she heard her husband's step. 
 
 " Oh, you were kind to the boy," she said, comelier since 
 she found her motherhood. 
 
 He put her aside. " I was not kind, wife. I lied to him." 
 
 " In a good cause, my dear." 
 
 "No!" His fierceness shocked her; for until now she 
 had been unused to vehemence. " Lies never served a good 
 cause yet. I told him God forgive me, Agnes! that he 
 would be needed here. He has pluck, and this notion of 
 leadership it went to his head like wine, and I felt as if I'd 
 offered drink to a lad whose head was too weak for honest 
 liquor." 
 
 She moved restlessly about the hall. " Yet in the summer 
 you had kegs of gunpowder brought in," she said by and 
 by " under the loaded hay-wagons, you remember, lest 
 George's spies were looking on ? " 
 
 There would be little room for tenderness in the days that 
 were coming, and, perhaps for that reason, Sir Jasper drew 
 his wife toward him now. He was thinking of the hay- 
 time, of the last load brought in by moonlight, of the English 
 strength and fragrance of this country life to which he was 
 saying goodbye. 
 
 " I wooed you in haytime, Agnes, and married you when 
 the men were bending to their scythes the next year, and 
 we brought the gunpowder in at the like season. We'll take it 
 for an omen."
 
 THE HURRIED DAYS 63 
 
 " And yet," she murmured, with remembrance of her son 
 the son who was the firstfruit of their wooing " you 
 said that you had lied to Rupert when you bade him guard 
 the house. Why bring in gunpowder, except to load your 
 muskets with?" 
 
 He sighed impatiently. This parting from the wife and 
 son grew drearier the closer it approached. " We had other 
 plans in the summer. It was to be a running fight, we 
 thought, from Carlisle down through Lancashire. Every 
 manor was to be held as a halting-place when the Prince's 
 army needed rest." 
 
 He crossed to the big western window of the hall, and 
 stood looking up at the moonlit, wintry hills. Then he turned 
 again, not guessing that his son was standing in the shadows 
 close at his right hand. 
 
 " Other counsels have prevailed," he said, with the snap- 
 pishness of a man who sees big deeds awaiting him and 
 doubts his human strength. " I think the Prince did not 
 know, Agnes, how slow we are to move in Lancashire how 
 quick to strike, once we're sure of the road ahead. Each 
 manor that held out for the King it would have brought 
 a hundred doubters to the Cause; the army would have felt 
 its way southward, growing like a snowball as it went. They 
 say the Prince overruled his counsellors. God grant that he 
 was right ! " 
 
 " So there's to be no siege of Windyhough ? " asked Lady 
 Royd slowly. 
 
 " None that I can see. It is to be a flying charge on Lon- 
 don. The fighting will be there, or in the Midlands." 
 
 " That is good hearing, so far as anything these days can 
 be called good hearing. Suppose your lie had prospered, 
 husband? Suppose Rupert had had to face a siege in earnest 
 here? Oh, I've been blind, but now I I understand the 
 shame you would have put on him, when he was asked to 
 hold the house and could not." 
 
 " He could ! " snapped Sir Jasper. " I've faith in the lad,
 
 64 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 I tell you. A Royd stands facing trouble always when the 
 pinch comes." 
 
 She looked at him wistfully, with a sense that he was years 
 older than herself in steadiness, years younger in his virile 
 grip on faith. It was an hour when danger and the coming 
 separation made frank confession easy. " I share your 
 Faith," she said quietly, " but I'm not devout as you are. 
 Oh, miracles they happened once, but not to-day. This boy 
 of ours can you see him holding Windyhough against 
 trained soldiery? Can you hear him sharp with the word of 
 command ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the other, with the simplicity of trust. " If the 
 need comes, he will be a Royd." 
 
 " Dear, you cannot believe it ! I, who long to, cannot. 
 No leader ever found his way suddenly without prepara- 
 tion 
 
 " No miracle was ever wrought in that way," he broke in, 
 with the quiet impatience of one who knows the road behind, 
 but not the road ahead. " There are no sudden happenings 
 in this life and I've trained the lad's soul to leadership. I 
 would God that I'd not lied to him to-night I would that 
 the siege could come in earnest." 
 
 Rupert crept silently away, down the passage, and through 
 the hall, and out into the night. Through all his troubles 
 he had had one strength to lean upon his father's trust and 
 Comradeship. And now that was gone. He had heard Sir 
 Jasper talk of the siege as of a dream-toy thrown to him to 
 play with. In attack along the London road, or in defence 
 at home, he was untrained, and laughable, and useless. 
 
 There was war in his blood as he paced up and down the 
 courtyard. His one ally had deserted him, had shown him 
 a tender pity that was worse to bear than ridicule. He stood 
 alone, terribly alone, in a world that had no need of him. 
 
 The wind came chill and fretful from the moor, blowing a 
 light drift of sleet before it ; and out of the lonely land a sud- 
 den hope and strength reached out to him. It was in the
 
 THE HURRIED DAYS 65 
 
 breed of him, deep under his shyness and scholarly aloofness, 
 this instinct to stand at his stiffest when all seemed lost. He 
 would stay at home. He would forget that he had over- 
 heard his father's confession of a lie, would get through each 
 day as it came, looking always for an attack that, by some 
 unexpected road, might reach the gates of Windyhough. 
 
 But there was another task he had to forgive Sir Jasper 
 for the make-believe and this proved harder. Forgiveness 
 is no easy matter to achieve; it cannot be feigned, or hur- 
 ried, or find root in shallow soil; it comes by help of blood 
 and tears, wayfaring together through the dark night of a 
 man's soul. 
 
 Rupert went mdoors at last, and met Sir Jasper at the 
 stairfoot. 
 
 " Why, lad, I thought you were in bed long since." . 
 
 " I could not rest indoors, sir. I I needed room." 
 
 " We're all of the same breed," laughed his father. 
 " House-walls never yet helped a man to peace. Good-night, 
 my lad and remember you're on guard here."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE LOYAL MEET 
 
 Two days later Sir Jasper and Maurice sat at breakfast. 
 There was a meet of hounds that morning, and, because the 
 hour was early, Lady Royd was not down to share the meal. 
 It was cold enough after full sunrise, she was wont to say, 
 with her lazy, laughing drawl, and not the most devoted wife 
 could be expected to break her fast by candlelight. 
 
 Sir Jasper, for his part, ate with appetite this morning. 
 The unrest of the past weeks had been like a wind from the 
 north to him, sharpening his vigour, driving out the little 
 weaknesses and doubts bred of long inaction. And, as he 
 ate, old Simon Foster, his man-of-all-work, opened the door 
 and put in the grizzled head which reminded his master always 
 of a stiff broom that had lately swept the snow. 
 
 " Here's Maister Oliphant," said Simon gruffly. " Must 
 I let him in?" 
 
 " Indeed you must," laughed Oliphant, putting him aside 
 and stepping into the room. " My business will not wait, 
 Sir Jasper, though Simon here is all for saying that it crosses 
 you to be disturbed at breakfast-time." 
 
 The two men glanced quickly at each other. "You're 
 looking in need of a meal yourself, Oliphant. Sit down, man, 
 and help us with this dish of devilled kidneys." 
 
 Oliphant, long ago, had learned to take opportunity as it 
 (came; and meals, no less than his chances of passing on the 
 messages entrusted to him, were apt to prove haphazard and 
 to be seized at once. Old Simon, while they ate, hovered up 
 and down the room, eager for the news, until his master dis- 
 missed him with a curt " You may leave us, Simon." 
 
 Simon obeyed, but he closed the door with needless vio- 
 
 66
 
 THE LOYAL MEET 67 
 
 lence; and they could hear him clattering noisily down the 
 passage, as if he washed his hands of the whole Rising busi- 
 ness. 
 
 " You may leave us, Simon!" he growled. "That's all 
 Sir Jasper has to say, after I'm worn to skin and bone in 
 serving him. And he must know by this time, surely, that 
 he allus gets into scrapes unless I'm nigh-handy, like, to 
 advise him what to do. Eh, well, maisters is maisters, and 
 poor serving-men is serving-men, and so 'twill be till th' end 
 o' the chapter, I reckon. But I wish I knew what Maister 
 Oliphant rade hither-till to tell Sir Jasper." 
 
 Oliphant looked across at his host, after Simon's heavy 
 footfalls told them he was out of earshot. " The hunt comes 
 this way, Sir Jasper, with hounds in full cry. I see you're 
 dressed for the chase." 
 
 " And have been since since I was breeloed, I think. 
 When, Oliphant? It seems too good to be true. All 
 Lancashire is asking when, and I'm tired of telling 
 them to bide until they hear Tally-ho go sounding up the 
 moors." 
 
 " You start at dawn to-morrow. Ride into Langton, and 
 wait till you see the hounds in full view." 
 
 " And the scent how does it lie, Oliphant ? " 
 
 " Keen and true, sir. I saw one near the Throne three days 
 ago, and he said that he had never known a blither hunting- 
 time." 
 
 They had talked in guarded terms till now the terms of 
 Jacobite freemasonry; but Sir Jasper's heart grew too full 
 on the sudden for tricks of speech. " God bless him ! " he 
 cried, rising to the toast. " There'll be a second Restoration 
 yet." 
 
 Maurice, his face recovered from traces of the fight with 
 his stubborn brother, had been abashed a little by Oliphant's 
 coming, for, like Rupert, he had the gift of hero-worship. 
 But now he, too, got to his feet, and his face was full of boy- 
 ish zeal. " We'll hunt that fox of yours, Mr. Oliphant," he
 
 68 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 laughed " ay, as far as the sea. We'll make him swim 
 over the water, where our toasts have gone." 
 
 " He's bred true to the old stock, Sir Jasper," laughed 
 Oliphant. " I wish every loyalist in Lancashire had sons 
 like Maurice here to bring with him." 
 
 Sir Jasper found no answer. An odd sadness crossed his 
 face, showing lines that were graven deeper than Oliphant 
 had guessed. " Come, we shall be late for the meet," he said 
 gruffly. " Oliphant, do you stay and rest yourself here, or 
 will you ride with us ? The meet is at Easterfield to-day." 
 
 " As far as the cross-roads, then. My way lies into Lang- 
 ton." 
 
 Oliphant's tone was curt as his host's, for he was puzzled 
 by this sudden coolness following his praise of Maurice. As 
 they crossed the courtyard to the stables he saw Sir Jasper 
 glance up at the front of the house, and there, at an upper 
 window, Rupert the heir was watching stronger men 
 ride out to hunt the fox. He saw the misery in the lad's 
 face, the stubborn grief in the father's, and a new page was 
 turned for him in that muddled book of life which long 
 night-riding had taught him to handle with tender and ex- 
 treme care. 
 
 At the cross-ways they parted. All had been arranged 
 months since; the proven men in Lancashire, as in other 
 counties, were known to the well-wishers of the Prince. 
 Each had his part allotted to him, and Sir Jasper's was to 
 rally all his hunting intimates. So far as preparation went, 
 this campaign of the Stuart against heavy odds had been 
 well served. The bigger work the glad and instant wish 
 of every King's man to rally to the call, forgetting ease of 
 body, forgetting wives and children was in the making, and 
 none knew yet what luck would go with it. 
 
 " At Langton to-morrow," said Oliphant, over-shoulder, as 
 he reined about. 
 
 "Yes, God willing and, after Langton, such a fire lit as 
 will warm London with its flames."
 
 THE LOYAL MEET 69 
 
 When they got to Easterfield, Maurice and his father, the 
 sun was shining on a street of melting snow, following a quick 
 and rainy thaw, on well-groomed men and horses, on hounds 
 eager to be off on the day's business. And, as luck had it, 
 they found a game fox that took them at a tearing gallop, 
 five miles across the wet and heavy pastures, before they 
 met a check. 
 
 The check lasted beyond the patience of the hunters, and 
 Sir Jasper chose his moment well. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, rising in his stirrups " gentlemen, 
 the meet is at my house of Windyhough to-morrow. Who 
 rides with me?" 
 
 The field gathered round him. He was a man command- 
 ing men, and he compelled attention. 
 
 " What meet ? " asked Squire Demaine, his ruddy face 
 brick-red with sudden hope. 
 
 " The Loyal Meet. Who's with me, gentlemen ? " 
 
 Sir Jasper was strung to that pitch of high endeavour 
 which sees each face in a crowd and knows what impulse 
 sways it. They gathered round him to a man; but as he 
 glanced from one to the other he knew that there were many 
 waverers. For loyalty, free and unswerving, sets a light 
 about a man's face that admits no counterfeit. 
 
 Yet the din was loud enough to promise that all were of one 
 mind here. Hounds and fox and huntsmen were forgotten. 
 Men waved their hats and shouted frantically. Nance Demaine 
 and the half-dozen ladies who were in the field to-day found 
 little kerchiefs and waved them, too, and were shrill and san- 
 guine in their cries of " The Prince, God bless him ! the 
 Prince ! the Stuart home again ! " 
 
 It was all like Bedlam, while the austere hills, lined here 
 and there with snow that would not melt, looked down on 
 this warmth of human enterprise. The horses reared and 
 fidgeted, dismayed by the uproar. Hounds got out of hand 
 and ran in and out between the plunging hoofs, while the 
 huntsman, a better fox-hunter than King's man, swore
 
 70 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 roundly and at large as he tried to bring them out of this out- 
 rageous riot. 
 
 " Where's Will Underwood ? " asked a youngster suddenly. 
 It was young Hunter of Hunterscliff, whose lukewarmness 
 had angered Nance not long ago. " It's the first meet he's 
 missed this winter." 
 
 A horseman at his elbow laughed, the laugh that men un- 
 derstood. " He had business in the south, so he told me 
 when I met him taking the coach. Wild Will, from the look 
 of his face, seemed tired of hunting." 
 
 " No ! " said Sir Jasper sharply. " I'll have no man con- 
 demned without a hearing. He lives wide of here perhaps 
 this last news of the Rising has not reached him. Any man 
 may be called away on sudden business." 
 
 " You're generous, sir. I'm hot for the King, and no 
 other business in the world would tempt me out of Lanca- 
 shire just now. Besides, he must have known." 
 
 Nance had lost her high spirits ; but she was glad that some 
 one had spoken on Will Underwood's behalf, for otherwise 
 she must have yielded to the impulse to defend him. 
 
 " That does not follow, sir," said Sir Jasper, punctilious 
 in defence of a man he neither liked nor trusted. " At any 
 rate, it is no time for accusation. Mr. Underwood, if I know 
 him, will join us farther south." 
 
 Young Hunter, a wayward, unlicked cub, would not keep 
 silence. " Yes," he said, in his thin, high-pitched voice, " he'll 
 join us as far south as London after he's sure that a Stuart's 
 on the throne again." 
 
 An uneasy silence followed. Older men looked at older 
 men, knowing that they shared this boy's easy summing-up 
 of Underwood's motives. And Nance wondered that this 
 man, whom she was near to loving, had no friends here 
 no friends of the loyal sort who came out into the open and 
 pledged their faith in him. 
 
 There was a game hound of the pack a grey old hound 
 that, like the huntsman, was a keener fox-hunter than loyal-
 
 THE LOYAL MEET 71 
 
 ist; and, through all this uproar and confusion, through the 
 dismayed silence that followed, he had been nosing up and 
 down the pastures, finding a weak scent here, a false trail 
 there. And now, on the sudden, he lifted his grey head, and 
 his note was like a bugle-call. The younger hounds scam- 
 pered out from among the hoofs that had been playing dan- 
 gerously near them and gave full tongue as they swung down 
 the pastures. 
 
 Sir Jasper spurred forward. " Here's an omen, friends," 
 he cried. " The hunt is up in earnest. We shall kill, I tell 
 you ! we shall kill ! " 
 
 It was a run that afterwards, when the fires of war died 
 down and all Lancashire was hunting once again in peace, 
 was talked of beside cottage hearths, on market-days when 
 squires and yeomen met for barter was talked of wherever 
 keen, lusty men foregathered for the day's business and for 
 gossip of the gallant yesterdays. 
 
 Sir Jasper led, with Squire Demaine close at his heels. It 
 seemed, indeed, the day of older folk; for away in front of 
 them, where the sterns of eager hounds waved like a frantic 
 sea, it was Pincher grey, hefty, wise in long experience 
 that kept the running. 
 
 Prince Charles Edward was forgotten, though he had need 
 of these gentlemen on the morrow. After all, with slighter 
 excuse, they might any one of them break their necks to-day 
 in pursuit of the lithe red fox that showed like a running 
 splash of colour far ahead. The day was enough for them, 
 with its rollicking hazards, its sense of sheer pace and well- 
 being. 
 
 Down Littlemead Ings the fox led them, and up the hill 
 that bordered Strongstones Coppice. He sought cover in 
 the wood, but Pincher, with a buoyant, eager yell, dislodged 
 him; and for seven miles, fair or foul going, they followed 
 that racing blotch of red. There were fewer horsemen now, 
 but most of them kept pace, galloping hard behind Sir Jasper 
 and the Squire, who were riding neck for neck. The fox,
 
 72 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 as it happened, was in his own country again, after a so- 
 journ he regretted in alien pastures; and he headed straight 
 for the barren lands of rock and scanty herbage that lay up 
 the slopes of Rother Hill. The going was steep and slip- 
 pery, the scent cold, because snow was lying on these upper 
 lands; and the fox, who knew all this a little better than 
 Pincher, plunged through a snowdrift that hid the opening of 
 his favourite cave and knew himself secure. They could dig 
 him out from a burrow, but this cave was long and winding, 
 and all its quiet retreats were known to him. 
 
 Pincher, the grey, hefty hound, plunged his nose into the 
 snow, then withdrew it and began to whimper. He was 
 unused to this departure from the usual rules of fox-hunt- 
 ing; the snow was wet and chilly, and touched, maybe, some 
 note of superstition common to hounds and hill-bred men. 
 Superstition, at any rate, or some grave feeling, was patent 
 in the faces of the riders. The huntsman, knowing the wind- 
 ings of the cave as well as Reynard, gathered his pack. 
 
 " They'd be lost for ever and a day, Sir Jasper," he growled, 
 " if once they got into that cave. I followed it once for a 
 mile and a half myself, and then didn't reach the end of it." 
 
 Sir Jasper glanced at Squire Demaine, and found the same 
 doubt in his face. They had chosen this gallop as an augury, 
 and they had not killed. It is slight matters of this sort that 
 are apt constantly to turn the balance of big adventures, and 
 the two older men knew well enough how the waverers were 
 feeling. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Sir Jasper sharply, " we're not like 
 children. There's no omen in all this. I jested when I talked 
 of omens." 
 
 " By gad, yes ! " sputtered the Squire, backing his friend 
 with a bluster that scarcely hid his own disquiet. " There's 
 only one good omen for to-morrow, friends a strong body, 
 a sound sword arm, and a leal heart for the King. We'll 
 not go back to the nursery, by your leave, because a fox skulks 
 into hiding."
 
 THE LOYAL MEET 73 
 
 There was a waving of three-cornered hats again, a mur- 
 mur of applause; but the note did not ring true and merry, 
 as it had done at the start of this wild gallop. The horses 
 were shivering in a bitter wind that had got up from behind 
 the hollows of the uplands. Grey-blue clouds crept round 
 about the sun and stifled him, and sleet began to fall. They 
 were children of the weather to a man, and to-morrow's ride 
 for London and the Stuart took on the semblance of a Lenten 
 fast.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE HORSE THIEF 
 
 AT Windyhough, Rupert had watched Sir Jasper and his 
 brother ride out to the hunt, had felt the old pang of jealousy 
 and helplessness. They were so hale and keen on the day's 
 business; and he was not one of them. 
 
 He turned impatiently from the upper window, not guess- 
 ing that his father had carried the picture of his tired face 
 with him to the meet With some thought of getting up into 
 the moor, to still his restlessness, he went down the stair and 
 out into the courtyard. Lady Royd, who had not lain easy 
 in her bed this morning, was standing there. Some stronger 
 call than luxury and well-being had bidden her get up and 
 steal into the windy, nipping air, to watch her men ride out. 
 She was late, as she was for all appointments, and some bitter 
 loneliness had taken hold of her when she found them gone. 
 She had never been one of these gusty, unswerving people 
 here in Lancashire, and their strength was as foreign to her 
 as their weaknesses. Until her marriage with the impulsive 
 northern lover who had come south to the wooing and had 
 captured her girl's fancy, she had lived in the lowlands, 
 where breezes played for frolic only; and the bleakness of 
 these hills had never oppressed her as it did this morning. 
 She forgot the swift and magic beauty that came with the 
 late-won spring, forgot how every slope and dingle of this 
 northern country wakened under the sun's touch, how the 
 stark and empty moor grew rich with colour, how blackbird 
 and lavrock, plover and rook and full-throated thrush made 
 music wild and exquisite under the blue, happy sky. For the 
 present, the wind was nipping; on the higher hill-crests snow 
 lay like a burial-shroud ; her husband and the younger son she 
 
 74
 
 THE HORSE THIEF 75 
 
 idolised were riding out to-morrow on a perilous road because 
 they had listened to that haunting, unhappy melody which all 
 the Stuarts had the gift of sounding. 
 
 Lady Royd could not see beyond. Her faith was colder 
 than the hills which frightened her, emptier than this winter- 
 time she hated. She had not once captured the quiet, reso- 
 lute note that sounded through . her husband's conduct of 
 affairs. Let the wind whistle its keenest under a black and 
 sullen sky, Sir Jasper knew that he was chilled, as she did; 
 but he knew, too, that summer would follow, blithe and full 
 of hay-scents, fuller, riper in warmth and well-being, because 
 the months of cold had fed its strength. 
 
 She chose to believe that he was playing with a fine, ro- 
 mantic sense of drama, in following the Prince, that he was 
 sacrificing Maurice to the same misplaced zeal. Yet hour 
 by hour and day by day of their long companionship, he had 
 made it plain, to a comrade less unwilling, that he had fol- 
 lowed a road marked white at every milestone by a faith that 
 would not budge, an obedience to the call of honour that was 
 instinctive, instant, as the answer of a soldier to his com- 
 manding officer. If all went amiss with this Rising, if he 
 gave his life for a lost cause, it did not matter greatly to Sir 
 Jasper; for he was sure that in one world or another, a little 
 sooner or a little later, he would see that Restoration whose 
 promise shone like the morning star above the staunch, un- 
 bending hills of Lancashire. 
 
 " Who is to gain by it all ? " murmured Lady Royd, shiver- 
 ing as she drew her wrap about her. " When I'm widowed, 
 and Maurice has gone, too, to Tower Hill shall I hate these 
 Stuart fools the less? It matters little who is king so 
 little " 
 
 She heard Rupert's step behind her, turned and regarded 
 him with that half-tolerant disdain which had stood to her for 
 motherhood. Not long ago she had felt a touch of some 
 divine compassion for him, had been astonished by the pain 
 and happiness that pity teaches ; but the mood had passed,
 
 76 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 and he stood to her now as a simpleton so exquisite that he had 
 not strength even to follow the stupid creeds he cherished. 
 She was in no temper to spare him ; he was a welcome butt on 
 which to vent her weariness of all things under the sun. 
 
 They looked at each other, silent, questioning. Big happen- 
 ings were in the making. The very air of Lancashire these 
 days was instinct with the coming troubles, and folk were 
 restless, ill-at-ease as moor-birds are when thunder comes beat- 
 ing up against the wind. 
 
 " It is not my fault, mother," said Rupert brusquely, as if 
 answering some plainly-spoken challenge. " If I had my 
 way, I'd be taking fences, too but, then, I never had my 
 way." 
 
 Lady Royd laughed gently the frigid, easy laugh that Ru- 
 pert knew by heart. " A man'' she said, halting on the word 
 " a man makes his way, if he's to have it. The babies stay 
 at home, and blame the dear God because He will not let them 
 hunt like other men." 
 
 Rupert took fire on the sudden, as he had done not long 
 since when he had fought with his brother on the moor. Old 
 indignities were brought to a head. He did not know what 
 he said; but Lady Royd bent her head, as if a moorland 
 tempest beat about her. It seemed as if the whole unrest, the 
 whole passion and heedlessness, of the Stuart battle against 
 circumstance had gathered to a head in this wind-swept court- 
 yard of the old fighting house of Windyhough. 
 
 And the combatants were a spoilt wife on one hand, on 
 the other a scholar who had not yet found his road in life. 
 The battle should have given food for laughter ; yet the scholar 
 wore something of his father's dignity and spirit, and the 
 woman was slow to admit a mastery that pleased and troubled 
 her. 
 
 Again there was a silence. The east wind was piping 
 through and through the courtyard, and rain was falling ; but 
 on the high moors there were drifts of snow that would not 
 yield to the gusty warmth. All was upset, disordered rain,
 
 THE HORSE THIEF 77 
 
 and snow, and wind, were all at variance, as if they shared 
 the unrest and the tumult of the times. 
 
 " You you hurt me, Rupert," she said weakly. 
 
 " I had no right, mother," he broke in, contrite. " Of 
 course I am the heir and I was never strong, as you had 
 wished and and I spoke in heat." 
 
 " I like your heat, boy," she said unexpectedly. " Oh, you 
 were right, were right ! You never had a chance." 
 
 He put his hand on her arm gently, as a lover or a cour- 
 tier might. " Maurice should have been the heir. It cannot 
 be helped, mother but you've been kind to me through it all." 
 
 Lady Royd was dismayed. Her husband had yielded to her 
 whims; the folk about her had liked her beauty, her easy, 
 friendly insolence, the smile which comes easily to women 
 who are spoilt and have luxury at command. She had been 
 sure of herself till now till now, when the son she had made 
 light of was at pains to salve her conscience. He was a stay- 
 at-home, a weakling. There was no glamour attaching to 
 him, no riding-out to high endeavour among the men who were 
 making or were marring history. Yet now, to the mother's 
 fancy, he was big of stature. 
 
 She yielded to a sharp, dismaying pity. " My dear," she 
 said, with a broken laugh, " you talk like your father like 
 your father when I like him most and disagree with his mad 
 view of life." 
 
 Rupert went to bed that night after his father and Maurice 
 had returned muddied from a hunt he had not shared, after 
 the supper that had found him silent and without appetite 
 with a sense of keen and personal disaster that would not let 
 him sleep. Through all his dreams the brave, unspoiled 
 dreams of boyhood he had seen this Rising take its present 
 shape. His father's teaching, his stealthy reading in the li- 
 brary of books that could only better a sound Stuart faith, had 
 prepared him for the Loyal Meet that was to gather at 
 Windyhough with to-morrow's dawn. But in his dreams he had 
 been a rider among loyal riders, had struck a blow here and
 
 78 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 there for the Cause he had at heart. In plain reality, with the 
 wind sobbing round the gables overhead, he was not disci- 
 plined enough to join the hunt. He was untrained. 
 
 Maurice shared his elder brother's bedroom ; and somewhere 
 in the dark hours before the dawn he heard Rupert start from 
 a broken sleep, crying that the Prince was in some danger and 
 needed him. Maurice was tired after the day's hunting, and 
 knew that he must be up betimes ; and a man's temper at such 
 times is brittle. 
 
 " Get to sleep, Rupert ! " he growled. " The Prince will be 
 none the better for your nightmares." 
 
 Rupert was silent. He knew it was true. No man would 
 ever be the better, he told himself, for the help of a dreamer 
 and a weakling. He heard his brother turn over, heard the 
 heavy, measured breathing. He had no wish for sleep, but 
 lay listening to the sleet that was driving at the window-panes. 
 It was bitter cold, and dark beyond belief. Whatever chanced 
 with the Prince's march to London, there was something to 
 chill the stoutest faith in this night-hour before the dawn. 
 Yet the scholar chose this moment for a sudden hope, a 
 warmth of impulse and of courage. Down the sleety wind, 
 from the moors he loved, a trumpet-call seemed to ring sharp 
 and clear. And the call sounded boot-and-saddle. 
 
 He sprang from bed and dressed himself, halted to be sure 
 that Maurice was still sound asleep, felt his way through the 
 pitch-dark of the room until he reached the door. Then he 
 went down, unbarred the main door with gentle haste, and 
 stood in the windy courtyard. It was a wet night and a 
 stormy one on Windyhough Heights. Now and then the 
 moon ran out between the grey-black, scudding clouds and 
 lit a world made up of rain and emptiness. 
 
 And Rupert again heard the clear, urgent call. Slight of 
 body, a thing of small account set in the middle of this ma- 
 jestic uproar of the heath, he squared his shoulders, looked 
 at the house-front, the fields, the naked, wind-swept coppices, 
 to which he was the heir.
 
 THE HORSE THIEF 79 
 
 Old tradition, some instinct fathered by many generations, 
 rendered him greater than himself. " Get to saddle," said the 
 voice at his ear ; and he forgot that the ways of a horse were 
 foreign to him. He glanced once again at the heath, as if 
 asking borrowed strength, then crept like a thief toward 
 the stables. 
 
 It was near dawn now. The wind, tired out, had sunk to a 
 low, piping breeze. The moon shone high and white from a 
 sky cleared of all but the filmiest clouds ; and over the eastern 
 hummocks of the moor lithe, palpitating streaks of rose, and 
 grey, and amber were ushering up the sun. 
 
 All was uproar in the stable-yard, and the future master of 
 these grooms and farm-lads waited in the shadows a looker- 
 on, as always. He saw a lanthorn swinging up and down the 
 yard, confusing still more the muddled light of moon and 
 dawn ; and then he heard Giles, his father's bailiff, laugh as he 
 led out Sir Jasper's horse, and listened while the man swore, 
 with many a rich Lancashire oath, that Rising work was better 
 than keeping books and harrying farmers when they would 
 not pay their rents. And still Rupert waited, watching sturdy 
 yeomen ride in from Pendle Forest, on nags as well built as 
 themselves, to answer Sir Jasper's rally-call. 
 
 " Tis only decent-like, Giles," he heard one ruddy yeoman 
 say, " to ride in a little before our betters need us. I was never 
 one to be late at a hunt, for my part." 
 
 " It all gangs gradely," Giles answered jeheerily. " By 
 dangment, though, the dawn's nearer than I thought ; and I've 
 my own horse to saddle yet." 
 
 Rupert waited with great patience for his chance waited 
 until Giles came out again, leading a thick-set chestnut that 
 had carried him on many a bailiff's errand. And in the wait- 
 ing his glow of courage and high purpose grew chilled. He 
 watched the lanthorns bobbing up and down the yard, watched 
 the dawn sweep bold and crimson over this crowd of busy 
 folk. He was useless, impotent ; he had no part in action, no 
 place among these men, strong of their hands, who were
 
 80 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 getting ready for the battle. Yet, under all the cold and 
 shame, he knew that, if he were asked to die for the Cause 
 asked simply, and without need to show himself a fool at 
 horsemanship it would be an easy matter. 
 
 He looked on, and he was lonelier than in the years be- 
 hind. Until a day or two ago he had been sure of one thing 
 at least of his father's trust in him ; and Sir Jasper had killed 
 that illusion when he taught his heir how Windyhough was to 
 be defended against attack and afterwards confessed that it 
 was a trick to soothe the lad's vanity. 
 
 Yet still he waited, some stubborness of purpose behind him. 
 And by and by he saw his chance. The stable-yard was empty 
 for the moment. Sir Jasper's men had mustered under the 
 house-front, waiting for their leader to come out. Giles had 
 left his own horse tethered to a ring outside the stable door, 
 while he led the master's grey and Maurice's slim, raking 
 chestnut into the courtyard. From the bridle-track below 
 came the clatter of hoofs, as Sir Jasper's hunting intimates 
 brought in their followers to the Loyal Meet. On that side 
 of the house all was noise, confusion ; on this side, the stable- 
 yard lay quiet under the paling moonlight and the ruddy, nip- 
 ping dawn. 
 
 Sir Jasper's heir crossed the yard, as if he planned a theft 
 and feared surprisal. There had been horse-thieves among his 
 kin, doubtless, long ago when the Royds were founding a fam- 
 ily in this turbulent and lawless county; and Rupert was 
 but harking back to the times when necessity was the day's 
 gospel. 
 
 He unslipped the bridle of Giles's horse, and let him 
 through the gate that opened on the pastures at the rear of 
 Windyhough. Then he went in a wide circle round the 
 house, until he reached a wood of birch and rowan that stood 
 just above the Langton road. "The wind was up again, and 
 rain with it; and in the downpour Rupert, holding the bridle 
 of a restive horse, waited for the active men to pass him by 
 along the road that led to Prince Charles Edward. He could
 
 THE HORSE THIEF 81 
 
 not join them at the meet in the courtyard, but he would wait 
 here till they passed, he told himself, would get to saddle after- 
 wards and ride down and follow them. And in the coming 
 battle, may be, he would prove to his father that courage was 
 not lacking, after all, in the last heir of the Royd men. 
 
 The front of Windyhough, meanwhile, was busy with men 
 and horses, with sheep-dogs that had followed their masters, 
 unnoticed and unbidden, from the high farms that bordered 
 Windyhough. It might have been Langton market-day, so 
 closely and with such laughing comradeship yeomen, squires, 
 and hinds rubbed shoulders, while dogs ran in and out be- 
 tween their legs and horses whinnied to each other. The 
 feudal note was paramount. There was no distrust here, no 
 jealousy of class against class; the squires were pledged to de- 
 fend those who followed them with healthy and implicit con- 
 fidence, their men were loyal in obedience that was neither 
 blind nor stupid, but trained by knowledge and the sense of 
 discipline, as a soldier's is. Each squire was a kingly father 
 to the men he had gathered from his own acres. In all things, 
 indeed, this gathering at Windyhough was moved by the clan 
 spirit that had made possible the Prince's gathering of an 
 army in Scotland that small, ill-equipped army which had 
 already routed General Cope at Prestonpans, had compelled 
 Edinburgh to applaud its pluck and gallantry, had taken Car- 
 lisle Castle, and now was marching through a country, dis- 
 affected for the most part, on the forlornest hope that ever 
 bade men leave warm hearths. 
 
 Sir Jasper, standing near the main door of Windyhough, 
 watched the little companies ride in. He was keen and buoy- 
 ant, and would not admit that he was troubled because his own 
 judgment and that of his friends was justified. He had 
 guessed that one in five of those who had passed their claret 
 over the .vater would prove their faith ; and he had calculated 
 to a nicety. One whom he had counted a certain absentee was 
 here, to be sure young Hunter of Hunterscliff, whose tongue 
 was more harum-scarum than his heart. But, against this
 
 82 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 gain of a sword-arm and a dozen men, he had to set Will Un- 
 derwood's absence. Some easy liking for Will's horseman- 
 ship, some instinct to defend him against the common distrust, 
 had prompted him to an obstinate, half-hearted faith in the 
 man. Yet he was not here, and Sir Jasper guessed unerringly 
 what the business was that had taken him wide of Lan- 
 cashire. 
 
 Squire Demaine was the last to ride in with his men. He 
 could afford to be late; for Pendle Hill, round and stalwart 
 up against the crimson, rainy sky, would as soon break away 
 from its moorings as Roger Demaine prove truant to his 
 faith. 
 
 It was wet and cold, and the errand of these men was not 
 one to promise warmth for many a day to come. Yet they 
 raised a cheer when old Roger pushed his big, hard-bitten 
 chestnut through the crowd. And when they saw that his 
 daughter was with him, riding the grey mare that had known 
 many a hunting morn, their cheers grew frantic. For at these 
 times men learn the way of their hearts, and know the folk 
 whose presence brings a sense of well-being. 
 
 Sir Jasper had not got to saddle yet. He stood at the door, 
 with his wife and Maurice, greeting all new-comers, and 
 hoping constantly that there were laggards to come in. He 
 reached up a hand to grasp the Squire's. 
 
 " The muster's small, old friend," he said. 
 
 " Well, what else? " growled Roger. " We know our Lan- 
 cashire oh, by the Heart, we know it through and through." 
 He glanced round the courtyard, with the free, wind-trained 
 eye that saw each face, each detail. " There's few like to 
 make a hard bed for themselves, Jasper. Best leave our 
 feather-bed folk at home." 
 
 Sir Jasper, with a twinge of pain to which long use had ac- 
 customed him, thought of Rupert, his heir. He glanced aside 
 from the trouble, and for the first time saw that Nance was 
 close behind her father. 
 
 " Does Nance go with us ? " he asked, with a quick smile.
 
 THE HORSE THIEF 83 
 
 " She can ride as well as the best of us we know as much, 
 but women are not soldiers these days, Roger." 
 
 Squire Demaine looked round for a face he did not find. 
 " No, she stays here at Windyhough. Where's Rupert ? I 
 always trusted that quiet lad." 
 
 " He's gone up to the moors, sir, I think," said Maurice, 
 with some impulse to defend the absent brother. " He was 
 full of nightmares just before dawn talking of the Prince, 
 who needed him and he was gone when I got up at day- 
 break." 
 
 " Well, he'll return," snapped the Squire ; " and, though I 
 say it, he'll find a bonnie nestling here at Windyhough. 
 Nance, tell the lad that I trust him. And now, Jasper, we'll 
 be late for the meet on the Langton Road, unless we bestir 
 ourselves." 
 
 Sir Jasper, under all his unswerving zeal, grew weak with 
 a fine human tenderness. He turned, caught his wife's glance, 
 wondered in some odd, dizzy way why he had chosen to tear 
 his heart out by the roots. And Rupert was not here ; he had 
 longed to say goodbye to him, and he was hiding somewhere, 
 full of shame that was too heavy for his years oh, yes, he 
 knew the lad! 
 
 He passed a hand across his eyes, stooped for a moment and 
 whispered some farewell message to his wife, then set his foot 
 into the stirrup that Giles was holding for him. His face 
 cleared. He had chosen the way of action and the road lay 
 straight ahead. 
 
 " We're ready, gentlemen, I take it?" he said. "Good! 
 The Prince might chance to be a little earlier at the meet. 
 We'd best be starting." 
 
 Nance had slipped from the saddle, and stood, with the 
 bridle in her hand, watching the riders get into some sem- 
 blance of a well-drilled company of horse. At another time 
 her quick eye would have seen the humour of it. Small farm- 
 ers and their hinds, on plough-horses were jostling thor- 
 oughbreds. Rough faces that she knew were self-conscious
 
 84 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 of a new dignity ; rough lips were muttering broad, lively oaths 
 as if still they were engaged in persuading their mounts to 
 drive a straight furrow. 
 
 Yet to Nance the dignity, the courage, the overwhelming 
 pity of it all were paramount. The rain and the ceaseless 
 wind in the courtyard here the wintry moors above, with sleet 
 half covering their black austerity the uneasy whinnying of 
 horses that did not like this cold snap of wind, telling of 
 snow to come all made up the burden of a song that was old 
 as Stuart haplessness and chivalry. 
 
 The muttered oaths, the restlessness, died down. The drill 
 of months had found its answer now. Rough farmers, keen- 
 faced yeomen, squires gently-bred, were an ordered company. 
 They were equals here, met on a grave business that touched 
 their hearts. And Nance gained courage, while she watched 
 the men look quietly about them, as if they might not see the 
 Lancashire moors again, and were anxious to carry a clear 
 picture of the homeland into the unknown. It seemed that 
 loyalty so grim, and so unquestioning, was bound to have its 
 way. 
 
 She saw, too, that Sir Jasper was resolute, with a cheeriness 
 that admitted no denial, saw that her father carried the same 
 easy air. Then, with a brisk air of command, Sir Jasper gath- 
 ered up his reins and lifted his hat. 
 
 " For the King, gentlemen ! " he said. " It is time we sought 
 the Langton Road." 
 
 It was so they rode out, through a soaking rain and a wind 
 that nipped to the bone; and Nance, because she was young 
 and untried as yet, felt again the chill of bitter disappoint- 
 ment. Like Rupert, her childish dreams had been made up 
 of this Loyal Meet that was to happen one day. Year by 
 year it had been postponed. Year by year she had heard her 
 elders talk of it, when listeners were not about, until it had 
 grown to the likeness of a fairy-tale, in which all the knights 
 were brave and blameless, all the dragons evil and beyond 
 reach of pity for the certain end awaiting them.
 
 THE HORSE THIEF 85 
 
 And now the tale was coming true, so far as the riding out 
 went. The hunt was up ; but there was no flashing of swords 
 against the clear sunlight she had pictured, no ringing cheers, 
 no sudden music of the pipes. These knights of the fairy-tale 
 had proved usual men men with their sins and doubts and 
 personal infirmities, who went on the Prince's business as if 
 they rode to kirk in time of Lent. She was too young to un- 
 derstand that the faith behind this rainy enterprise sang swifter 
 and more clear than any music of the pipes. 
 
 She heard them clatter down the road. She was soaked to 
 the skin, and her mare was fidgeting on the bridle which she 
 still held over-tight, forgetting that she grasped it. 
 
 " You will come indoors, Nance ? " said Lady Royd, shiver- 
 ing at the door. " They've gone, and we are left and that's 
 the woman's story always. Men do not care for us, except 
 as playthings when they see no chance of shedding blood." 
 
 Nance came out from her dreams. Not the quiet riding-out, 
 not the rain and the bitter wind, had chilled her as did the 
 knowledge that Will Underwood was absent from the meet. 
 She had hoped, without confessing it, that young Hunter's 
 gibe of yesterday would be disproved, that Will would be 
 there, whatever business had taken him abroad, in time to join 
 his fellows. He was not there; and, in the hand that was 
 free of her mare's bridle, she crushed the kerchief she had 
 had in readiness. He had asked for it, to wear when he rode 
 out and he had not claimed it and her pride grew resolute 
 and hot, as if one of her father's hinds had laughed at her. 
 
 " You're wet and shivering, child," said Lady Royd, her 
 temper frayed, as always, when men were stupid in their need 
 to get away from feather-beds. " I tell you, men are all 
 alike they follow any will-o'-the-wisp, and name him Faith. 
 Faith ? What has it done for you or me ? " 
 
 Nance quivered, as her mare did, here in the soaking rain 
 and the wind that would not be quiet. Yet she was resolute, 
 obedient to her training. " Faith ? " she said, with an odd 
 directness and simplicity. " It will have to help us through
 
 86 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 the waiting-time. What else? We are only women here, 
 and men too old for battle " 
 
 " You forget Rupert," broke in the other, with the tired 
 disdain that Nance hated. The girl did not know how Lady 
 Royd was suffering, how heart and strength and sense of well- 
 being had gone out with the husband who was all in all to her. 
 " Rupert the heir is here to guard us, Nance. The wind 
 will rave about the house dear heart! how it will rave, and 
 cry, and whistle but Rupert will be here! He'll quiet our 
 fears for us. He is so resolute, shall we say? so stay-at- 
 home. Cannot you see the days to come ? " she went on, seek- 
 ing a weak relief from pain in wounding others. " Rupert 
 will come down to us o' nights, when the corridors are 
 draughty with their ghosts, and will tell us he's been reading 
 books that we need fear no assault, surprisal, because good 
 King Charles died for the true faith." She drew her wrap 
 about her and shivered. 
 
 She was so dainty, so young of face, that her spite against 
 the first-born gathered strength by contrast. And, somehow, 
 warmth returned to Nance, though she was forlorn enough, 
 and wet to the skin. " So he did," she answered quickly. 
 " No light talk can alter that The King died when he 
 might have bought his life. He disdained to save himself." 
 
 Lady Royd laughed gently. " Oh, come indoors, my girl. 
 You'll find Rupert there and you can put your heads together, 
 studying old books." 
 
 " Old books ? Surely we've seen a new page turned to- 
 day ? These men who gathered to the Loyal Meet were they 
 fools, or bookish? Did they show like men who were riding 
 out for pastime ? " 
 
 " My dear," said Lady Royd, with a tired laugh, " the Stuart 
 faith becomes you. I see what Sir Jasper meant, when he said 
 one day that you were beautiful, and I would have it that 
 you had only the prettiness of youth. Rupert " 
 
 Nance stood at bay, her head up. She did not know her 
 heart, or the reason of this quiet, courageous fury that had
 
 THE HORSE THIEF 87 
 
 settled on her. " Rupert fought on the moor for my sake ; 
 you saw the plight Maurice came home in. I tell you, Rupert 
 can fight like other men." 
 
 " Oh, yes for books, and causes dead before our time." 
 
 " The Cause lives, Lady Royd to Rupert and myself," 
 broke in Nance impulsively. 
 
 So then the elder woman glanced at her with a new, mock- 
 ing interest. " So the wind sits there, child, does it? It is 
 ' Rupert and I ' to-day and to-morrow it will be ' we ' and 
 what will Mr. Underwood think of the pretty foolery, I 
 wonder ? " 
 
 The girl flushed. This tongue of Lady Royd's it was so 
 silken, and yet it bit like an unfriendly wind. " Mr. Under- 
 wood's opinion carries little weight these days," she said, gath- 
 ering her pride together. " He is known already as the man 
 who shirked his first big fence and ran away." 
 
 " Oh, then, you're like the rest of them ! All's hunting here, 
 it seems you cannot speak without some stupid talk of fox, 
 or hounds, or fences. For my part, I like Will Underwood. 
 He's smooth and easy, and a respite from the weather." 
 
 " Yes. He is that," assented Nance, with something of the 
 other's irony. 
 
 " He's a rest, somehow, from all the wind and rain and 
 downrightness of Lancashire. But, there ! We shall not agree, 
 Nance. You're too like your father and Sir Jasper. Come 
 indoors, and get those wet clothes oft. We shall take a chill, 
 the two of us, if we stand here." 
 
 Nance shivered, more from heart-chill than from cold of 
 body. 
 
 " Yes," she said " if only some one will take this mare of 
 mine to stable. She's wet and lonely. All her friends have 
 left her to seek the Langton Road." 
 
 Again the older woman was aware of a breadth of sym- 
 pathy, an instinctive care for their dumb fellows, that marked 
 so many of these hill-folk. It seemed barbarous to her that at 
 a time like this, when women's hearts were breaking for their
 
 88 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 men, Nance should be thinking of her mare's comfort and 
 peace of mind. 
 
 A step sounded across the courtyard. Both women glanced 
 up sharply, and saw Giles, the bailiff, a ludicrous anger and 
 worry in his face. 
 
 " Well, Giles ? " asked his mistress, with soft impatience. 
 "Are you a shirker, too?" 
 
 " No, my lady. I was not reared that way. Some cursed 
 fool asking pardon for my plain speech has stolen my 
 horse. I'll just have to o'ertake them on foot, I reckon 
 unless " 
 
 His glance rested on Nance's mare, big and strong enough 
 to carry him. 
 
 " But, Giles, we keep no horse-thieves at Windyhough," 
 said Lady Royd, in her gentle, purring voice. " Where did 
 you leave him ? " 
 
 " Tethered to the stable-door, my lady. He couldn't have 
 unslipped the bridle without human hands to help him. It 
 was this way. I had to see Sir Jasper mounted, and Maister 
 Maurice. They're raither feckless-like, unless they've got 
 Giles nigh handy to see that all goes well. Well, after they 
 were up i' saddle, I tried to get through the swarm o' folk i' 
 the courtyard, and a man on foot has little chance. So I bided 
 till they gat away, thinking I'd catch them up; and when 
 they'd ridden a lile way down the road, I ran to th' stable. 
 Th' stable-door was there all right, and th' ring for tething, 
 but blamed if my fiddle-headed horse warn't missing. It was 
 that way, my lady, take it or leave it and maister will be sadly 
 needing me." 
 
 He was business-like in all emergencies, and his glance wan- 
 dered again, as if by chance, from Nance's face to the mare's 
 bridle that she held. 
 
 " There's not a horse in Lancashire just the equal of my 
 chestnut," he said dispassionately ; " but I'd put up with an- 
 other, if 'twere offered me." 
 
 Nance, bred on the soil, knew what this sturdy, six-foot fel-
 
 THE HORSE THIEF 89 
 
 low asked of her. It was hard to give up the one solace she 
 had brought to Windyhough her mare, who would take her 
 long scampers up the pastures and the moor when she needed 
 room about her. 
 
 " She could not carry you, Giles," said the girl, answering 
 the plain meaning behind his words. 
 
 " Ay, blithely, miss. But, then, you wouldn't spare her, 
 like." 
 
 There was a moment's silence. Nance was asked to give up 
 something for the Cause something as dear to her as hedge- 
 rows, and waving sterns of hounds, and a game fox ahead. 
 Then she put the bridle into Giles's hand. 
 
 " On second thoughts " she halted to stroke the mare's 
 neck " I think, Giles, she'll carry you. Tell Sir Jasper that 
 the women, too, are leal, though they're compelled to stay at 
 home." 
 
 Giles wasted little time in thanks. Business-like, even in 
 this matter of running his neck into a halter, he sprang to the 
 mare's back. He would be sore before the day was out, be- 
 cause the saddle was wringing wet by this time; but he was 
 used to casual hardships. 
 
 Lady Royd watched the bailiff ride quickly down the road, 
 heard the last hoof-beats die away. " You are odd, you folk 
 up here," she said, with a warmer note in her tired voice. 
 " You did not give up your mare lightly, Nance and to Giles, 
 of all men. Who stole his horse, think you ? " 
 
 Nance answered without knowing she had framed the 
 thought. " Rupert is missing, too," she said, with an odd, 
 wayward smile. " I told you he had pluck." 
 
 Yet, after they had gone indoors, after she had changed her 
 riding-gear, Nance sat in the guest-chamber upstairs, and 
 tould think only of Will Underwood. Her dreams of him had 
 been so pleasant, so loyal ; she was not prepared to trample on 
 them. She saw him giving her a lead on many a bygone hunt- 
 ing-day saw the eager face, and heard his low, persuasive 
 voice.
 
 90 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 Nance was steadfast, even to disproven trust. She caught 
 hold of Sir Jasper's challenge yesterday, when men had 
 doubted Will. He would join them on the southward march. 
 Surely he would, knowing how well she liked him. And the 
 kerchief he had asked for it must wait, until he came in his 
 own time to claim it.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PRINCE COMES SOUTH 
 
 RUPERT stood in the little wood that bordered the Langton 
 road, waiting for Sir Jasper's company of horse to pass. It 
 would have been chilling work for hardier folk. The rain 
 soaked him to the skin ; the wind stabbed from behind, as the 
 sly north-easter does. He had no prospect of joining his 
 friends as yet ; his one hope was to follow them, like a culprit 
 fearing detection, until they and he had ridden so far from 
 Windyhough that they could not turn him back to eat his heart 
 out among the women. 
 
 Yet he was aglow with a sense of adventure. He was look- 
 ing ahead, for the first time in his life, to the open road that 
 he could share at last with braver men. The horse he had 
 borrowed from Giles was tugging at the bridle. He checked 
 it sharply, with a firmness that surprised the pair of them. He 
 was conscious of a curious gaiety and strength. 
 
 Far down the road at last he heard the clink of hoofs, then a 
 sharp word of command, and afterwards the gaining tumult 
 of horsemen trotting over sloppy ground. His horse began to 
 whinny, to strain at the bridle, wondering what the lad was 
 at. He quieted him as best he could, and the Loyal Meet that 
 swept past below him had neither thought nor hearing for the 
 uproar in the wood above. 
 
 Rupert saw his father and Squire Demaine riding with set 
 faces at the head of their motley gathering. Then, after all 
 had passed and the road seemed clear, there came again the 
 beat of hoofs from the far distance the hoofs of one horse 
 only, drumming feverishly along the road. And soon Giles, 
 the bailiff, passed him at a sweltering gallop; and Rupert saw 
 that he was riding Nance's mare. 
 
 91
 
 92 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 The scholar laughed suddenly. Intent on his own busi- 
 ness, he had not guessed until now that Giles would be troubled 
 when he found his fiddle-headed horse stolen. He could pic- 
 ture the bailiff's face, could hear his broad and Doric speech, 
 when he found himself without a mount. It was astonishing 
 to Rupert that he could laugh at such a time, for he was young 
 to the open road, and had yet to learn what a solace laughter 
 is to hard-bitten men who fear to take big happenings over- 
 seriously. 
 
 He heard Giles gallop out of earshot. Then he led his horse 
 through the wood and down into the highroad. There was no 
 onlooker to smile at his clumsy horsemanship, and for that 
 reason he mounted lightly and handled the reins with easy 
 firmness; and his horse, doubtful until now, found confidence 
 in this new rider. 
 
 The sun was well up, but it had no warmth. Its watery 
 light served only to make plainer the cold, sleety hills, the 
 drab-coloured slush of the trampled highway. Only a fool, 
 surely a fool with some instinct for the forlorn hope could 
 have woven romance about this scene of desolation. Yet 
 Rupert's courage was high, his horse was going blithely under 
 him. He was picturing, the crowd of wiser men whom he had 
 watched ride by the gentry, the thick-thewed yeomen whose 
 faces were known to him from childhood, the jolly farmers 
 who had taken their fences on more cheery hunting days than 
 this. Something stirred at the lad's heart as he galloped in 
 pursuit some reaching back to the olden days, some sense of 
 forward, eager hope. So had the men of Craven, just over 
 the Yorkshire border, ridden up to Flodden generations since 
 ridden from the plough and hunting-field to a battle that 
 gave them once for all their place in song and story. 
 
 And he, the Scholar, was part, it seemed, of this later riding 
 out that promised to bring new fame to Lancashire. All was 
 confused to him as he urged Giles's fiddle-headed nag to fresh 
 endeavour. Old tales of warfare, passed on from mouth to
 
 THE PRINCE COMES SOUTH 93 
 
 mouth along the generations, were mingled with this modern 
 battle that was in the making London way; voices from the 
 elder days stole down and whispered to him from the windy, 
 driven moors that had been his playmates. As if some mir- 
 acle had waited for him at the crossways of the Rising, where 
 many had chosen the road of doubt and some few the track 
 of faith, Rupert knew himself the heir at last the heir his 
 father had needed all these years. 
 
 His seat in the saddle was one that any knowledgable horse- 
 man might praise. The bailiff's chestnut was galloping with 
 a speed that had taken fire from the rider's need to catch up 
 the Loyal Meet. Rupert was so sure of himself, so sanguine. 
 He had let his friends ride forward without him because he 
 had not known how to tell them that at heart he was no fool ; 
 and now, when he overtook them, they would understand at 
 last. 
 
 They pounded over a straight, level stretch of road just 
 between Conie Cliff Wood and the little farm at the top of 
 Water Ghyll, and Rupert saw Bailiff Giles half a mile in front 
 of him. Giles was doing his best to ruin Nance's mare for life 
 in his effort to catch up the hunt ; and so Rupert, in the man's 
 way, must needs ask more of his own horse, too, than need de- 
 manded. He would catch up the bailiff, he told himself, 
 would race past him, would turn in saddle with a careless 
 shout that Giles would be late for the Meet unless he stirred 
 himself. His mood was the more boyish because until he 
 fought with his brother on the moors a while since he had not 
 tasted real freedom. 
 
 It was not his fault, nor his horse's, that they came heed- 
 lessly to a corner of the road where it dipped down a greasy, 
 curving slope. In the minds of both there was the need for 
 haste, and they were riding straight, the two of them. His 
 fiddle-headed beast slipped at the turning of the corner, reeled 
 half across the road in his effort to recover, and threw his 
 rider. When Rupert next awoke to knowledge of what was
 
 94 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 going forward he found himself alone. Far down the road 
 he could hear the rattle of his horse as it galloped madly 
 after its brethren that carried Sir Jasper's company. 
 
 Sir Jasper, meanwhile, had got to Langton High Street, had 
 drawn his men up on either side of the road. Their horses 
 were muddied to the girths. The riders were wet to the skin, 
 splashed and unheroic. Yet from the crowd that had gath- 
 ered from the rookeries and the by-streets of the town a 
 crowd not any way disposed to reverence the call of a Stuart 
 to his loyal friends a murmur of applause went up. They 
 had looked for dainty gentlemen, playing at heroics while the 
 poor ground at the mill named " daily bread." They saw in- 
 stead a company of horse whose members were not insolent, 
 or gay, or free from weariness. They saw working farmers, 
 known to them by sight, who were not accounted fools on 
 market-days. Some glimmering of intelligence came to these 
 townsfolk who led bitter lives among the by-streets. There 
 must be " some queer mak' o' sense about it," they grumbled 
 one to another, as they saw that the Loyal Meet was wet to the 
 skin, and grave and resolute. It was the like resolution 
 dumb, and without help from loyalty to a high Cause that 
 had kept many of them faithful to their wives, their children, 
 their houses in the back alleys of Langton Town. 
 
 The rain ceased for a while, and the sun came struggling 
 through a press of clouds. And up through the middle of the 
 street, between the two lines of horsemen and the chattering 
 crowd behind, a single figure walked. He was big in length 
 and beam, and he moved as if he owned the lives of men ; and 
 the shrill wind blew his cassock round him. 
 
 Sir Jasper moved his horse into the middle of the street, 
 stooped, and grasped the vicar's hand. 
 
 " We're well met, I think," he said. " What's your errand, 
 Vicar?" 
 
 " Oh, just to ring the church bells. My ringer is a George's 
 man so's my sexton ; and I said to both of them, in a plain 
 parson's way, that I'd need shriving if Langton, one way or
 
 THE PRINCE COMES SOUTH 95 
 
 t'other, didn't ring a Stuart through the town. I can handle 
 one bell, if not the whole team of six." 
 
 Sir Jasper laughed. So did his friends. So did the rabble 
 looking on. 
 
 " It's well we're here to guard you/' said Sir Jasper, 
 glancing at the crowd, whose aspect did not promise well for 
 Church bells and such temperate plain-song. 
 
 " By your leave, no," the Vicar answered with a jolly laugh. 
 " I know these folk o' Langton. They should know me, too, 
 by now, seeing how often I've whipped 'em from the pulpit 
 and at other times yes, at other times, maybe." 
 
 The Vicar, grey with endeavour and constancy to his trust, 
 was vastly like Rupert, riding hard in quest of a boy's first 
 adventure. He stood to his full height, and nodded right and 
 left to the townsmen who were pressing already between the 
 flanks of Stuart horses. 
 
 " Men o' Langton," he said, his voice deep, cheery, resonant, 
 " Sir Jasper says I need horsemen to guard me in my own 
 town. Give him your answer." 
 
 The loyal horse, indeed, were anxious for the Vicar's safety, 
 seeing this rabble swarm into the middle of the High Street, 
 through the double line of riders that had kept them back 
 till now. They were riding forward already, but the parson 
 waved them back. 
 
 The Vicar stood now in the thick of a roaring crowd that 
 had him at its mercy. Sir Jasper, who loved a leal man, 
 tried to get his horse a little nearer, but could not without 
 riding down defenceless folk; and, while he and his friends 
 were in grave anxiety and doubt, a sudden hum of laughter 
 came from the jostling crowd. 
 
 " Shoulder him, lads ! " cried one burly fellow. 
 
 Five other stalwarts took up the cry, and the Vicar, protest- 
 ing with great cheeriness, was lifted shoulder high. And 
 gradually it grew clear to the Loyal Meet that the parson, as 
 he had boasted, was safe nay, was beloved among these 
 working-folk of Langton.
 
 96 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 They moved up the street, followed by the rabble, and the 
 two lines of the Loyal Meet were facing each other once more 
 across the emptying roadway. And by and by, from the old 
 church on the hill, a furious peal rang out. The Vicar, who 
 was a keen horseman himself, had named his bells "a team 
 of six " ; and never in its history, perhaps, had the team been 
 driven with such recklessness. The parson held one rope 
 one rein, as he preferred to call it and knew how to handle 
 it. But his five allies had only goodwill to prompt them in 
 their attempt to ring a peal. 
 
 There was noise enough, to be sure ; and across the uproar 
 another music sounded music less full-bodied, but piercing, 
 urgent, not to be denied. 
 
 Sir Jasper lifted his head, as a good hound does when he 
 hears the horn. " Gentlemen," he said, " the pipes, the blessed 
 pipes ! D'ye hear them ? The Prince is near." 
 
 They scarcely heard the jangling bells. Keen, swift, tri- 
 umphant, the sweetest music in the world came louder and 
 louder round the bend of Langton Street. The riders could 
 not sit still in saddle, but were drumming lightly with their 
 feet, as if their stirrups were a dancing-floor. Their horses 
 fidgeted and neighed. 
 
 And then Prince Charles Edward came into Langton, and 
 these gentry of the Loyal Meet forgot how desolate and cold 
 the dawn had been. Some of them had waited thirty years 
 for this one moment; others, the youngsters and the middle- 
 aged, had been reared on legends of that unhappy '15 Rising 
 which had not chilled the faith of Lancashire. And all seemed 
 worth while now, here in the sunlit street, that was wet and 
 glistening with the late persistent rain. 
 
 The Prince rode alone, his officers a few yards in the rear, 
 and behind them the strange army, made up of Scottish gentry, 
 of Highlanders in kilts, of plain Lowland farmers armed with 
 rusty swords, with scythe-blades fixed on six-foot poles, with 
 any weapon that good luck had given to their hands. 
 
 It was not this motley crew that Sir Jasper saw, nor any of
 
 THE PRINCE COMES SOUTH 97 
 
 his company. It was not Lord Murray, a commanding figure 
 at another time ; not Lochiel, lean and debonair and princely, 
 though both rode close behind the Prince. 
 
 The Prince himself drew all men's eyes. His clothes, his 
 Highland bonnet, had suffered from the muddy wet ; the bright 
 hair, that had pleased ladies up in Edinburgh not long ago 
 when he danced at Holyrood, was clotted by the rain. He 
 stood plainly on his record as a man, without any of the 
 fripperies to which women give importance. 
 
 And the record was graven on his tired, eager face. Forced 
 marches had told on him. His sleepless care for the least 
 among his followers had told on him. He knew that Marshal 
 Wade was hurrying from Northumberland to overtake him, 
 that he was riding through a country worse than hostile a 
 country indifferent for the most part, whose men were reck- 
 oning up the chances either way, and choosing as prudence, 
 not the heart, dictated. Yet behind him was some unswerv- 
 ing purpose; and, because he had no doubt of his own faith, 
 he seemed to bring a light from the farther hills into this 
 muddy street of Langton. 
 
 He drew rein, and those behind him pulled up sharply. 
 The pipes ceased playing, and it seemed as if a healthy, nip- 
 ping wind had ceased to blow from these sleet-topped hills of 
 Lancashire. The Loyal Meet rose in their stirrups, and their 
 uproar drowned the Vicar's bells. They were men applaud- 
 ing a stronger man, and the pipes themselves could find no 
 better music. 
 
 Sir Jasper rode forward with bared head, and the Prince, 
 doffing his bonnet in return, reached out a capable, firm hand. 
 
 " Leal and punctual, sir. I give you greeting," he said. 
 
 And the tears, do as he would, were in Sir Jasper's eyes. 
 This man with the fair, disordered hair and the face that 
 laughed its weariness away, was kingly, resolute, instinct with 
 the larger air that comes of long apprenticeship to royalty. He 
 and the Loyal Meet and all the ragged army might be on 
 their way to execution before the week was out ; but the Prince
 
 98 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 was following this day's business without fear of the morrow, 
 as creed and training taught him. 
 
 " All Langton gives your Highness greeting," answered Sir 
 Jasper, faltering a little because his feelings were so stirred. 
 " Our bells are ringing you into your kingdom." 
 
 The Prince glanced keenly at him, at the faces of the 
 Loyal Meet. He was quick of intuition, and saw, for the first 
 time since crossing the Border, that light of zeal, of courage to 
 the death, which he had hoped to find in England. 
 
 " We're something wet and hungry," he said, with the quiet 
 laugh that had less mirth than sadness in it. " You hearten 
 us, I think. My father, as I was setting sail, bade me re- 
 member that Lancashire was always the county of fair women 
 and clean faith." 
 
 Lord Murray was tired and wet, like the rest of the army ; 
 and, to add to his evil plight, he was consumed by the jealousy 
 and self-importance that were his besetting luxuries. " The 
 church bells, your Highness," he said, glancing up the street 
 " I trust it's no ill omen that they ring so desperately out of 
 tune." 
 
 Sir Jasper saw the Prince move impatiently in saddle, saw 
 him struggle with some irritation that was not of yesterday. 
 And he felt, rather than framed the clear thought, that there 
 were hot-and-cold folk among the Scots, as here in Lancashire. 
 
 Then the Prince's face cleared. " My lord Murray," he said 
 suavely, " all bells ring in tune when loyal hands are at the 
 ropes. Your ear, I think, is not trained to harmony. And 
 now, gentlemen, what food is in your town ? Enough to give 
 a mouthful to us all? Good! We can spare an hour in 
 Langton, and after that we must be jogging forward." 
 
 The hour was one of surprise to Sir Jasper and his friends. 
 Here was an army strong enough to raid the town, to break 
 into the taverns, to commit licence and excess ; yet there was 
 no licence, nor thought of it. A Stuart, his fair hair mud- 
 died and unkempt, had charge of this march south ; and his will 
 was paramount, because his army loved him. No fear, no
 
 THE PRINCE COMES SOUTH 99 
 
 usual soldier's obedience to discipline, could have hindered 
 these Scots from rapine when they found the town's resources 
 scanty for their hunger ; but the fearlessness, the comradeship 
 of their leader had put honour, sharp as a sword, between temp- 
 tation and themselves. 
 
 " We must foot our bill here, Sir Jasper," said the Prince 
 as they were preparing to ride out again. 
 
 " Oh, that can wait " 
 
 " No, by your leave ! Theft is the trade of men who steal 
 thrones. I will not have it said that any town in England 
 was poorer because a Stuart came that way. Lochiel, you 
 carry our royal purse," he broke off, with a quick, impulsive 
 laugh. " Peep into it and see how much is left." 
 
 " Enough to pay our score, your Highness." 
 
 " Then we're rich, Lochiel ! We may be poor to-morrow, 
 but to-day we're rich enough to pay our debts." 
 
 A half -hour later they rode out into the wintry, ill-found 
 roads, into the open country, wet and desolate, that was 
 guarded by sleet-covered uplands. And Sir Jasper, who had 
 the countryman's superstitious outlook on the weather, re- 
 membered Lord Murray, his cold, easy smile, as he said that 
 the Langton bells were ringing out of tune. 
 
 A mile south from Langton, as Giles, the bailiff at Windy- 
 hough, was riding not far behind the gentry having at heart 
 the need to keep his master well in sight a fiddle-headed horse 
 came blundering down the road. The beast was creamed with 
 foam, and he scattered the footmen right and left as he made 
 forward. Only when he reached Giles's side he halted, stood 
 shivering with the recoil from his own wild gallop, and pushed 
 his nose up against the bailiff's bridle-hand. And Giles, with 
 scant respect for the mare that had carried him so far, slipped 
 from the saddle, and fussed about the truant as if he were a 
 prodigal returned. Giles did not heed that he was holding up 
 all the men behind, that the gentlemen in front had drawn 
 rein, aware of some disturbance in the rear, and that the Prince 
 himself was asking what the trouble was.
 
 100 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " Where hast been, old lad? I thought thee lost," the bail- 
 iff was muttering, with all a countryman's disregard of bigger 
 issues when his heart was touched. And the horse could not 
 tell him that, after throwing Rupert, he had lost sight of 
 the master he pursued and had wasted time in seeking him 
 down casual by-roads. " Ye've had an ill rider, by the look o' 
 thee. Ye threw him, likely? Well, serve him right serve 
 him varry right." 
 
 Giles, with a slowness that suggested he had all the time in 
 the world to spare, got to the back of the fiddle-headed chest- 
 nut, and felt at home again. 
 
 "What mun I do wi' this lile nag?" he asked dispassion- 
 ately, still holding the reins of Nance's borrowed mare. 
 
 Sir Jasper, seeing that his bailiff was the cause of this un- 
 expected check, could not keep back his laughter. 
 
 " What is the pleasantry? " asked the Prince. " Tell it me. 
 I think we need a jest or two, if we're to get safely over these 
 evil roads of yours." 
 
 " Oh, it is naught, your Highness naught at all, unless you 
 know Giles as I do. He thinks more of that fiddle-headed 
 horse of his than of the pick amongst our Lancashire hunters 
 and he's holding up our whole advance." 
 
 " What mun I do wi' the mare ? " repeated Giles, looking 
 round him with a large impassiveness. " I can't take a led 
 mare to Lunnon and do my share o' fighting by the way. It 
 stands to reason I mun have one hand free." 
 
 The Prince, whose instinct for the humour of the road had 
 put heart into his army since the forced march began, looked 
 quietly for a moment at Giles's face. Its simplicity, masking 
 a courage hard as bog-oak, appealed to him. " By your 
 leave, Sir Jasper," he said, " my horse will scarcely last the 
 day out these roads have punished him. I shall be glad of 
 the mare, if you will lend her to me." 
 
 When the march was moving forward again, the Prince in 
 the grey mare's saddle, Lord Murray turned to an intimate 
 who rode beside him. " His Highness forgets old saws," he
 
 THE PRINCE COMES SOUTH 101 
 
 murmured, with the insolent assurance that attaches to the 
 narrow-minded " ' Never change horses when crossing a 
 stream' surely all prudent Scotsmen know the superstition." 
 
 But Sir Jasper, riding close beside the Prince, did not hear 
 him. His heart, in its own way, was simple as Giles's, and he 
 was full of pride. " I wish my god-daughter could know," he 
 said. 
 
 "Your god-daughter?" echoed the other. 
 
 " Yes Nance Demaine. It is her mare you've borrowed, 
 sir and I should know, seeing I gave it her though for the 
 life of me I can't guess how she chanced to join the Rising." 
 
 The Prince smiled as his glance met Sir Jasper's. " There's 
 no chance about this Rising," he said pleasantly, as if he 
 talked of the weather or the crops. " We're going to the 
 Throne, my friend, or to the death ; but, either way, there's no 
 chance about it and no regrets, I think." 
 
 Sir Jasper felt again that sharp, insistent pity which had 
 come to him at sight of the yellow-haired laddie who had left 
 women's hearts aching up across the border. In this wild 
 campaign it seemed that he had met a friend. And he spoke, 
 as comrades do, disdaining ceremony. 
 
 " That is the faith I hold," he said, with an odd gentleness 
 that seemed to have the strength of the moors behind it. 
 " Comrades are few on the road o' life, your Highness." 
 
 The Prince glanced at. him, as he had glanced at Giles not 
 long ago shrewdly, with mother-wit and understanding. 
 " They're few," he said " and priceless. I would God, sir, 
 that you'd infect my lord Murray with something of your 
 likeable, warm spirit." 
 
 And Sir Jasper sighed, as he looked far down the road to 
 London, and reckoned up the leagues of hardship they must 
 traverse. Their task was perilous enough for men united in 
 common zeal ; dissension from within, of which he had al- 
 ready heard more hints than one, was a more dangerous enemy 
 than Marshal Wade and all his army of pursuit. 
 
 Yet Sir Jasper had relief in action, in the need to meet
 
 102 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 every workaday happening of the march. With his son, 
 thrown on the Langton Road, and listening to the hoof-beats 
 of the runaway horse as he went to join the Rising, the case 
 was otherwise. His one comrade had deserted him. He was 
 here on the empty road, with failure for his sole companion. 
 His first impulse was the horse's to run fast and hard, in 
 the hope of overtaking his own kind. He ran forward dizzily, 
 tripped over a stone that some wagoner had used to check his 
 wheel while he rested his team, got up again, and felt a sharp, 
 throbbing pain in his right ankle. He tried to plod on, for all 
 that, his face set London way failed, and sat down by the 
 wet roadside. And the wheels of circumstance passed over 
 him, numbing his faith in God. 
 
 They all but crushed him. He had dreamed of Prince 
 Charles Edward ; had learned at last to sit a horse, because he 
 needed to follow where high enterprise was in the doing ; had 
 known the luxury of a gallop in pursuit of men who had 
 thought him short of initiative. 
 
 And now he was the Scholar again. His horse had failed 
 him. His own feet had played him false. He sat there, wet 
 and homeless, and from the cloudy hills a smooth, contemptuous 
 voice came whispering at his ear. Best be done with a life 
 that had served him ill. He was a hindrance to himself, to 
 his friends. Best creep down to the pool at the road-foot ; he 
 had bathed there often in summer and knew its depth. Best 
 end it all the shame, the laughter of strong men, the con- 
 stant misadventure that met him by the way. He was weak 
 and accursed. None would miss him if he went to sleep. 
 
 " No," he said deliberately, as if answering an enemy in 
 human shape, " a Royd could not do it." 
 
 Sir Jasper's view of his first-born was finding confirmation. 
 The soul of the lad had been tempered to a nicety, and the 
 bodily pain scarce troubled him, as he set his face away from 
 London and the Prince, and limped toward home. Now and 
 then he was forced to rest, because sickness would not let him 
 see the road ahead ; but always he got up again. Self -blame
 
 THE PRINCE COMES SOUTH 103 
 
 had grown to be a mischievous habit with him, and he was 
 ashamed now that he had deserted his allotted post. True, his 
 father, in bidding him guard Windyhough, had practised a 
 tender fraud on him ; but he had given his word, and had been 
 false to it when the first haphazard temptation met him by the 
 way. It had been so easy to steal Giles's horse, so easy to 
 scamper off along the road of glamour, so bitter-hard to stay 
 among the women. 
 
 The lad was over-strained and heartsick, ready to make 
 molehills into mountains ; yet his shame was bottomed on 
 sound instinct. He came of a soldier-stock, and in the tissues 
 of him was interwoven this contempt for the sentry who for- 
 sook his post. No danger threatened Windyhough. He was 
 returning to a duty which, in itself, was idle; but he had 
 pledged his word. 
 
 He struggled forward. The road to London was not for 
 him; but at least he could keep faith with the father who 
 was riding now, no doubt, beside the Prince.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE HEIR RETURNS 
 
 AT Windyhough, Martha the dairymaid was restless, like all 
 the women left about the house. She could not settle to her 
 work, though it was churning-day, and good cream was likely 
 to be wasted. Martha at five-and-thirty, had not found a 
 mate, yet she would have made a good wife to any man; 
 strong, supple, with wind and roses in her cheeks, she was born 
 to matronhood; though, by some blindness that had hindered 
 the farmer-folk about her when she crossed their path, she 
 had not found her road in life. And, in her quiet, practical 
 way, she knew that the shadows were beginning to lengthen 
 down her road, that she might very well go on dairying, eat- 
 ing, sleeping, till they buried her in the churchyard of St. 
 John's no more, no less. 
 
 The prospect had never shown so cheerless as it did just 
 now. The men, as their habit was, had all the luck ; they had 
 gone off on horseback, pretending that some cause or other 
 took them into open country. For her part, she was tired of 
 being left behind. 
 
 Lady Royd was indoors. The housekeeper was not about 
 to keep the maids attentive to routine. All was silent and 
 lack-lustre; and Martha went down the road till she reached 
 the gate at its foot the gate that stood open after letting the 
 Loyal Meet ride through. 
 
 " It's queer and lonesome, when all's said," she thought, 
 swinging gently on the gate. " Men are bothersome cattle- 
 full o' tempers and contrariness but, dear heart, I miss their 
 foolishness." 
 
 She thought the matter out for lack of better occupation, 
 but came to no conclusion. In front of her, as she sat on the 
 
 104
 
 THE HEIR RETURNS 105 
 
 top bar of the gate, she could see the muddied hoof-tracks that 
 marked the riding-out. Her own father, her two brothers, 
 were among Sir Jasper's company; they were thrifty, com- 
 mon-sense folk, like herself, and she wondered if there was 
 something practical, after all, in this business that had left 
 Windyhough so empty and so silent. 
 
 A man's figure came hobbling up the road a broad, well- 
 timbered figure enough, but bent about the legs and shoulders. 
 It was Simon Foster, coming in tired out from roaming up 
 and down the pastures. Though scarce turned fifty, he had 
 been out with the '15 Rising, thirty years ago ; but rheumatism 
 had rusted his joints before their time, and to-day, because he 
 was not fit to ride with haler men, he had kept away from the 
 Meet at Windyhough, for he dared not trust himself to stand 
 an onlooker at this new Rising. 
 
 Martha got down from the gate, and opened it with a mock 
 curtsey. " I'm pleased to see a man, Simon," she said, moved 
 by some wintry coquetry. " I began to fancy, like, we were 
 all women here at Windyhough." 
 
 " So we are," he growled " but I'd set ye in your places, 
 that I would, if nobbut I could oil my joints." 
 
 " You've come home in a nice temper, Simon." 
 
 " Ay, lass, and I'll keep it, till I know whether Sir Jasper 
 has set a crown on the right head. It isn't easy, biding here 
 wi' Lancashire weather " 
 
 " And Lancashire witches," put in Martha, with sly provoca- 
 tion. 
 
 Simon was tired, and had nothing especial to do; so he 
 stayed awhile, telling himself that a maid's blandishments, 
 though daft and idle, were one way of passing the time. " Oh, 
 ay, you're snod enough, Martha," he said, rubbing his lean 
 chin. " I've seen few in my time to better ye." 
 
 " Now, Simon ! And they say your tongue is rough as an 
 old file. For my part, I allus knew ye could be kind and 
 easy, if ye'd a mind to." 
 
 " I war a bit of a devil once, may be," he admitted, with a
 
 106 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 slow, pleasant laugh, as if he praised himself unduly for past 
 escapades. " Ay, a bit of a devil, Martha. I'll own to it. 
 But rheumatiz has taught me sense since them days." 
 
 " Sense is as you take it, Simon. Ye might shoot wider o' 
 the mark than to peep at a lass's een, just whiles, like." 
 
 Simon Foster, feeling that their talk grew warmer than 
 mere pleasantry demanded, glanced away from the topic. " I 
 saw summat on my way down fro' the moor," he said, dry and 
 matter-of-fact once more. " There's no accounting for it, but 
 I saw it with my two eyes, and I'm puzzled. You wouldn't 
 call me less than sober, Martha ? " 
 
 " No," she put in dryly. " Sobriety was allus a little bit of 
 a failing wi' ye, Simon. There's times to be sober, I allus 
 did say and times to be playful, as the kitten said to the 
 tabby-cat." 
 
 " Well, I happened to look into th' sky, just as I'd getten 
 past Timothy Wantless's barn, and I saw summat," went on 
 Simon stolidly. 
 
 " So ye went star-gazing ? Shame on ye ! Only lads i' 
 their courting time go star-gazing." 
 
 " Maybe. But it was daylight, as it happened, and I wasn't 
 thinking o' courtship not just then," he added guardedly. 
 " I war thinking of an old mare I meant to sell Timothy Want- 
 less to-morn for twice as much as she's worth. She wasn't 
 fit to carry one o' Sir Jasper's men, and she'll ruin him i* 
 corn afore he comes back fro' Lunnon, and it stands to reason 
 she mun be sold for what she'll fetch. And I war scratching 
 my head, like, wondering how I'd get round Timothy he's 
 stiff and snappy at a bargain when I happened to look up 
 and there war men on horseback, fair i' th' middle o' the sky, 
 riding all as it might have been a hunting day." 
 
 " Good sakes ! I'll go skerry to my bed, Simon." 
 
 " It war queer, I own ; and, if they'd been on safe ground, 
 I'd have run in to see what 'twas all about; but, seeing they 
 were up above, I watched 'em a while, and then I left 'em to 
 it."
 
 THE HEIR RETURNS 107 
 
 Martha's brief mood of superstition passed. " Simon, 
 you're as sober as a man that's never had th' chance to step into 
 an ale-house, and you're over old to be courting-daft " 
 
 " Not so old, my lass," he broke in, with the heat she had 
 tempted from him. " I should know, at my age, how to court 
 a woman." 
 
 " I believe you do, Simon if nobbut you'd try your hand, 
 like." 
 
 " Lads go daft about ye women think ye're all made up 
 of buttercups and kiss-me-quicks. But I know different." 
 
 "Oh, ay?" asked Martha gently. "What d'ye know, 
 Simon?" 
 
 " Naught so much, lass only that women are like nettles. 
 Handle 'em tenderly, and they'll gi'e ye a rash ye can feel for 
 a week o' days. But grasp 'em and they're soft as let- 
 tuces." 
 
 " I allus did say older men had more sense than lads. 
 You're right, Simon. Grasp us " 
 
 " Ay, another day," said Simon bluntly, and with a hint of 
 fear. " For my part, I'm too full o' Sir Jasper's business to 
 heed any sort o' moonshine." 
 
 He was half up the road already, but she enticed him back. 
 
 " These men you saw riding in the sky, Simon ? You've 
 frightened me and I was allus feared o' ghosties." 
 
 Simon, though he would not admit it, was troubled by the 
 picture he had seen, up yonder on the moors; and, after the 
 human fashion, he was willing to share his trouble with 
 another. 
 
 " Well, I saw 'em no denying that," he said, returning 
 slowly. " There were two riding at the front like as it might 
 have been Sir Jasper and Squire Demaine and a lot o' horse- 
 men scampering after. There was thick haze all across the 
 sky, and I saw 'em like a picture in a printed book. I'd have 
 thought less about it, Martha, if it hadn't been that Maister 
 Rupert the day, ye mind, he came home from fighting his 
 brother told me how, that varry morn, he'd seen the like pic-
 
 108 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 ture up above his head just horsemen, he said, galloping up 
 and down where honest sky should be." 
 
 " Ben o' the stables war talking of it awhile since, now I 
 call to mind. One here and there had seen the same sort 
 o' picture, he said; but I paid no heed. Ben was allus light 
 and feather-brained not steady, Simon, like ye." 
 
 Her glance was tender, frank, dismaying; and Simon an- 
 swered it with a slow, foolish smile. " Steady is as steady 
 does. For my part what wi' rheumatiz, and seeing other 
 folk get all the fighting, and me left at home ye could mak 
 a bit of a lile fool o' me, Martha, I do believe. Ye're so bon- 
 nie, like " 
 
 " No harm i' that, is there?" 
 
 " Well, not just what ye'd call harm not exactly harm but 
 my day's over, lass." 
 
 " That's what the rooster said when he war moulting, 
 Simon; but he lived to crow another day." 
 
 Simon had learned from the far-off days of soldiering that 
 there are times when the bravest are counselled to retreat in 
 good order. " Well, I'm i' the moult just now," he said im- 
 passively, " and it's time I gat into th' house, now they're made 
 me some queer sort of indoor servant. Lady Royd will be 
 wanting this and that ye know her pretty-prat way, needing 
 fifty things i' a minute." 
 
 " But, Simon " 
 
 He trudged steadily forward, not turning his head; and 
 Martha sighed as she climbed the gate again and began to 
 rock gently to and fro. " Men are kittlesome cattle," she said 
 discontentedly. 
 
 Round the bend of the road below she heard the sound of 
 footsteps halting steps that now and then ceased for a while. 
 She forgot Simon, forgot her peevishness, as she saw the 
 figure that came up the road towards her. All the mother- 
 hood that was strong and eager in this lass came to the front 
 as she saw Rupert, the heir Rupert, who had been missing 
 since the dawn come home in this derelict, queer fashion.
 
 THE HEIR RETURNS 109 
 
 She ran out and put an arm about him. He was not the heir 
 now, the master left in charge of Windyhough ; he was the lad 
 whose cries she had helped to still, long since in nursery days. 
 
 " Why, sir, ye're i' th' wars, and proper. You're limping 
 sorely." 
 
 Rupert steadied himself against her arm for a moment, then 
 put her away and went forward. " Nay, I'm out of the wars, 
 Martha," he said, with the rare smile that made friends among 
 those who chanced to see it. " I'm out of the wars and 
 that's my trouble." 
 
 " But you're limping " 
 
 " Yes," he snapped, with sudden loss of temper. " I'm limp- 
 ing, Martha since my birth. That's no news to me." 
 
 He went in at the door of Windyhough, and in the hall 
 encountered Lady Royd. The light was dim here, and she did 
 not see his weariness. 
 
 " Where have you been, Rupert ? " she asked peevishly. 
 
 He kissed her lightly on the cheek. " I've been up the 
 moors, mother," he said, " planning how best to defend Windy- 
 hough if the attack should come." He was here to take up 
 the post allotted to him, and to his last ebb of strength he 
 meant to be debonair and cheery, as his father would have 
 been under like hardship. " There are so few men left here, 
 and all of us are either old, or or useless," he added, with 
 his whimsical, quiet smile. 
 
 Lady Royd, oppressed by loneliness, swept out of her self- 
 love by the storm of this Loyal Meet that had left her in its 
 wake, stood near to the life which is known to workaday folk 
 the life made up of sleet and a little sun, of work and the 
 need for faith and courage. She looked at her boy, trying to 
 read his face in the dull, uncertain light; and her heart ached 
 for him. 
 
 " But, Rupert," she said by and by, " there's no fear of at- 
 tack. The march has gone south the fighting will be there, 
 not here you overheard your father say as much." 
 
 He winced, remembering the eagerness with which he had
 
 110 THE LOXE ADVENTURE 
 
 followed Sir Jasper round the house, the pride he had felt 
 in noting each loophole, the muskets, and the piles of shot en- 
 trusted to his care. He recalled, with minute and pitiful 
 exactness, how afterwards he had been an unwilling listener 
 while his father said it had been all a fairy-tale to lull his 
 elder-born to sleep. 
 
 " My father said it was child's-play," he answered quietly. 
 "Yes, I'm not likely to forget just what he said and what 
 he left unsaid. But, mother, the storm might blow this way 
 again, and I'm here to guard you, as I promised." 
 
 The day was no easy one for Rupert, accustomed from child- 
 hood to find himself in the rear of action. Yet it was harder 
 to Lady Royd, who had known little discipline till now, who 
 looked at this son who was counted scholarly, and, with eyes 
 accustomed to the dim light of the hall, saw at last the stub- 
 born manhood in his face. 
 
 " I did not guess," she said, her voice gentle, wondering, 
 submissive " Rupert, I did not guess till now why your 
 father was always so full of trust in you." 
 
 His eyes brightened. He had expected a colder welcome 
 from this pretty, sharp-tongued mother. It seemed, after all, 
 he had done well to return to his post at Windyhough. His 
 thoughts ran forward, like a pack in full cry. The battle 
 might shift north again there might be some hot skirmish in 
 the open, or the need to protect fugitives at Windyhough or 
 twenty pleasant happenings that would give him escape from 
 idle sentry-duty here. Rupert was at his dreams again. An 
 hour since he had dragged himself along the road, sick at 
 heart, sick of body, disillusioned altogether ; and now he was 
 eager with forward hope because Lady Royd, from the pain 
 of her own trouble, had found one swift word of encourage- 
 ment. Encouragement had been rare in the lad's life, and he 
 found it a fine stimulant too fine a one for his present needs. 
 He moved quickly forward. His damaged foot bent under 
 him, and for a moment the pain made him wince. 
 
 " It is nothing, mother," he said, dropping on to the settle
 
 THE HEIR RETURNS 111 
 
 and looking up with the quiet smile that haunted her. " I'm 
 tired and wet wet through to the heart, I think let me get 
 up and help you." 
 
 She did not know what to do with this son, who was grow- 
 ing dearer to her each moment. Shut off from real life too 
 long, she had no skill such as workaday mothers would have 
 learned by now, and she called shrilly for the servants. 
 
 A big man, bent in the body, made his way forward pres- 
 ently through the women, pushing them aside as if he picked 
 his way through useless lumber. It was Simon Foster, who 
 had grown used, in the far-off '15 Rising, to the handling of 
 wounded men. 
 
 " A baddish sprain no more, no less," he growled, after 
 he had taken off boot and stocking and looked at the swollen 
 ankle. 
 
 " Oh, the poor lad ! " cried Lady Royd, fidgety and useless. 
 " Go, one of you, for the surgeon " 
 
 " There's no need, my lady," broke in Simon Foster. He 
 had forgotten the manners of a trained servant, and was back 
 again in the happy days when he had carried a pike for the 
 Cause and did not know it lost. " I've mended worse mat- 
 ters than this in my time. You, Martha, get bandages. 
 They're somewhere handy we brought plenty in at haytime, 
 along with the powder-kegs." 
 
 Lady Royd did not rebuke him. Martha, who not long 
 since had tempted him to folly, went off submissively to do 
 his bidding. It seemed natural to these women that a man 
 should be in command a man who knew his mind and did 
 not turn aside. 
 
 " There," said Simon, after he had strapped the ankle. " It 
 will bother ye a while, master, but there's a lot o' time for 
 rest these days at Windyhough. Let me gi'e ye an arm up the 
 stair. Ye'd best get to bed, I reckon." 
 
 Nance Demaine had kept to her room this morning. They 
 had brought her to Windyhough, had taken her mare, had left 
 her derelict in a house that harboured only memories of past
 
 112 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 deeds. The active men were gone; the mettled horses were 
 gone ; she was bidden to keep within four walls, and wait, and 
 pray. And she wished neither to pray nor to be stifled by 
 four house-walls; she longed to be out in the open country, 
 following the open road that had led to her heart's desire. 
 Tired of her own thoughts at last, she went out on to the land- 
 ing, with a restless sense that duty was calling her below- 
 stairs ; but she got no farther than the window that looked on 
 a stormy sweep of moorland. 
 
 Nance was in a bitter mood, as she sat in the window-seat 
 and watched the white, lifeless hills, the sodden fields. Squire 
 Demaine had trained her to love of galloping and loyalty, had 
 taught her that England's one, prime need was to see a Stuart 
 on the throne again ; and now, when deeds were asked of 
 men and women both, he had left her here, to weave sam- 
 plers, or to help Lady Royd brew simples in the stillroom, 
 while they waited for their men to come home from the 
 slaying. 
 
 There was Will Underwood, too. With the obstinacy that 
 attaches to a girl's first love, she was warm in defence of him 
 against the men who had liked him some few of them but 
 had never trusted him. He had not come to claim her ker- 
 chief. Well, he would claim it another day; he had his own 
 reasons, doubtless, for joining the Meet farther south. Some 
 urgent message had reached him from the Prince himself, 
 may be bidding him ride out on an errand of especial dan- 
 ger. No surmise was too wild to find acceptance. He was 
 so strong, so graceful and well-favoured ; he sat his horse so 
 well, courted risks which prudent riders declined. It was 
 fitting that he should be chosen for some post demanding 
 gaiety, a firm seat in saddle, and reckless courage. 
 
 Nance, for all the sleety outlook, was seeing this Rising again 
 as a warm, impulsive drama. She had watched Sir Jasper 
 and her father ride out, had been chilled by their simple 
 gravity ; but she had forgotten the lesson already, in her girl's 
 need for the alluring and the picturesque. This love of hers
 
 THE HEIR RETURNS 113 
 
 for Underwood was an answer to the like need. At all haz- 
 ards she must have warmth and colour, to feed her young, 
 impulsive dreams of a world built in the midst of fairyland. 
 She could not know, just yet, that the true warmth, the true, 
 vivid colours come to those who, not concerned with the 
 fairyland of make-believe, ride leal and trusty through the 
 wind that stings their faces, over the sloppy, ill-found roads 
 that spatter them with mud. 
 
 She was desolate, this child who sat in the window-seat and 
 constructed all afresh the picture of her hero-lover. She was 
 weaving one of the samplers she despised, after all not with 
 wool and canvas, but in fancy's loom. Obstinate in her de- 
 mand for vivid drama, she was following Will Underwood 
 already on this errand that the Prince had entrusted to his 
 care. She saw him riding through the dangerous night roads, 
 and prayed for his safety, at each corner of a highway peopled 
 with assassins. She saw him galloping recklessly in open day- 
 light, meeting odds laughable in their overwhelming number, 
 killing his men, not singly but by scores, as he rode on, un- 
 touched, and gay, and loyal to his trust. It is so that young 
 love is apt to make its idol a knight miraculous, moving 
 through a cloud-land too ethereal for the needs of each day 
 as it comes. Nance Demaine could hold her own in the open 
 country; but here, shut in by the walls of a house that was 
 old and dumb, waiting for the men's return, she reached out 
 for Will Underwood's help, and needed him or needed the 
 untried, easy air of romance that he carried with him. 
 
 She got up from the window-seat at last. The sleet and 
 the piping wind wearied her. She was tired already of inac- 
 tion, ashamed of the thoughts that could not keep away from 
 pictures of Will Underwood, riding on the Prince's service. 
 She remembered that she was a guest here, that she must 
 get away from her dreams as best she might. 
 
 " I must go down," she said fretfully. " Lady Royd will be 
 needing me. And she'll take my hands, and cry a little, and 
 ask me, ' Will Sir Jasper live ? ' And then she'll kiss me, and
 
 114 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 cry again, and ask, ' Will Sir Jasper die ? ' Oh, I know it all 
 beforehand ! But I must go down." 
 
 Even now she could not bring herself to the effort. She 
 paced up and down the floor of her bedchamber. Disdain of 
 her position here, intemperate dislike of weaklings, the long- 
 ing to be out and about under the free sky, were overwhelm- 
 ing in their call to this child who needed discipline. And, 
 though she was Squire Demaine's child, she resented this first, 
 drab-coloured call of duty. 
 
 She braced herself to the effort. But she was bitter still, 
 and some remembrance of her father's teaching took her un- 
 awares. " Lady Royd comes from the south country, where 
 they killed a Royal Stuart once," she muttered. " She does 
 not know she cannot even learn our northern ways. Sir 
 Jasper lives or dies but either way he lives. She does not 
 know that either way he lives as we count life up here." 
 
 Nance was shaken by the passion known to women who 
 have seen their men go out to war the passion that finds no 
 outlet in hard give-and-take the desperate, keen heartache 
 that is left to feed upon itself. 
 
 " I must go down," she said, as if repeating a lesson hard to 
 learn. 
 
 As she opened the door and crossed the landing, she heard a 
 heavy footfall on the stair below, then Simon Foster's laboured 
 breathing. Some instinct of disaster chilled her. In this 
 house of emptiness, with the wind roaming like an unquiet 
 ghost down every corridor, she listened to the uncanny, stealthy 
 up-coming. Once, years ago, she had heard men bringing 
 home her brother, killed in the hunting-field ; and it seemed to 
 her that she was listening to the same sounds again, was feel- 
 ing the same vague, unreasoning dread. Then she remem- 
 bered that Rupert had been missing since dawn, and she was 
 moved by some grief that struck deeper than she understood. 
 
 They turned the corner of the stair at last, and Nance saw 
 Rupert coming up Rupert, his face grey and tired as he 
 leaned on Simon's arm; Rupert, who looked older, manlier,
 
 THE HEIR RETURNS 115 
 
 more like Sir Jasper. And then, for no reason she could have 
 given, she lost half her grief. At least he was not dead ; and 
 there was a look about him which stronger men of her 
 acquaintance had worn when they were in the thick of trouble. 
 
 There was a long, mullioned window lighting the stairway 
 head. And Rupert, looking up, saw Nance standing there 
 close to him, yet far away as some lady of dreams might 
 stand. The keen winter's sun, getting out from sleet-clouds, 
 made a St. Luke's summer round about her; and Nance, who 
 was just comely, good to see, at other times, borrowed a 
 strange beauty from the hour and place, and from the human 
 pity that was troubling her. 
 
 Rupert halted on the landing, and looked at her as if she 
 were food and drink to him. Then he flushed, and turned his 
 head. 
 
 " You ? " he said quietly. " I'd rather have met any one but 
 you just now." 
 
 "And why, my dear?" asked Nance, with simple tender- 
 ness. 
 
 " Why? Because I'm maimed, and sick at heart," he said 
 savagely. 
 
 " How did it come about?" she interrupted, with the same 
 impulsive tenderness. 
 
 " I tried to join the Rising, and was thrown. So much was 
 to be expected, Nance?" 
 
 She had been thinking hard things of stay-at-homes and 
 weaklings ; and, as she looked at Rupert now, she was touched 
 by keen reproach. He was ashamed, tired out, in pain of soul 
 and body ; yet he was smiling, was making a jest of his indif- 
 ferent horsemanship. 
 
 Nance recalled once more that evening on the moors, when 
 Rupert had bidden Will Underwood ride with her to Windy- 
 hough, while he stayed with his brother. In his voice, in the 
 set of his whole face, there had been a stubborn strength that 
 had astonished her; and here again, on the sunlit, draughty 
 stairhead, he was showing her a glimpse of his true self.
 
 116 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " I wish you better luck," she said simply " oh, so much 
 better luck." 
 
 He saw that there were tears in her eyes, and felt his weak- 
 ness coming on him like a cloud, and fought it for a moment 
 longer. 
 
 " It will come, Nance," he said cheerily, though he felt 
 himself a liar. " Go down to mother. She she needs help 
 more than I. Now, Simon, you've got your breath again." 
 
 " Ay, maister as mich as I shall ever get, as the short- 
 winded horse said when they asked him why he roared like 
 a smithy-bellows." 
 
 " Then I'll go forward " again the keen, bitter smile " to 
 the lumber-room, Simon, among the broken odds and ends." 
 
 Nance stood aside, finding no words to help herself or him, 
 and watched them go along the corridor, and in at the door of 
 Rupert's bedchamber. And she knew, beyond doubt or sur- 
 mise, that the Loyal Meet had left one useful volunteer at 
 home to-day. 
 
 She found Lady Royd in the low-raftered parlour that al- 
 ways carried an air of luxury and ease. In summer it was 
 heavy with the scent of garden flowers ; and now there was a 
 tired, luxurious appeal from bowls of faded rose-leaves set 
 everywhere about the room. A fire, too big for the comfort 
 of open-air folk, was crackling on the hearth. In all things 
 this parlour was a dainty frame enough for the mistress whose 
 beauty had been nipped, not strengthened, by the keen winds 
 of Lancashire. 
 
 " Nance, will he live?" asked Lady Royd, running forward 
 with the outstretched hands, the very words, that she had 
 looked for. But she spoke of Rupert, not of Sir Jasper. 
 " He came home so wearied-out so lame and grey of 
 face " 
 
 " Oh, I met him on the stairhead just now," broke in Nance, 
 with sharp common sense. " He's had a fall from his horse 
 and he made a jest of it and that is all." 
 
 "Then he'll not die, you think? Nance, tell me, he'll not
 
 THE HEIR RETURNS 117 
 
 die. I've been unkind to him in days past, and I I am 
 sorry." 
 
 It seemed to Nance that in this house of Windyhough she 
 was never to escape from pity, from the sharper, clearer in- 
 sight into life that these hopeless days were teaching her. 
 This pretty matron, whom her husband had spoiled, sheltering 
 her from draughts as if she were a hothouse flower too rare 
 to take her chance in the open border she was foolish as of 
 old, so far as speech and manner went. But in her face, in 
 her lisping, childish voice, there was a new, strong appeal that 
 touched the younger woman. 
 
 " I think that he will live," said the girl, with sudden pas- 
 sion. " He's here among the women now but to-morrow 
 or the next day, or the next he'll prove himself." 
 
 Lady Royd moved aimlessly about the room, warmed her 
 hands at the fire, shivered as she glanced at the wintry sun- 
 light out of doors. Then she came close to Nance, as if ask- 
 ing protection of some kind. " You hold the Faith, child. I 
 do not," she said, with bewildering candour. 
 
 " But, Lady Royd indeed, we're of the same Faith " 
 
 " Yes, in the open shows, when folk are looking on. I'd as 
 lief go abroad without my gown as not be seen at Mass. It 
 is asked of Sir Jasper's wife; so is constancy to the yellow- 
 haired laddie who has sent sober men astray. Veiled lids are 
 asked for when Will Underwood makes pretty speeches, with 
 his eyes on fire ; but at my heart, child at my heart I've faith 
 only in each day's ease as it comes." 
 
 " Mr. Underwood has gone to the wars," broke in Nance, 
 with an odd sense of misery and an obstinate contempt, for 
 all that, of this woman's prattling. " He'll come back in 
 his own time, Lady Royd, after the King is on his throne 
 again." 
 
 " But has he gone to the wars? I missed him among our 
 friends to-day." 
 
 " Because he has ridden on a private errand of the Prince's." 
 Nance was reckless in her protection of Will's honour. " He
 
 118 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 was the likeliest rider of them all to be chosen for such 
 service." 
 
 " Oh, there ! And I hoped he would be wise, and stay at 
 home, and ride over now and then to cheer us with his pleasant 
 face." Her smile was frail and listless, with a certain youth- 
 ful archness in it that drew men to her side ; but its appeal was 
 lost on Nance. " Of course, I am loyal to Sir Jasper and I 
 shall cry each night till he returns but Will's homage is 
 charming, Nance. It is so delicate, child a word here, and 
 a glance there that one forgets one is middle-aged. He 
 spent some years in Paris, they say to escape from his 
 father's money-making and from the bleak chapel on the hill 
 and I can well believe it. The French have that gift of sug- 
 gesting a grand passion, when neither actor in the comedy be- 
 lieves a word of it." 
 
 Nance moved away, and looked out at the sunlight and the 
 sleety hills. So strong, so impulsive, was her resistance to Sir 
 Jasper's wife that even the " bleak chapel on the hill " she 
 knew it well, a four-square, dowdy little building not far from 
 her own home took on an unsuspected strength and dignity. 
 It was reared out of moor-stone, at least reared by stubborn, 
 if misguided, folk who were bred on the same uplands as her- 
 self. Will Underwood had learned follies in Paris, undoubt- 
 edly; but, if her liking for him, her care for his honour, had 
 any meaning, it rested on the faith that he had outgrown these 
 early weaknesses, that he was English to the core. He could 
 ride straight there was something pathetic in her clinging 
 to this one, outstanding virtue he was known among men to 
 be fearless, strong in all field sports ; he had endurance and a 
 liking for the open air. And Lady Royd, in her vague, heed- 
 less way, had painted him as a parlour lapdog, who could 
 while a pleasant hour away for women who lived in over- 
 heated rooms. 
 
 Nance was obstinate in her loyalty to friends; yet she re- 
 membered now stray hints, odds and ends of scandal passed 
 between the women after dinner, while they waited for the
 
 THE HEIR RETURNS 119 
 
 men to join them ; and all had been agreed that Will Under- 
 wood had the gift of making the last woman who engaged his 
 ardour believe she was the first. 
 
 Lady Royd warmed her hands at the fire again, and 
 laughed gently. " Why, child, you're half in love with him, 
 like the rest of us. I know it by your silence." 
 
 And Nance, whose good-humour was a byword among her 
 intimates, found her temper snap, like any common, ill-forged 
 sword might do. " By your leave," she said, " I never did 
 anything by halves. My friends are my friends. I'm loyal, 
 Lady Royd." 
 
 " Yes, yes and I am middle-aged, my dear, and the fire 
 grows cold already." 
 
 There was appeal in the older woman's voice. She needed 
 the girl's strength, her windy, moor-swept grasp of the big 
 hills and the bigger faith. But Nance was full of her own 
 troubles, and would not heed. 
 
 " There are dogs left at Windyhough? " she said, moving to 
 the door. " Well, then, let me take them for a scamper. I 
 cannot stay in prison, Lady Royd." 
 
 Nance swept out of the parlour, with its faded scent of rose- 
 leaves, donned hat and cloak, and went out in hot rebellion to 
 cool her fever in the nipping wind. She did not guess how 
 she was needed by this frail, discontented woman she had 
 left indoors. 
 
 Lady Royd, indeed, was human no more, no less. She 
 could not escape in a moment from the spoiled, settled habits 
 of a lifetime. Sir Jasper had ridden out, and the misery of 
 it had been sudden, agonising. Rupert had blundered home, 
 in his derelict way, with a sprained ankle and a face as white 
 as the hills he loved; and the motherhood in her, untrained, 
 suppressed, had cut through her like a knife. All was desola- 
 tion here ; and she thought of her homeland of the south 
 country, where winds blew soft and quiet, and lilac bloomed 
 before the leaf-buds had well broken here in Lancashire and 
 she was hidden by a mist of desperate self-pity.
 
 120 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 Like Rupert, when he found himself lying in the mud of 
 Langton Road not long ago and heard his horse go galloping 
 down the wind, she thought of death as an easy pathway of 
 escape. Like Rupert, she was not needed here. She was not 
 of the breed that rides out, easy in saddle, on such heroic, 
 foolish errands as Sir Jasper coveted. And yet, when she 
 came to face the matter, she had not courage, either, to die 
 and venture into the cold unknown beyond. 
 
 She had talked of Will Underwood, of his easy gallantry, 
 and Nance had thought her heartless ; yet she had sought only 
 a refuge from the stress of feeling that was too hard for her 
 to bear. 
 
 She moved up and down the parlour, in her haphazard, use- 
 less way. Her husband had ridden out on a venture high and 
 dangerous; and she was setting a cushion to rights here, 
 smoothing the fold of a curtain there, with the intentness of 
 a kitten that sees no farther than its playthings. But under 
 all there was a fierce, insistent heartache, a rebellion against 
 the weakness that hindered her. She began to think of Ru- 
 pert, to understand, little by little, how near together they 
 were, he and she. Her cowardice seemed lifted away by 
 friendly hands, as she told herself that she would go up and 
 sit at the lad's bedside. She had known him too little in years 
 past ; there was time now to repair mistakes. 
 
 Simon Foster was watching the master, as he lay in that 
 sleep of sheer exhaustion, following long effort and self-doubt, 
 which was giving him strength and respite before the morrow 
 needed him. Simon heard a low tapping at the door, opened 
 it, saw Lady Royd standing on the threshold. 
 
 " Is he asking for me ? " she said diffidently. 
 
 " No, my lady. He's asking for twelve hours o' sleep and 
 he'll get them, if I've any say i' the matter." 
 
 " But you'll be tired, Simon, and I I am wide awake. Let 
 me sit by him " 
 
 " You're kind," he interrupted bluntly ; " but I'm watchdog
 
 THE HEIR RETURNS 121 
 
 here, by your leave. It happens to be war, not peace and no 
 offence, my lady." 
 
 She turned, aware that a man was in command here; and 
 Simon was left to his interrupted musings. 
 
 " By the Heart," he growled, " if only he could find his way ! 
 He's lean and weak ; but the lad's keen, hard-bitten pluck it's 
 killing him before his time, it is. He can find no outlet for it, 
 like."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE ROAD TO THE THRONE 
 
 SIR JASPER, riding sometimes at the head of his men, at 
 others near the Prince, had little time for backward thoughts 
 during this surprising march. Each day was full of peril; 
 but each day, too, was full of chance humours of the road, of 
 those odds and ends of traffic by the way which turn men's 
 thoughts from a too deep, unpractical thinking of the high 
 Cause only to the means by which step by step, it is to be 
 attained. 
 
 In full truth they were following the open road, these gentry 
 of the Prince's. Marshal Wade was blundering down from 
 the north to take them in the rear. The Duke of Cumberland 
 was waiting for them somewhere round about the Stafford 
 country. They rode through villages and towns that were not 
 hostile hostility is a nettle to grasp and have done with it 
 but indifferent or afraid. Throughout this cold and sloppy 
 march, wet through, with the keen wind piping through their 
 sodden clothes, the greatest hardship that met them was the 
 lack of fierce and stubborn fight. 
 
 The Highlanders grew tired and listless, and Prince Charles, 
 who knew their temper to a nicety, for it was his own, was 
 forced at last to bid the pipers cease playing reels and strath- 
 speys down the road. 
 
 " With all submission, your Highness," said Lord Murray 
 petulantly, riding to his side as they marched out of Lancaster, 
 " I would ask your reason. The pipers not to play ? It is all 
 the comfort these Highlanders can find in England here." 
 
 Sir Jasper, riding near, saw the Prince turn, with that quick, 
 hardly restrained impatience which Murray's presence always 
 caused. " I gave the order," he answered, with deliberate 
 
 199
 
 THE ROAD TO THE THRONE 123 
 
 calm, " because I know your Highlanders I, who was bred 
 in France better than their leaders. Give me an army in 
 front, my lord Murray, give me Wade, or Cumberland, or the 
 Elector, barring the road ahead, and the pipes shall sing, I 
 promise you." 
 
 Then suddenly he threw his head up. His face, grown old 
 and tired, furrowed by sleepless care for his five thousand 
 men, was young again. He was seeing far ahead, beyond the 
 mud and jealousies of these wintry English roads. And again 
 Sir Jasper understood why the women up in Edinburgh had 
 gone mad about this Stuart with the yellow hair. The decent 
 women love a fighter always a fighter for some cause that is 
 big and selfless; and the Prince's face, just now, was lit by 
 some glow from the wider hills. 
 
 " The pipes shall sing," he went on, his voice deep, tender, 
 hurried. " They'll play like quicksilver, Lord Murray, when 
 when the Hanover men care to meet us in the open." 
 
 " But meanwhile, your Highness, we've to trudge on, and 
 I say you're forbidding meat and drink to your troops when 
 you'll not let them hear the pipes." 
 
 Sir Jasper moved his horse forward. They were alone, 
 the three of them, a furlong ahead of the army. Lord Mur- 
 ray's tone was so bitter, so like a scolding woman's that Sir 
 Jasper's instinct was to intervene, to take the quarrel on his 
 own shoulders and settle it, here by the wayside, in the honest 
 Lancashire way. He was checked by the Prince himself, 
 who returned from the hills of dreams with surprising quick- 
 ness. 
 
 " We've to trudge on," he said, with workaday grasp of the 
 affairs in hand. " You find the exact word, Lord Murray, as 
 your habit is. What use, then, to let the pipes go singing 
 music into men's feet? We have to trudge." 
 
 Murray, dour, unimaginative, possessed by a fever of jeal- 
 ousy which would not let him rest, was scarcely civil. And 
 manners, after all, are the outward sign of character. " Your 
 Highness issues commands, and we obey "
 
 124- THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " Why, yes. I came from France to issue them," broke in 
 the other, with a disdain that was royal in its quietness. 
 
 Sir Jasper thought of his windy house in Lancashire, of the 
 dreams he had fed upon, of the long preparation for this 
 march that was to light England with loyal fires. And he was 
 here, riding at a footpace through the dreary roads, watching 
 the rift widen between the Prince and Murray. He was op- 
 pressed by some 'omen of the days to come, or by the sadness 
 of the Highlanders, who sought a fight and could not find it. 
 He had dreamed of an army loyal, compact, looking neither 
 to left nor right that would march, at speed and with a single 
 purpose, on London, an army that would not rest until it drove 
 the Hanoverian abroad. Instead, there were divided counsels, 
 a landscape dreary and rain-shrouded, and Murray for ever 
 at their elbows, sowing doubt and dull suspicion. 
 
 " Your Highness," said Sir Jasper, all in his quick, hill-bred 
 way, " we seem to be riding on a Lenten penance, and Christ- 
 mas is six weeks off as yet. Surely Lord Murray would be 
 well quit of his dourness." 
 
 The Prince turned in saddle. " My thanks, Sir Jasper," he 
 said, with an easy laugh. " Lord Murray has never kept a 
 Lenten fast it smacks too much of superstition, he says ; but, 
 by the God we serve, Sir Jasper, he would likely be the better 
 for it." 
 
 So then Murray, seeing two against him and not relishing 
 the odds, lost his temper outright. " Superstition does not 
 carry armies on to victory," he snapped. 
 
 " No," assented the Prince, as if he reckoned up a sum in 
 simple addition. " But faith, my lord Murray it carries men 
 far and happily." 
 
 Murray checked himself with obvious effort, and they rode 
 on in silence for a while. " Your Highness, I spoke hastily 
 just now," he said by and by. His voice, try as he would, 
 had no warmth in it, no true sincerity. " I ask your pardon." 
 
 " Oh, that is granted. Our royal purse is empty, but we 
 can still be spendthrift with forgiveness."
 
 THE ROAD TO THE THRONE 125 
 
 Again Sir Jasper glanced at this many-sided Prince of his. 
 The smile, the grave rebuke hidden beneath gentlest courtesy, 
 were not his own ; they were gifts entrusted to his keeping by 
 many generations of the Stuart race. They had not always 
 done well or wisely, these Stuarts; but wherever down the 
 track of history they had touched a world made dull and 
 ugly by the men who lived in it, they had stood always 
 for the buoyant faith, the clean and eager hope, the royal 
 breadth of sympathy that sweeps shams and make-believes 
 aside. 
 
 Sir Jasper, riding through this wet, unlovely country, found 
 himself once more in that mood of tenderness, of wrath and 
 pity, which had surprised him not long ago in Langton High 
 Street. The islanders of Skye Skye, in the misty Highland 
 country had known this mood from birth and were ac- 
 customed to it, as they were used to the daily labour to win 
 bread, from land or sea, for their wives and bairns. But Sir 
 Jasper was young to it, and was disturbed by the simple, tragic 
 pity that seemed to cling about the Stuart a something filmy 
 and impalpable, as if with him always there rode a phantom 
 shape of martyrdom to come. 
 
 He sought relief in action, glanced up and down the high- 
 way in hope of straightforward, healthy battle. But Marshal 
 Wade was a good three days' march in the rear, and the Duke 
 of Cumberland was playing hide-and-seek along the Stafford- 
 shire lanes without success. 
 
 Sir Jasper turned from looking up and down the road, and 
 saw Lord Murray riding close on his right. The man's face 
 was set and hard ; and Sir Jasper, with the intuition that comes 
 to tired and heartsick men, knew that the enemy was here 
 among them not in the shape of an army challenging en- 
 deavour, but of one cautious Scotsman who was busy saving 
 halfpennies while guineas were going down the wind. 
 
 As if to prove Sir Jasper's judgment accurate, Lord Mur- 
 ray broke the silence. " You spoke of faith just now, your 
 Highness," he said.
 
 126 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " Why, yes because you asked it of me. One seldom 
 speaks of such matters unless compelled." 
 
 " Then, with all submission, I say that faith is for kirk on 
 Sabbaths, for the quietness of a man's bedchamber ; but we're 
 here in open war. War I've seen it overseas, and have been 
 wounded twice is a cold, practical affair, your Highness." 
 
 So then the Prince glanced at Sir Jasper and laughed out- 
 right, and after that was silent for a while. " My lord Mur- 
 ray," he said quietly, " faith, mine and Sir Jasper's, goes into 
 battle with us, goes into every road we take. I'm ashamed, 
 somehow, to speak so plainly of of what I know." 
 
 " May I speak of what I, too, know ? " put in Murray 
 sharply. " It is of war I speak, your Highness. I know the 
 rules of it know that this hurried march of ours through 
 England can end only in disaster. Retreat in good order, 
 even now, is our only course retreat to Scotland, where we 
 can gather in the clans that were slow to join us " 
 
 " Retreat ? " said the Prince, his head lifted suddenly, his 
 voice ringing with command and challenge. " I never learned 
 the word, at school or afterwards. Retreat? My lord Mur- 
 ray, there's only one plain rule of war to ride forward, and 
 plant your blow where the first opportunity serves." 
 
 " That is our rule in Lancashire," put in Sir Jasper dryly. 
 
 Murray glanced at the two of them. He had hoped much 
 from the cold logic that guided his days for him, had been 
 sure that he could persuade the Prince to his own view of the 
 campaign ; and these two, resolute in faith and almost gay, 
 were treating him as if he were a stripling with much to learn 
 in life beyond the rules of war and mathematics. 
 
 " I say, your Highness, that we've hardened troops against 
 us, officered by men who have grown old in strategy " 
 
 " And yet we're here in spite of them, right through the 
 northern counties, and likely to keep Christmas in London. 
 We're here, my lord Murray, because zeal laughs at strategy." 
 
 " For all that," put in Murray dryly, " you'll not let the pipes
 
 THE ROAD TO THE THRONE 17 
 
 be played. They, surely, are musical with faith your own 
 sort of faith, that bids men forget calculation and all else." 
 
 Again the Prince moved impatiently in saddle. " I am not 
 used to give reasons for my conduct, but you shall have them 
 now, since you persist. My Highlanders, they take a dram to 
 whet their appetite for meals ; but if there's no meal waiting, 
 why, my lord Murray, it is idle to offer them the dram." 
 
 "There's no fight near at hand, you mean? Your High- 
 ness, there are three big battles that I know of and others, 
 it may be waiting close about us on this road to London. 
 Give the Highlanders their pipes again. Their appetite needs 
 sharpening if you persist in going forward." 
 
 The Prince glanced at Sir Jasper. " We go forward, I 
 think? " he asked, with a whimsical, quick smile. 
 
 " That is our errand," Sir Jasper answered simply. 
 
 " Then, Lord Murray, ride back and bid the pipers play 
 their fill. And I pray that one of your three phantom armies 
 waiting for us on the London road may prove flesh and blood." 
 
 Murray was exact in his calculations. He was not greatly 
 moved by the bagpipes, for his own part, but he knew that 
 they were as necessary as food and drink to the Highlanders, 
 who were the nerve and soul of this army following the for- 
 lornest hope. He turned his horse and galloped back. 
 
 And presently the footmen's march grew brisker; jaded 
 riders felt their nags move less dispiritedly under them. 
 
 The pipes were singing, low at first, as if a mother crooned 
 to her child up yonder in the misty Highlands. And then the 
 music and the magic grew, till it seemed that windy March 
 was striding, long and sinewy of limb, across the land of 
 lengthening days and rising sap and mating beasts and birds. 
 And then, again, there was a warmth and haste in the music, 
 a sudden wildness and a tender pity, that seemed like April 
 ushering in her broods along the nestling hedgerows, the 
 fields where lambs were playing, the banks that were gold 
 with primroses, and budding speedwell, and strong, young
 
 128 THE I<ONE ADVENTURE 
 
 growth of greenstuff. And then, again, from the rear of 
 this tattered army that marched south to win a kingdom for 
 the Stuart, full June was playing round about this wet and 
 dismal Stafford country. The Prince knew it; Sir Jasper 
 knew it. Even Lord Murray, riding far behind was aware 
 that life held more than strategy and halfpennies. 
 
 " Dear God, the pipes ! " said the Prince, turning sud- 
 denly. " D'ye hear them, Sir Jasper ? " 
 
 " I'm hill-bred, too, your Highness. Could I miss their 
 note?" 
 
 And they fell silent, for there is something in this hill music 
 that touches the soul of a man. It finds out his need of 
 battle, his instinct to be up and doing along the wide, human 
 thoroughfares of life. And then it stifles him with pity, with 
 homesickness and longing for the wife and bairns who, for 
 all that, would not approve him if he failed to take the road. 
 And then, again, it sounds the fighting note, till every fibre 
 responds to the call for instant action. 
 
 No action met them. They rode forward through the driv- 
 ing wind, the Prince and Sir Jasper ; and now the pipes, hur- 
 ried and unwearied, played only mockery about them, rous- 
 ing their strength while denying it an outlet. 
 
 It was then Sir Jasper heard the first and last bitter word 
 from the leader who had summoned him to this drear adven- 
 ture. " The pity of it ! " said the Prince. " I ask only a free 
 hand, and they'll not give it me. Sir Jasper, what is amiss 
 with Lord Murray? There was something left out of him at 
 birth, I think soul, or heart or what you choose to name 
 it. This march of ours he will not listen when I tell him it 
 is bigger than the strict rules of warfare." 
 
 Sir Jasper reined near and put a hand on the Prince's 
 bridle-arm, as a father might who sees his boy attempting 
 more than his strength warrants. " I understand," he said 
 simply. " By your leave, I'll play watchdog to Murray 
 till we reach London. He stands for caution, and I " a 
 sudden remembrance came to him of Windyhough, of the
 
 THE ROAD TO THE THRONE 129 
 
 wife and heir, and his loneliness bit so deep that, for shame's 
 sake, he had to cover up his grief " and I, your Highness," 
 he added, with a touch of humour, " have been blamed for 
 many things, but never yet for caution." 
 
 " No, no. We might be old in friendship, you and I. We 
 see the like world, Sir Jasper the world that caution is too 
 mean to enter. And yet my lord Murray who has been bred 
 among the hills, while I have not has never learned their 
 teaching, as I learned it at my first coming to the misty 
 Highlands." 
 
 The pipes would not be quiet, behind them on this sloppy 
 road. The Prince, as his habit was, had seen far and wisely 
 when he forbade the music. To and fro the uproar went, 
 wild, insistent, friendly as the cry of moor-birds snipe and 
 curlew and wide-roving plover to men who love the uplands. 
 The music lacked its fulness, for in these Midlands there 
 were no mountains to echo it, to pass it on from rise to rise, 
 till it grew faint and elfin-like among the blue moor-tops; 
 but even here the pipes were swift and tender with persua- 
 sion. 
 
 "All this, Sir Jasper," the Prince said by and by "the 
 pipes playing fury into us, and in front of us the empty road. 
 Murray promised us three battles at the least, and we're here 
 like soldiers on parade." 
 
 Sir Jasper had cherished dreams of this Rising, but war, 
 in the hot fighting and in the dreary silences between, is not 
 made up of dreams. The poetry of it comes before and 
 after, when peace smooths her ruffled plumage and sings of 
 heroism ; the prose of it is so commonplace that men sensi- 
 tively built need dogged loyalty to keep them safe from dis- 
 illusionment. 
 
 "The wind blows east, your Highness," he said. "You'll 
 pardon me, but an east wind sets my temper all on edge. 
 My sympathy is catholic, but I'd hang the nether millstone 
 round Lord Murray's neck if I had my way." 
 
 The Prince glanced behind, because the pipes were tired of
 
 ISO THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 battle now, and were crooning lullabies the strong, tender 
 cradle-songs that Highland mothers know. " No," he said 
 quietly. " We share the same desire, but we'd relent." 
 
 " Not I, for one." 
 
 " Yes, you, for one, and I, for one, because we're human. 
 So few of your English folk are human, somehow, as I've 
 seen them since my Highlanders crossed Annan River. 
 They're ill-clad, these Highland lads of mine, and raw to look 
 at, but they carry the ready heart, Sir Jasper, and the simple 
 creed you can bend them till point meets hilt, like a Ferrara 
 blade, and yet not break them." 
 
 " We are tempered steel in Lancashire, your Highness," 
 said Sir Jasper, in passionate defence of his county. " Few 
 of us have come to the Rising, but I can answer for each man 
 of mine that follows you." 
 
 " I was hasty ; the pipes play that mood into a man. 
 When we planned this Rising, years ago in France, the King 
 my father bade me remember always that Lancashire was 
 staunch and its women beautiful. The east wind must be 
 excuse for me, too, Sir Jasper." 
 
 " Your Highness, I spoke hastily. My temper, I tell you, 
 is frayed at the .edges by winter and harsh weather." 
 
 " I like your temper well enough, Sir Jasper. Let's take a 
 pinch of snuff together, since there's nothing else to do." 
 
 It was in this mood that they rode into a little village clus- 
 tered round a stream. The hamlet was so small that the 
 crowd of men and women gathered round about the ford 
 seemed bigger than its numbers. The villagers, enticed by the 
 news that the Rising neared their borders, raised a sudden 
 tumult when they saw the van of the army ride into sight. 
 Curiosity held them, while fear and all the rumours they had 
 heard prompted them to instant flight. Mothers clutched 
 their babies, and turned as if to run for shelter, then turned 
 again and halted between two minds, and must needs stay 
 to see what these queer Highlanders were like. The younger 
 women, glad of this respite from the day's routine, ogled the
 
 THE ROAD TO THE THRONE 131 
 
 Prince and Sir Jasper with unaffected candour. The men 
 looked on sheepishly, afraid for their own safety, but not con- 
 tent to leave their women in the lurch. 
 
 " Here's the cannibals from Scotland ! " cried one big, 
 shrill-voiced woman. " They feed on English babies, so we're 
 told. Dear mercy, I hope they've had their breakfast earlier 
 on the road ! " 
 
 The Prince checked his horse suddenly. His face was 
 flushed, ashamed, as if a blow had struck him on the cheek. 
 " My good woman," he said, bending from saddle to look 
 into her plump, foolish face, " have they lied so deep to you 
 as that?" 
 
 " Lies ? Nay, I know what I'm talking about, or should do 
 at my years. There've been well-spoken gentry in and out 
 these weeks past, and they all had the same tale ; so it stands 
 to reason the tale was true as Candlemas." She set her arms 
 akimbo. The quietness of this horseman who talked to her, 
 his good looks and subtle air of breeding, had killed her ter- 
 ror and given her instead a bravado no less foolish. " Thou'rt 
 well enough to look at, lad, and I wish I was younger, I do, 
 to kiss ye on the sly when my man didn't happen to be look- 
 ing; but the rest o' ye, coming down the road, ye're as 
 ragged a lot o' trampish folk as I've set eyes on." 
 
 The Prince laughed, not happily, but as if the pipes were 
 bidding him weep instead. Then he plucked his mare for- 
 ward Nance Demaine's mare, which he had borrowed and 
 splashed through the ford. And it was not till the hamlet was 
 a mile behind him that he turned to Sir Jasper. 
 
 " A lie chills me," he said abruptly ; " especially a lie that 
 is foisted on poor, unlettered folk. They told me this and 
 that, Sir Jasper, of Hanoverian methods, and I what shall 
 I say? disdained, I think, to believe it of an enemy. They 
 will not fight us in the open since we worsted them at Pres- 
 tonpans, but instead they send ' well-spoken gentry ' to honey- 
 comb the countryside with lies." 
 
 Sir Jasper, the more he followed the open road with this
 
 132 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 Comrade in adversity, found ever and ever a deeper liking 
 for him. He could be ashamed, this Stuart whom women 
 had done their best to spoil in Scotland could be ashamed 
 because his Highlanders were slighted ; could stand apart from 
 his own danger and weariness, and grow hot with punctilious 
 care for the honour of the men who followed him. And the 
 older man thought no longer of Windyhough, of ties that 
 had not been sundered lightly; he was content to be in com- 
 pany with one who, by instinct and by training, was a leader 
 of the true royal fibre. 
 
 The Prince was glancing straight ahead as they jogged 
 forward, and in his eyes was the look which moorland folk 
 know as " seeing far." 
 
 " My Highlanders are cannibals ? " he said, not turning his 
 head, seeming to need no listener, or to have forgotten that 
 he rode in company. " The men I've learned to know by 
 heart during these last wintry months is that their reputa- 
 tion?" 
 
 " It was a silly woman's gibe, your Highness," put in the 
 other, with blunt common sense. " Surely you're not moved 
 by it?" 
 
 " It was more. They have been sending paid liars up and 
 down the length of this road to London have fouled the go- 
 ing for us. I tell you, Sir Jasper, that lies make me sick at 
 heart. I tell you an enemy that will go so far in cowardice 
 will afterwards do anything, I think kill wounded men as 
 they lie helpless on the battlefield " 
 
 " No, no, your Highness ! With all submission, your anger 
 carries you away." 
 
 " I am not angry only tired and sick at heart, and seeing 
 far ahead. I say that I am seeing it a bleak moor in the 
 Highland country, and men lying on the ground, and a rough 
 bullock of a man shouting, ' Kill these wounded rascals ; put 
 them out of pain ! ' And the wounded are my Highlanders, 
 who follow me for love. There are MacDonalds and Ogilvies 
 and men from the Isles I see their faces, and the resolute,
 
 THE ROAD TO THE THRONE 138 
 
 keen pain that will not flincft. The wind's whistling down 
 the moor like Rachel crying for her children, and the corbie- 
 crows are looking on." 
 
 Sir Jasper crossed himself with instinctive piety. So had 
 he felt, up yonder on the hills of Lancashire, when the winds 
 raved through the heather and down the glens, teaching him 
 sorrow, and the second sight, and the need to prove himself 
 a man in a world of doubt and mystery. 
 
 " What then, your Highness ? " he asked soberly. 
 
 " What then ? " The Prince passed a hand across his eyes, 
 turned with the smile that drew men to his side. " Your par- 
 don, Sir Jasper. I've been up the hill o' dreams, since action 
 is denied me. What then? Why, the road ahead, and each 
 day's hazard as it comes." 
 
 The next day, as they marched out of Leek, in Stafford- 
 shire, Sir Jasper rode back along the line of march to see 
 that Maurice, his younger born, was proving himself a good 
 deputy in command of the Lancashire men. On his way 
 through the scattered units that made up this army of the 
 Prince's, he was met by a Highlander who came down the 
 road on foot, carrying a mirror a little, oak-framed thing 
 that he had begged from a cottage where they had given him 
 food and drink and he was halting, now and then, to hold 
 it up and look into it with pious fervour. And then again 
 he would dance and caper like a child with a new toy before 
 halting for another glance at it. 
 
 The man's antics were so droll, the humour of it all so 
 unexpected, that Sir Jasper checked his horse. " What do 
 you see there, my friend ? " he asked, pointing to the mirror. 
 He spoke a little Gaelic, which he had learned, with some hard- 
 ship, from Oliphant of Muirhouse and other night-riders 
 who had called at Windyhough during the past years. 
 
 The Highlander, hearing his own tongue, spoke as to a 
 friend. " What do I see ? My own face, and I've not seen 
 it since I left Skye." 
 
 " Well, it's a face worth looking at," said the other, pass-
 
 134 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 ing an easy jest. " You'll not be taken alive by any man 
 in England ; but I fear for you among the women." 
 
 And the man laughed pleasantly. And then, with surpris- 
 ing swiftness, the Skye gladness, that is never far from the 
 mists o' sorrow, gave way to passionate tears. " It carried 
 me back, this bit o' magic," he said, in the swift, tender 
 speech for which there are no English words " back to 
 Skye, and the blue hills i' the gloamingtide, and the maid who 
 would not have me at a gift. I used to go down by the burn, 
 where the deep pool lies under the rowans, and see my face 
 there that was when I was courting Jock Sinclair's maid 
 in last year's summer, and she said I'd a face to scare crows 
 away with, but none for a lass that had the pick o' Skye to 
 choose from." 
 
 " And you lost her, and came south to see if the yellow- 
 haired laddie could give you likelier work?" 
 
 " Nay, I married her," said the Highlander, with a gravity 
 complete and childlike. " She changed her mind in a week, 
 and we'd a bonnie wooing; and since then she's led me the 
 de'il's own dance ower dyke and ditch. And I used to get 
 up to the hills and play the pipes, all by my lone among the 
 whaups and eagles, and wish myself unwedded. And then 
 the Prince called me, and I had to follow ; and 'twas then 
 I knew I loved her very well." He paused for a moment to 
 glance into the mirror which, to him, was the pool in Skye 
 where the rowans waved above the stream. " And now I'm 
 missing her, and the pipes go skirling, skirling, and there's 
 no man at all to fight with. It's thirsty I am to whet my 
 claymore for a while, and then get home again to the de'il's 
 dance Jock Sinclair's lass has waiting for me up in Skye." 
 
 Sir Jasper, by and by, rode back in search of his own 
 company of horse, and his thoughts ran hither and thither. 
 This Highlander, with the eyes and the sinewy, lean shoul- 
 ders that any man or woman might approve, this passion- 
 ate and simple child who went down the highway hugging 
 his mirror because it brought Skye and the wooingtide to
 
 THE ROAD TO THE THRONE 135 
 
 mind he was no more to these Midlands than a savage from 
 the northern wilds. " They feed on English babies " the 
 lie set abroad by agents of a king who doubted his own cause, 
 the lie repeated by a lazy, unkempt woman at the village 
 ford, was chilling Sir Jasper now, though not long ago he 
 had chidden the Prince for the same fault. It was in the 
 breed of him to hate a lie at sight as healthy men loathe ver- 
 min. And yet they were powerless to meet this stealthy mode 
 of warfare, because the Prince's men, with all their faults, 
 were accustomed only to the open fight and honest tactics. 
 
 Then, little by little, Sir Jasper sought for the cause of all 
 this unrest and unhappiness that was dogging the steps of an 
 army that had fought Prestonpans, that had taken Carlisle, 
 that had marched through half England with a security which 
 in itself was triumph. They were heading straight for Lon- 
 don. The men, undaunted by forced marches, were in keen 
 fighting temper, asking constantly for the enemy to show 
 himself. Fortune was with them ; the glow of old allegiance 
 was with them. Each league they covered was so much added 
 proof to the waverers that they followed a winning cause. 
 And yet somehow a chill was settling on them all, a cold, 
 intangible distrust. Sir Jasper felt it against his will. The 
 Prince was feeling it. 
 
 Sir Jasper had set out on this enterprise with a single aim ; 
 but already his view of it was muddied a little by the politics, 
 the jealousies, the daily friction that creep into the conduct 
 of all human ventures. He could not stand far off, as yet, 
 from the bigness and simplicity of the dreams he had nursed 
 at Windyhough. Up yonder on the moors, as he mapped 
 out the campaign, it had been a gallop against odds, a quick 
 battle, death on the field, or a ride into London to see the 
 Stuart crowned with fitting pomp and thanksgiving. And 
 instead, there had been these days and days of marching at 
 a foot pace, without a chance skirmish to enliven them days 
 spent in ploughing through roads fetlock-deep in mud, with the 
 east wind harrying them like a scolding tongue, days spent in
 
 1S6 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 watching the leaders of the Highland clans drifting each day 
 nearer to the whirlpool of unrest that revolved about Lord 
 Murray. 
 
 The men who passed Sir Jasper, as he rode back to join his 
 company, were awed by the sheer fury in his face. He did 
 not see them. Kilted men on foot met him, and Lowlanders 
 in tattered breeks, riding nags as rough-coated as themselves. 
 And some from the pick of Scotland's chivalry glanced at him 
 for a nod of recognition, and saw him looking straight ahead 
 with murder in his eyes. 
 
 Sir Jasper was in the mood that, now and then, had fright- 
 ened his wife up yonder on the moors of Lancashire. He 
 had kept the Faith. He had given up wife and bairns and 
 lands if things chanced to go astray. And there was one man 
 in this Rising who was the traitor in their midst. Scholarly, 
 yet simple in his piety, Sir Jasper was in the thick of that 
 stormy mood which hillmen know a mood pitiless and keen 
 as the winds bred in the hollows of the wintry moor, a mood 
 that goes deeper than training, and touches, maybe, the bed- 
 rock of those stormy passions known to the forefathers of 
 the race when all the heath was lit with feuds. 
 
 It was now that good luck found Sir Jasper. There was 
 an empty stretch of road in front of him. He was alone 
 with the black mood that he hated the mood he could not 
 kill ; and the bitter wind was finding out the weak places in 
 a body not too young. And then round the bend of the high- 
 way rode Lord Murray; and Sir Jasper felt a little stir of 
 gladness, as if the wind had shifted to a warmer quarter. 
 
 Murray was unaccompanied, save for his aide-de-camp a 
 careless, pleasant- faced youth of twenty, Johnstone by name, 
 who was destined afterwards to write a diverting and boy- 
 ishly inaccurate account of a campaign whose shallows only, 
 not its depths, were known to him. 
 
 " Of all men, I've hoped most to meet you, my lord Mur- 
 ray," said Sir Jasper, drawing rein. " Your friend can ride 
 apart ; I've much to say to you."
 
 THE ROAD TO THE THRONE 137 
 
 Murray, too, drew rein, glanced hard and uncivilly at Sir 
 Jasper, and turned with a smile to his aide-de-camp. "The 
 Lancashire manner is curt, Mr. Johnstone," he said. " What 
 is this gentleman's name again? He joined us at Langton, I 
 remember, and his Highness was pleased to overdo the 
 warmth of his greeting. It is a way the Prince has, and it 
 answers well enough with the women, to be sure." 
 
 " My name is Jasper Royd," broke in the other, his temper 
 at a smooth white heat, " and it is entirely at your service 
 after this campaign is ended. I permit no man to sneer at 
 his Highness, and you'll give me satisfaction later." 
 
 Lord Murray took a pinch of snuff, smiled again behind 
 his hand at Johnstone. " There's something what shall I 
 say, sir? something old-fashioned in your loyalty, though it 
 sits well enough on you, if 'twere a play we acted." 
 
 " My loyalty is just loyalty. There's no change of fashion 
 can alter the clean faith of a man." 
 
 " Your pardon, but was this all you had to say to me ? The 
 wind is shrewd, Sir Jasper, and we can discuss loyalty and 
 punctilio and the duel you are eager for when we next find 
 an inn to shelter us." 
 
 Murray's harsh, narrow egotism had seldom shown to 
 worse advantage than now. Since first Sir Jasper rode into 
 Langton Street with the big air about him that simple-minded 
 gentlemen are apt to carry, since Murray had seen the 
 Prince's welcome, his jealousy had taken fire. It had slum- 
 bered during the last days of hardship, but this meeting on 
 the road had quickened it. 
 
 " I had more to say, much more," Sir Jasper answered, 
 quiet and downright. " Again I ask you to bid Mr. John- 
 stone ride behind." 
 
 " No, by your leave ; he has my full confidence. You 
 may speak your mind at once; but be speedy, for I would 
 remind you that this is not midsummer." 
 
 Young Johnstone laughed, as youth will at unlikely times; 
 and the laugh added a fine edge to Sir Jasper's temper.
 
 138 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " Then, as you'll have it so, Mr, Johnstone shall be a 
 listener. It is of this Rising I mean to speak and of your 
 share in it. You are young, Lord Murray, and I am getting 
 old. You're riding to the warfare you learned in set battles 
 overseas, but we the Prince, God bless him! and the High- 
 landers and my good lads from Lancashire are out on a 
 wider road." 
 
 "You will explain?" drawled Murray. 
 
 " D'ye think five thousand of us, ill-armed, can win to 
 London by rules of war and maps and compasses ? " 
 
 " I did not think from the first we had a chance of reach- 
 ing London," snapped the other. 
 
 " Yes," put in Sir Jasper adroitly. " We knew as much. 
 You said, before Annan was reached, that we'd no chance 
 of getting beyond Carlisle." 
 
 " Who told, you that ? " said Murray, flurried and un- 
 guarded. 
 
 " Oliphant of Muirhouse, who never lies, my lord. Well, 
 we're here in Staffordshire, and the London road still open 
 to us ; and your prophecy, somehow, has miscarried." 
 
 Murray grew fidgety. Hot temper he knew, and suavity 
 he knew, but not this subtle mixture of the two. " Thank 
 our good luck for that. They say Heaven guards all fools." 
 
 " But more especially all true believers. That is my 
 point. We're adventurers, Lord Murray, not seasoned troops. 
 We ride by faith, we ride for love of the Prince, of what 
 he stands for and we have come through odds that cautious 
 generals would shirk but we are here, in Staffordshire, and 
 the London road, I say, is open to us." 
 
 " Well, then, it's a sermon, after all, you wish to preach. 
 The clergy, my good Sir Jasper, are wiser than you; they 
 preach between four snug walls that shut off this cursed 
 wind." 
 
 " Not a sermon," said Sir Jasper doggedly. " I preach 
 common sense, to one whose faith is dulled by tactics." 
 
 Murray lost the bullying air that had carried him fairly
 
 THE ROAD TO THE THRONE 139 
 
 well through life. He felt dwarfed, ashamed, by some quality 
 in Sir Jasper that overrode his self-importance and tram- 
 pled it in the mire. " Sir Jasper," he asked sullenly, " may 
 I ask you for plain speech? What is your quarrel with 
 me?" 
 
 " You ask for plain speech ? And you'll not ask Mr. John- 
 stone to ride out of earshot? No? Then he, too, shall listen 
 to plain speech." 
 
 There was a moment's silence. Murray wondered at the 
 tense, lean carriage of this Lancashire squire, whose loyalty 
 had been a jest among the cynics of the army, but for the 
 others a steady beacon-light. He wondered more that Sir 
 Jasper's face, grey and lined a while since, was comely now 
 in its heat and youthfulness. 
 
 " I say deliberately, my lord that you're the Judas in 
 this enterprise. I'm getting old, as I said, and I've looked 
 about me during these last days, and I speak of what I know." 
 His temper cooled suddenly, but not his purpose. There was 
 no pleasure now in lashing Murray only the need to do his 
 duty, as if he were bidden to shoot a deserter, made up of 
 the same human clay and the same human frailty as he who 
 pressed the trigger. " The Highlanders the rank and file 
 you cannot reach. But their leaders, my lord Murray you 
 know as well as I that you're at work each day undermining 
 the faith of better men and cleaner-hearted soldiers than your- 
 self. It's no secret that you wish to retreat " 
 
 " To retreat, the better to spring forward," put in Murray, 
 with half-hearted effrontery. 
 
 " To retreat, I said. The Prince goes forward always. It 
 is his habit. You've won many of the Highland chiefs to 
 your side, but the best of them you cannot tempt." 
 
 " You are curiously exact in your knowledge of my do- 
 ings," sneered Murray. 
 
 " I made it my business since the day I first set eyes on you 
 at Langton. That is neither here nor there. And yet there 
 are some of us you cannot tempt. The Duke of Perth "
 
 140 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " Yes, he, too, is mediaeval," snarled Murray. " You and 
 he are out of date, Sir Jasper, and I tell you so." 
 
 Again young Johnstone laughed, though at heart his sym- 
 pathy and liking went out to this queer, downright squire 
 from Lancashire. 
 
 " Then Lochiel," went on Sir Jasper buoyantly " is he, 
 too, old and out of date? Lochiel you know how the very 
 name of him sings music to the Highlanders. Lochiel dear 
 God! the tears are in my eyes; he's so like the free open 
 moors I've left behind me." 
 
 Murray's thin lips came together. It was plain now where 
 the weakness lay in a face that otherwise was strong and 
 manly. The mouth was that of a nagging woman querulous, 
 undisciplined, lined with bygone sneers. He was jealous of 
 the Prince jealous of this fine, upstanding squire who spoke 
 his mind with disconcerting openness; but, most of all, he 
 was jealous of Lochiel Lochiel, the whisper of whose name 
 set fire to loyal Highlandmen; Lochiel, who was gay and 
 courtly and a pleasant comrade; Lochiel, who was hard as 
 granite when men touched his inner faith; he was all that 
 Lord Murray hated, all that Murray wished to be, and could 
 not be. 
 
 " Sir Jasper, you've been plain of speech," he said, with 
 sudden fury. " Our quarrel need not be delayed. I ask Mr. 
 Johnstone here if I can wait to give you satisfaction until " 
 again the smile that was a sneer " until after we are all 
 beheaded on Tower Hill." 
 
 Sir Jasper glanced up and down the road. They had it 
 to themselves, though at any moment a company might ride 
 into view along the straggling route. It was a grave breach 
 of discipline, this duel in the midst of warfare; and yet, 
 somehow, he found it welcome. He turned to the aide-de- 
 camp, glanced quietly at him. 
 
 " Mr. Johnstone," he said, " you cannot be friendly to 
 Lord Murray and myself it's too wide a gulf for young legs 
 to jump but I can trust you, by the look of you, to see fair
 
 THE ROAD TO THE THRONE 141 
 
 play between us. I have no friend at hand, and it happens 
 that this business must be settled quickly." 
 
 They rode apart from the route, into a little wood where 
 sycamores and oaks were bending to the keen, whipping 
 gale. They found an open space, and got from horse, and 
 took off their coats. To Lord Murray, a good swordsman, 
 it was a chance to put out of action one who, in breed and 
 temper, was too near akin to the Stuart and Lochiel. To Sir 
 Jasper it was a call, clear, unhurried, to remove a traitor 
 from the midst of honest men. 
 
 They faced each other in the little glade. Murray was 
 mathematical, exact, secure in his gift of fence. Sir Jasper 
 was as God made him not reckoning up the odds, but trust- 
 ing that honesty would win the day. Young Johnstone 
 watched ; and, despite himself, his heart ached for the older 
 man who pitted Lancashire swordcraft against Murray's prac- 
 tised steel. 
 
 The fight was quick and brief; and the unexpected hap- 
 pened, as it had done throughout this march of faith against 
 surprising odds. Sir Jasper was not fighting for his own 
 hand, but for the Prince's ; and his gift of fence to himself, 
 who knew how time had rusted his old bones was a thing 
 magical, as if a score of years or so had been lifted from his 
 shoulders. 
 
 At the end of it he got clean through Murray's guard ; and 
 it was now that the duel grew dull and tragic to him, robbed 
 altogether of its speed, its pleasant fire. He had fought for 
 this one moment; he had his chance to strike wherever he 
 chose, to kill or lay aside the worst enemy Prince Charles had 
 found, so far, in England. And yet, somehow, his temper 
 was chilled, and the struggle with himself, short as the flicker 
 of an eyelid, seemed long, because it was so sharp and bitter. 
 With an effort that was palpable to young Johnstone, looking 
 on, he drew back his blade, rested its point in the sodden 
 turf, and stood looking at his adversary. 
 
 The action was so deliberate, so unexpected, that Murray
 
 142 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 let his own point fall ; and even he was roused for the moment 
 from his harshness. He knew that this Lancashire squire, 
 with the uncompromising tongue and the old-fashioned view 
 of loyalty, had given him his life just now had given it with 
 some sacrifice of inclination knew that, in this wet and out- 
 of-the-way corner of the world, he was face to face with a 
 knightliness that he had thought dead long ago. 
 
 And then Sir Jasper grew ashamed, in some queer way, of 
 the impulse that had bidden him let Murray go unscathed. 
 He sheathed his sword, bowed stiffly, untethered his horse, 
 and got to saddle. 
 
 " I give you good-day, Lord Murray," he said curtly. 
 " God bring you nearer to the Prince in days to come." 
 
 Murray watched him ride through the glade, out toward 
 the open road where wayfaring loyalists were on the march. 
 And from his shame and trouble a quiet understanding grew. 
 His starved soul was quickened. A gleam from the bigger 
 life cut across his precision, his self-importance, his gospel 
 of arithmetic. 
 
 His aide-de-camp looked on. Johnstone was unused to the 
 tumults that beset older heads; and he had made a hero of 
 this man who had been defeated a little more than defeated 
 at his own game of swordcraft. And he was puzzled be- 
 cause Murray did not curse his fortune, or bluster, or do 
 anything but stand, hilt to the ground, as if he were in a 
 dream. 
 
 It was all quick in the doing. Murray got himself in 
 hand, shrugged his shoulders, searched for his snuff-box. 
 " This is all very dismaying, Mr. Johnstone," he drawled. " I 
 said from the start that we were forgetting every rule of 
 warfare in this mad Rising. And yet to be honest, Sir 
 Jasper is something near to what I dreamed of before the 
 world tired me he's very like a man, Mr. Johnstone. And 
 there are few real men abroad these days." 
 
 Sir Jasper himself, as he rode back into the highway, was 
 in a sad and bitter mood. He had spoken his mind, had
 
 THE ROAD TO THE THRONE 143 
 
 fought and won the duel he had welcomed, and reaction was 
 telling heavily on him just now. After all, he had done more 
 harm than good by this meeting with Lord Murray. Private 
 quarrels, carried as far as this had been, were treasonable, 
 because they weakened all the discipline and speed of an 
 attack against the common enemy. Moreover, a man of 
 Murray's temper could never understand how serviceable it 
 is to admit defeat, and forget it, and go forward with the 
 business of the day; he would plant the grudge, would tend 
 and water it, till it grew from a sapling into a lusty, evil 
 tree. 
 
 He drew rein as he came through the ill-found bridle-track 
 into the open road. Scattered men, on horse or on foot, 
 passed by him; for the fight in the wood had been brief, and 
 an army of five thousand takes long to straggle over 
 slushy, narrow highways. And then Sir Jasper's face grew 
 cheery on the sudden. A company, in close and decent order, 
 rode into view. He saw .Lancashire faces once again his 
 son's, and Squire Demaine's, and Giles the bailiff's, and fifty 
 others that he knew by heart. 
 
 They met him at the turning of the way, drew up, saluted 
 him. And Sir Jasper found his big, spacious air again, be- 
 cause he was at home with men who knew his record with 
 men reared, like himself, within sight of Pendle's round and 
 friendly hill. 
 
 " We're full of heart, lads from Lancashire," he said, tak- 
 ing the salute as if he led a pleasant partner out to dance the 
 minuet. " By gad ! we're full of heart, I tell you," he broke 
 off, with sharp return to his habit of command. " The Lon- 
 don road is open to the Prince; there are three armies chas- 
 ing us, so I'm told, but they seem to shun close quarters. 
 Lancashire men, I'm old, and all my bones are aching and 
 yet I'm gay. Giles, your face is sour as cream in thunder 
 weather; Maurice, though you're my son, you look lean and 
 shrivelled, as if the wind had nipped you; is it only the old 
 men of this Rising who are full of heart?"
 
 144 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " We're spoiling for a fight, sir," said Maurice, with a 
 boy's outspoken fretfulness, " and instead there's only this 
 marching through dull roads, and no hazards to meet us " 
 
 " No heroics, you mean," broke in Squire Demaine, who 
 was riding close beside Maurice. " See you, my lad, this is 
 open war," he went on gruffly, because he, too, was weary of 
 inaction. " And war is not the thing the ballads sing about. 
 It's not crammed with battles, and all the ladies watching, 
 ready with tears and lollipops for the wounded; it's a bleak 
 affair of marching, with little porridge and less cream to it 
 until until you're sick from hunger and fatigue. And then 
 the big battle comes and it sorts out the men from the weak- 
 lings. And that is war, I tell you." 
 
 Sir Jasper reined up beside him, and the two older men 
 rode forward, and the interrupted march moved stolidly again 
 along the road to London pad of hoofs, slush of tired foot- 
 men through the sleety mire, whinnying of dispirited horses 
 and murmur of round Lancashire oaths from the farmers 
 who had left plough and fieldwork behind them, as they 
 thought, and were finding the like dour routine on this high- 
 way where no adventures met them. 
 
 " You heartened our men just now and, gad ! they needed 
 it," said Squire Demaine, as they trotted out of earshot. 
 " But you carry a sad face, old friend, for all that. What 
 ails you ? " 
 
 " Lord Murray ails me," snapped the other. " He's like 
 a pestilence among us." 
 
 " You're precise. He is a pestilence. If we could per- 
 suade Marshal Wade or George to take him as a gift, 
 why, we'd reach London sooner. Give away a bad horse, if 
 you can't sell him, and let him throw the other man there's 
 wisdom in the old saws yet." 
 
 " I'm ashamed, Demaine," said Sir Jasper, turning sud- 
 denly. " You gave Maurice sound advice just now, when he 
 was headstrong and asking for a battle as children cry for 
 toys. And yet it was I who needed your reproof."
 
 THE ROAD TO THE THRONE 145 
 
 And then he told of his meeting with Lord Murray on the 
 road, of the fury that he could not check, of the duel in the 
 wood. His tale was told so simply, with such diffidence and 
 surety that he had been in the wrong, that Squire Demaine 
 laughed gently. 
 
 " There's nothing to your discredit, surely, in all this," he 
 said " except that you spared the Prince's evil-wisher. Gad ! 
 I wish my blade had been as near Murray's heart. I " 
 
 " You would have done as I did. We know each other's 
 weaknesses, Demaine that is why our friendship goes so 
 deep, may be. You'd have done as I did. We relent as 
 soon as we are sure that we have proved our case have 
 proved it to the hilt." 
 
 So then Squire Demaine blustered a little, and denied the 
 charge, then broke into a laugh that was heard far back along 
 the line of march. 
 
 " Squire's found his hunting-laugh again," said one Lan- 
 cashire yeoman to his neighbour. 
 
 " Aye. We need it, lad," the other answered. " There's 
 been no hunting these last days." 
 
 The Squire himself rode silently beside his friend, then 
 turned in saddle. " Yes, we relent," he said, with his happy- 
 go-lucky air. " Is that our weakness, Royd or our 
 strength ? " 
 
 " I do not know." Sir Jasper's smile was grave and ques- 
 tioning. " The devil's sitting on my shoulders and I do not 
 know. A week since I'd have said that faith " 
 
 " Aye, faith. We hold it fast we know it true but, to 
 be honest, I've lost my bearings. I'd have dealt more gently 
 with Maurice if I'd not shared his own longing for a fight." 
 
 " Faith is a practical affair." Sir Jasper was cold and self- 
 reliant again, as when he had fought with Murray in the 
 wood. " When the road is at its worst, and sleet blows up 
 from the east, and we ask only to creep into the nearest ditch, 
 and die as cowards do when all seems lost. Demaine 
 surely, if faith means anything at all, it means "
 
 146 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " You're more devout than I," snapped the Squire. " So 
 is the Prince. I talked with him yesterday. He was wet to 
 the skin, and had just given his last dram of brandy to one 
 Hector MacLean who had cramp in the stomach and I was 
 hasty, may be, as I always am when I see royalty of any sort 
 go beggared. ' Your Highness,' I said, ' the Blood Royal 
 should receive, not give, and you needed that last dram, by 
 the look of your tired face.' And what did he answer, think 
 ye ? ' You've an odd conception of royalty, sir,' said the 
 Prince, his eyes hard and tender both. ' The Blood Royal 
 my father's and mine gives till it can give no more. It 
 lives, or it dies but it goes giving to the last hour.' He's a 
 bigger man than I am, Royd." 
 
 They jogged forward. And presently Sir Jasper broke the 
 silence. " We are hurrying to dodge two armies, and we're 
 succeeding; would God they'd both find us, here on the road, 
 and give us battle! That is our need. One battle against 
 odds and our men riding free and keen and Murray would 
 find his answer. I'd rather be quit of him that way than 
 than by striking at the bared breast of the man." 
 
 " I know, I know," murmured the Squire, seeing how hard 
 Sir Jasper took this battle in the wood. " Let Murray run 
 his neck into the nearest halter ; he's not fair game for honest 
 gentlemen. You were right. And yet my faith runs low, 
 I tell you, and you might have spared a better man. The 
 mouth of him I can see it now, like a rat's, or a scolding 
 woman's you've a tenderer conscience than I." 
 
 Into the middle of their trouble rode Maurice, tired of shep- 
 herding men who blamed him because he found no battle 
 for them. 
 
 " I was sorry that Rupert could not ride with us," he said, 
 challenging Sir Jasper's glance. 
 
 Sir Jasper winced, for his heir was dear to him beyond the 
 knowledge of men who have never bred a son to carry on the 
 high traditions of a race. " If pluck could have brought him, 
 he'd have been with us, Maurice," he said sharply.
 
 THE ROAD TO THE THRONE 147 
 
 " I was not denying- his pluck, sir ; he gave me a taste of 
 it that day he fought like a wild cat on the moor." His face 
 flushed, for he had not known, until the separation came, 
 how deep his love went for his brother. The novelty and up- 
 roar of the march had stifled his heartache for a day or two, 
 but since then he had missed Rupert at every turn. " It was 
 because I because I know his temper, sir," he went on, with 
 a diffidence unlike his usual, quick self-reliance. " He'd have 
 been all for high faith, and a battle at the next road-corner; 
 and these days of trudging through the sleet would have mad- 
 dened him. I'm glad he stayed at home. He'd have picked 
 a quarrel long since with one of our own company, just to 
 prove his faith." 
 
 Squire Demaine glanced dryly at Sir Jasper. " The young 
 pup and the old pup, Royd. Maurice here has better judg- 
 ment than I thought. I always said that Rupert was true to 
 the Royd breed. Your own encounter in the wood just 
 now " 
 
 " Your encounter, sir ? " broke in Maurice eagerly. " Giles 
 was saying to me just now that he'd rather be riding on his 
 bailiff's business up among the hills than be following this 
 dog-trot through the rain. He said and he was so quiet 
 that I knew his temper was red-raw he said that naught was 
 ever like to happen again, so far as he could see, and he was 
 longing for a thunderstorm, just to break up the quietness, 
 like." 
 
 The boy was so apt in his mimicry of Giles that Squire 
 Demaine gave out the frank, hearty bellow that did duty for 
 a laugh. " We're all of the same mind, my lad. Thunder 
 or a straight, soon over fight clears up one's troubles." 
 
 "Your encounter, father?" said Maurice, persistent in his 
 curiosity. " Did you meet a spy of George's, and kill him?" 
 
 Sir Jasper looked at this younger-born of his, at the frank, 
 open face and sturdy limbs. And then he thought, with that 
 keen, recurrent stab of pain that had been bedfellow to him 
 since first he knew his heir a weakling, of Rupert, left up at
 
 148 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 Windyhough to guard a house that so far as he could see 
 just now was in need of no defence. 
 
 " It was not not just a spy of George's I met," he said, 
 with a grave smile. " He may come to that one day. And 
 I did not kill him, Maurice, though I had the chance." 
 
 "Why, sir?" said Maurice, downright and wondering. 
 
 " Why ? God knows. We'd best be pushing forward." 
 
 At Windyhough, where the wind had piled a shroud of 
 snow about the gables, they were thinking, all this time, that 
 those who had ridden out were fortunate. As day by day 
 went by, and Rupert found himself constantly alone in a 
 house where only women and old men were left, he found it 
 harder to stay at home, drilling the household to their separate 
 parts in an attack whose likelihood grew more and more re- 
 mote. 
 
 Rupert, with a body not robust and a twisted ankle that 
 was still in bandages, was holding fast to his allegiance. His 
 mother, less pampered and less querulous, grew each day a 
 more sacred trust. Each day, as she watched him go about the 
 house, he surprised more constantly that look of the Madonna 
 which stood out against the background of her pretty, faded 
 face. He had something to defend at last, something that 
 played tender, stifled chords about that keyboard which we 
 call the soul. He was alone among the women and the old 
 men; but he was resolute. 
 
 And then there came a night when he had patrolled the 
 house, had looked out through his window, before getting to 
 bed, for a glance at the hilltops, white under a shrouded moon. 
 He was tired, was seeking an answer to his faith. And, in- 
 stead, a darkness came about him, a denial of all he had hoped 
 for, prayed and striven for. Hope went by him. Trust in 
 God grew dim and shadowy. There was no help, in this 
 world or another, and he was a weak fool, as he had always 
 been, drifting down the path of the east wind. 
 
 He recalled, with pitiless clearness, how he had played 
 eavesdropper before the Rising men rode out, had heard his
 
 THE ROAD TO THE THRONE 149 
 
 father say that no attack on Windyhough was possible, that 
 the guns and ammunition were nursery toys he had left his 
 heir to play with in his absence. 
 
 Rupert namesake of a cavalier whose name had never 
 stood for wisdom, but always for high daring stood with 
 bowed shoulders, unmanned and desolate. He did not know 
 that the wise, older men he reverenced were compelled to 
 stand, time and time, as he was doing, with black night and 
 negation at their elbow. He knew only that it was cold and 
 dark, with no help at hand. It is moments such as this that 
 divide true men from the feeble-hearted; and Rupert lifted 
 his head, and, though he only half believed it, he told himself 
 that dawn would follow this midwinter night. 
 
 And that night he slept like a child, and dreamed that all 
 was well. And he woke the next day to find Simon Foster 
 watching by his bedside, patient and trusty as the dogs whose 
 instinct is toward loyalty. 
 
 "You've slept, maister!" said Simon. "By th' Heart, I 
 never saw a body sleep so sound." 
 
 " We must patrol the house, Simon. The attack is com- 
 ing and we'll not be late for it, after all these days of 
 waiting." 
 
 "Who says the attack is coming?" growled the other. 
 
 " I dreamed it the clearest dream I ever had, Simon." 
 
 But Simon shook his head. He had no faith in dreams.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 
 
 WINTER is not 'always rough on the high moors of Lanca- 
 shire. There are days when the wind creeps into hiding, 
 and the sun comes up into a sky of blue and saffron, and 
 the thrush begins to find his mating-note before its time. 
 The gnats steal out from crannies in the walls, making pre- 
 tence of a morris-dance along the slant rays of the sun; and 
 everywhere there is a pleasant warmth and bustle, as if faith 
 in this far-off summer, after all, had easily survived the east 
 wind's spite. 
 
 It was on such a day the breeze soft from the west, and 
 Pendle Hill all crimson in the sunset that Rupert limped 
 out from Windyhough on the crutch that Simon Foster had 
 made for him. He had gone his round of the house that 
 empty round performed for duty's sake twice every day and 
 he was hungry for the smell of the open country. He hobbled 
 up the pastures, as far as the rough lands where the moor 
 and the intaken fields were fighting their old, unyielding 
 battle a feud as old as the day when the first heath-man 
 drove his spade into the heather and began to win a scanty 
 living from the wilderness for wife and bairns. 
 
 Rupert, the dreamer, who had stood apart from life, had 
 always found his sanctuary here, where the broken lands lay 
 troubled, like himself, between the desert and the harvest. 
 Instinct had led him here to-night, though weakness of body, 
 never far from him, was trying once again to sap his courage. 
 
 He looked across the moor, strong and comely in its win- 
 ter nakedness. He watched a cock-grouse whirr across the 
 crimson sun-rays. And then, with a sense of thanksgiving 
 and security, he saw the round, stalwart bulk of Pendle Hill. 
 
 150
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 151 
 
 There is something about Pendle a legacy from the far-off 
 fathers, may be that goes deep to the heart of Lancashire 
 men. Its shape is not to be mistaken. It stands like a 
 rounded watch-tower, guarding the moors where freedom and 
 rough weather go hand in hand. It has seen many fights 
 of men feuds, and single-handed combats, and stealthy am- 
 bushes and has come, stalwart and upstanding, through 
 weather that would have daunted meaner souls. It has 
 the strong man's gift of helping weaker men along the 
 gallant, uphill climb that stretches from the cradle to the 
 stars. 
 
 Pendle Hill, big above the wilderness of bog and heath, 
 never chatters of destiny, never tells a man that life is hard, 
 that he had best be done with it, that all his striving has been 
 so much useless labour. Pendle, the fairest citadel of Lan- 
 cashire, has won through too many generations of cold and 
 hardship to be daunted by the troubles of one man's life- 
 time. Rugged, round to the wide, wind-swept skies, old 
 Pendle keeps the faith, and will not yield. 
 
 Rupert had yet to win his spurs, he thought. And yet, 
 as Pendle Hill viewed the matter, he had won them long 
 ago. Day by day, year by year, through his unhappy and 
 disastrous boyhood, the lad had come to the windy lands, for 
 strength and solace. He had been loyal to the hills, steadfast 
 when stronger men had taken their ease. And to-night, be- 
 cause it saw a soldier in the making, gruff Pendle sent out 
 a welcome to Sir Jasper's heir. 
 
 " God knows me for a fool," said Rupert, afraid of the new 
 message that had reached him. 
 
 And there was stillness, while the sun's red died behind 
 the moor. No voice answered Rupert's challenge to the 
 over-world ; but, for all that, he limped down to Windyhough 
 with a sense that all the birds were singing. Through the 
 misery and darkness of these days he was reaching out, with 
 stubborn gallantry, to grasp the forward hope. The forward 
 hope! He had lived on little else since he was breeked.
 
 152 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 As he came down to Windyhough, he met Nance and old 
 Simon Foster at the courtyard gate; Simon was carrying a 
 musket, and polishing the barrel with his sleeve as he hobbled 
 at the girl's side. 
 
 " I've news for you, Rupert ! " she said gaily. 
 
 " (Jtt the Rising ? " He was eager, possessed of the one 
 thought only. " Is trouble nearing Windyhough ? Nance, 
 is there real work to be done at last ? " 
 
 " Oh, my dear, you ask too much. Nothing ever happens 
 at Windyhough; nothing will ever happen again, I think. 
 We're derelict, Rupert; the Highlandmen are playing their 
 Prince into his kingdom by this time, and we " she grew 
 bitter, petulant, for the silence and the waiting were sapping 
 her buoyant health, her courage, her trust in high endeavour 
 " and we in Lancashire are churning our butter every week, 
 Rupert, and selling cows on market days, and dozing by the 
 hearth. / am ashamed." 
 
 Simon Foster glanced sharply at Rupert. He knew the 
 lad through and through, was prepared for the whiteness of 
 his face, the withdrawal as if a friend had struck him wan- 
 tonly. " Miss Nance," he said bluntly, " shame is for folk 
 that's earned it. There's three of us here, and we'd all be 
 marching into London, if only it could have happened that 
 way, like." 
 
 Nance would not look at Rupert, though she guessed how 
 she had wounded him. She did not know this mood that had 
 settled on her since coming to the draughty, loyal house of 
 Windyhough. The long inaction, the waiting for news gath- 
 ered from gruff, hard-ridden messengers, the day-long wish 
 to be out in the thick of battle, had troubled her; but there 
 was a deeper trouble a trouble that was half delight, a tur- 
 moil and unrest to which she could not give a name. And 
 the trouble centred round Rupert. She liked him so well, 
 had grown up with his queer, dreamy ways, his uncomplain- 
 ing courage. 
 
 She had laughed at him, had pitied him; but now she was
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 153 
 
 pitying- herself. If only he would remember that he was a 
 man, the heir to a fine, loyal record if only he would clear 
 the cobwebs from his eyes, and sit a horse as other men did, 
 would show the stuff his soul was made of, the world would 
 understand him at long last. 
 
 Nance was tired, her temper out of hand. " Simon, you 
 can go indoors," she said dryly. " Since you did not join 
 the Rising why, Lady Royd has work for you." 
 
 She did not know what she needed, or what ailed her. 
 And she and Rupert stood in the courtyard after old Simon 
 had gone in, fronting each other like wary duellists. 
 
 " What was your news ? " asked Rupert, his temper brittle 
 like her own. 
 
 " Oh, we set up a target, Simon and I ; and I practised 
 with one of your clumsy muskets, Rupert, and wished that I 
 had a bow-and-arrow in my hands instead. I have some skill 
 in archery, have I not ? " 
 
 " Yes. You've skill in all things, Nance. There's no news 
 in that." 
 
 " And I aimed very wide at first, till I turned and found 
 Simon smiling as if he were watching a baby at its play. So 
 then I kept him hard at work loading, and priming, and the 
 rest, and wasted a good deal of your ammunition, Rupert 
 but I learned to hit the target." 
 
 She spoke lightly, hurriedly, as if fearing to sound the 
 depths of this trouble that had come between Rupert and 
 herself. 
 
 "Was it just to pass the time?" he asked by and by. 
 "You're shut in here and restless, I know " 
 
 " It was more, perhaps. We are so few, and I said just 
 now that nothing would ever happen again at Windyhough 
 but the attack may come." 
 
 Rupert glanced at his crutch. He was sensitive, from long 
 suffering, to the least hint that touched his personal infirmi- 
 ties. "And you could not trust your men to guard you?" 
 he said sharply. "That was your thought?" 

 
 154 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " Oh, Rupert, no ! I'm out of heart I did not mean to 
 hurt you." 
 
 " You've not hurt me, Nance. I I must find Simon and 
 go the round of the house with him. We call it our drill." 
 He turned at the door, glanced at her with the smile of self- 
 derision that she knew. " Simon is right. He says that, if a 
 man can't go soldiering, the next best thing is to play at it, 
 like a bairn with a wooden sword. Good-night, Nance. I'm 
 tired, and shall get to bed after seeing to the defences." 
 
 Nance heard the delicate irony as he spoke of the defences, 
 saw him limp into the house. And some new feeling came 
 to her. It was not pity; it was a strange, fugitive pride in 
 the courage that could keep so harassed a spirit under con- 
 trol. She had been harsh and bitter, had wounded him be- 
 cause she needed any outlet from these pent-up days at 
 Windyhough ; and he had gathered his little strength together, 
 had laughed at himself, had gone to the routine of guarding 
 a house that did not need defence. 
 
 Nance was ashamed to-night. Her reliance and high 
 spirits had deserted her; and for that reason she saw nearer 
 to the heart of life. She felt that a great gentleman, marred 
 in the making, had gone into this house of fine traditions. 
 She asked, with an entreaty passionate and wilful as her- 
 self, why Rupert had been condemned to sit at home among 
 the women, when so little more was needed to shape him to 
 the comely likeness of a man. 
 
 And then she thought of Will Underwood, who had 
 strength and grace of body, remembered with obstinate zeal 
 her faith that he had ridden on some desperate business of 
 the Rising, though men doubted him. And she was in the 
 turmoil of first love again. 
 
 The next day, and the next, she missed Rupert from the 
 house. He would go his rounds punctiliously after break- 
 fast, and then would take a crust and a piece of cheese in his 
 pocket and limp up into the hills. She thought that he was 
 feeding his dreams, as of old, on the high winds and the
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 155 
 
 high legends of the heath ; and she missed him, with a sense 
 of loneliness that would not let her rest. 
 
 Simon Foster, too, was absent these days, and Lady Royd 
 grew petulant. Though her husband was like to lose his 
 head, and England was stirred by that throb of coming battle 
 which is like thunder-heat before the rain and lightning come, 
 she was troubled because Simon did not perform his indoor 
 duties. For she, who had little guidance of herself, and 
 therefore less control of serving-folk, was exact in her de- 
 mand that all the details of the house should be well-ordered. 
 
 " I thought Simon at least tied by rheumatism to the 
 house," she wailed to Nance, on the second day of absence; 
 " but he's like all our men off to the Rising, or off to the 
 fields ; any excuse will serve, it seems, when women feel their 
 indoor loneliness." 
 
 And Nance, though her impulse was to laugh, was sub- 
 dued by those blundering, poignant words, " their indoor 
 loneliness." Nance was a child of the open fields, meeting 
 all chances of life better in the free wind than in the stifled 
 houses. Not until her coming to Windyhough had she un- 
 derstood the heartache, the repression, summed up by "their 
 indoor loneliness." A fierce resentment took hold of her. 
 
 " Men have all the pleasure," she said, in a low, hard voice. 
 " It was so always." 
 
 She would have been the better for a glimpse of the 
 Prince's tattered army, fighting through sleet and mud and 
 jealousy for the privilege of setting a Stuart on the throne. 
 But Nance was young and untried yet, and thought herself 
 ill-used because she had a roof above her. 
 
 And then Rupert came in, with Simon Foster close behind 
 him. 
 
 " You've been at the ale-house, Simon," said Lady Royd 
 shrewishly. 
 
 " No, by your leave. I've been on the King's business, 
 and other needs must wait, my lady. So I was taught, least- 
 ways, when I was a bairn at my father's knee."
 
 136 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " What is the mystery, Rupert ? " asked Nance, after Simon 
 had grumbled his way toward the servants' quarters. 
 
 " Mystery ? None, my dear, except that I'm tired to death, 
 and have the round of the house to go before I get to bed." 
 
 He spoke the truth. Mystery there was none, except that 
 out of his great love for her he was learning many lessons. 
 And she tempted him, meanwhile, to tell her what this busi- 
 ness was that had taken Simon and himself to the open fields ; 
 but he gave no answer. 
 
 And that evening passed, as many another had done, with 
 a monotony that seemed to tick the seconds out, deliberate as 
 the eight-day clock in the hall a passionless, grave clock that 
 had seen many generations of the Royds go through their 
 hot youth, their fiery middle-age, their last surrender sur- 
 render honourable, upright, staunch in the last hour, to that 
 great general, Death, who has taken more citadels than any 
 human hero of renown. 
 
 The eight-day clock knew that life was not meant to be 
 taken at the gallop, each moment packed with ambush, high 
 romance, fine-spoken wooing that could not outlast the honey- 
 moon. It knew that fine deeds big moments when the 
 heart finds room to know itself are earned by steady prepara- 
 tion, ticked out by the slow-moving seconds. But Nance 
 had all this to learn as yet, and this evening, of all evenings 
 she had spent at Windyhough, seemed the longest and the 
 dreariest. And my lady's little spaniel a nervous, unlicked 
 lap-dog annoyed her beyond reason. 
 
 Lady Royd was full of dread and surmise. First, she 
 heard a mouse gnawing at the wainscoting, and fell into a 
 panic obviously real. Then a farm-dog began to yelp and 
 whimper from the stables, and she was sure it foretold dis- 
 aster to her husband. 
 
 " It was so foolish of him," she said, " to go on this wild 
 Rising. He had all to keep him here his wife and his two 
 sons and the house he loved, and the hunting in the winter. 
 Why did he leave it all? He had all to keep him, Nance."
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 157 
 
 Because she was tired and heart-sick, perhaps, Nance spoke 
 with a wisdom not her own ; for at these times we do not lash 
 instinct to the gallop, but let it carry us like a sure-footed 
 horse. " Except his heart It was his heart that took him 
 south." 
 
 " But his heart was here, my girl," put in the other, with 
 sudden spirit. She had been moved to terror by the sound 
 of a mouse in the wainscoting; but she was fierce in her de- 
 fence of the love her goodman bore her. 
 
 " No," said Nance gently, as if she persuaded a child to 
 learn some obvious and simple lesson, " his heart could not be 
 here until he had answered the call of honour." 
 
 " Oh, spare me ! " sighed the other languidly. " Honour is 
 so pretty a thing like a rapier, or a Frenchman's wit when 
 they sing of it in ballads. But in practice it is like getting up 
 at sunrise to see the poet's dawn so chilly and uncomfortable, 
 Nance." 
 
 " What else ? " said Nance, her head thrown up with a sud- 
 den, eager gesture that was vastly like her father's. " Honour 
 rusts, my lady, if it stays always in the scabbard. Discom- 
 fort? I think honour Sir Jasper's and my father's feeds 
 on discomfort, thrives on it " 
 
 " But Sir Jasper, what more did he need ? He can find no 
 more if he returns no more than he left behind when he went 
 on this wild-goose chase. I shall be waiting for him the wife 
 who loves him, no more, no less " 
 
 " Is there a boundary-wall round love, then ? " asked Nance, 
 with eyes wide open and astonished. " I'm young and fanci- 
 ful, perhaps. I thought love was a thing that found wider 
 fields to travel every hour; that, each day one's man 
 came home with honour, one cared for him ever a little 
 the more, and knighted him afresh. For it is knighthood, 
 surely, a true man asks always from the woman of his 
 choice." 
 
 Lady Royd fingered her scent-bottle, and laughed vaguely, 
 enjoying the girl's transparent honesty. " It all has a roman-
 
 158 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 tic sound, Nance. Did you learn it from books, as poor 
 Rupert learned his soldiery ? " 
 
 The taunt stung Nance, because she had hoped, with odd 
 persistency, that Rupert would come in, after going his round 
 of the house, to ask her to sing to him. And he had not come ; 
 and she had tender songs enough in readiness, for she remem- 
 bered how wantonly she had hurt him not long ago. 
 
 " Where did you learn it, girl ? " insisted Lady Royd, with 
 tired irony. " I'm past the age of glamour and half regret 
 it and you may recapture for me all the fragment silliness. 
 Nance, believe me, I cannot make a satisfying meal of dew- 
 drops. I must be getting old, for I grow fonder and fonder 
 of my cook, who sends substantial rations from the kitchen." 
 
 So then Nance, hot-headed, resentful, not guessing that she 
 was being gently baited to while away an hour's boredom from 
 her companion Nance stood to her little, queenly height. 
 And her eyes were beautiful, because her eagerness shone 
 through them. And she tapped her buckled slipper on the 
 beeswaxed floor, as if she were impatient to be dancing with 
 true men, or dying with them along the road that Sir Jasper 
 and his friends had sought. 
 
 " I learned it as Rupert learned his soldiery, I think not 
 from books at all, my lady. It was my heart taught me, or 
 my soul, or what you choose to name that something which is 
 is bigger, somehow, than one's self. Honour I cannot tell 
 you the keen, sharp strength, the sweetness and the pity the 
 word spells for me. It is like the swords my father is so 
 fond of bright and slim, like toys to look at; but you can 
 bend them till point touches hilt and yet not break them. And 
 you can ride out and cleave a way with these same words." 
 
 Lady Royd was no cynic now. The peril and discomfort 
 of the times had been opening closed windows for her, as 
 for others who lived near this wind-swept heath. By stealth, 
 and fearing much, she had peered out through these unshut- 
 tered casements; and Nance was speaking outright of the 
 fugitive, dim thoughts that she herself had harboured.
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 159 
 
 "Go, my dear," she said gently. "You've the voice you 
 sing with the voice that Rupert praises. Go, sing to me 
 again of of love and honour, child." 
 
 Nance flushed. She scarcely knew what she had said. " I 
 do not need," she said, with instinctive grace and. dignity. 
 " You know so much of them, and I so little ; and I am sorry 
 if if I spoke in haste. I am so tired, and I forget the the 
 deference owing to your years." 
 
 So then, because they stood very near each other for this 
 moment, and because she feared intimacy just yet with the 
 simple, happy glimpse of life that Nance had shown her, Sir 
 Jasper's wife drew her skirts about her and picked up the 
 yapping, pampered thing she called a dog and kissed its nose. 
 It was her signal for good-night. 
 
 " A woman likes deference, my dear," she said sharply, 
 " deference of all kinds, except that owing to to advancing 
 years. You sang out of tune there, Nance. Never to be 
 made love to again ; never again, so long as one's little world 
 lasts, to catch the glance, the little broken word of tribute 
 things that do not wrong one's husband, Nance, but add a spice 
 to the workaday, quiet road of love for him; they're hard to 
 give up, my dear." 
 
 Nance looked at her with frank surprise. She was strong 
 and untried yet; and Lady Royd was frail, but experienced 
 so far as indolence allowed. And there was a deep gulf be- 
 tween them. 
 
 " I will take my candle up," said Nance lamely. 
 
 " Yes, and sleep well, child. Dream of oh, of love and 
 honour and the foolish rosemary of life. And come sing to 
 me to-morrow of the things you've dreamed. Perhaps I 
 spoke at random, Nance. I'm widowed of my husband; and 
 this Rising never wore a lucky face to me and my temper 
 is not gentle, Nance, I know." 
 
 That night there were few who slept at Windyhough. Sir 
 Jasper's wife, alone with the wind that rattled at her window, 
 made no disguise of the love that beat, strong and trusty, un-
 
 160 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 derneath her follies. Despite herself, she, had come out at 
 last into the road of life the road of mire and jealousies and 
 tragedy, lit far ahead by the single lamp of honour, for those 
 whose eyes were trained to see it. 
 
 " I'm not worthy of him," she moaned, drawing the sleepy 
 spaniel toward her. " My husband climbs the bigger hills, 
 while I am weak, as Rupert is." 
 
 Nance, too, lay awake. She was busy with what Lady Royd 
 had named the rosemary of life. All her instincts rose in warm 
 defence of that view of honour which Sir Jasper's wife had 
 slighted. And there were men, men in their own midst, who 
 could love in the old knightly way. There was Will Under- 
 wood and so she lost herself, half between waking and 
 dreaming, in a maze of high perfection that she reared about 
 his person. Of a truth Wild Will was in danger, had he 
 known it. He had pressed his suit on Nance, had urged it, 
 in and out of season, during the months that preceded this up- 
 set of the Rising. He had captured her fancy already, and her 
 heart might follow any day; but he did not guess what sim- 
 plicity and breadth of tenderness she would bring him, what 
 answering devotion she would ask. Nance had the double 
 gift she had the woman's instincts, the woman's suppleness of 
 fancy, but she had been reared in a house where a big, down- 
 right father and big, uncompromising brothers had trained her 
 to the man's code of life. She would never come to the 
 wooing as to a one-sided bargain, giving all meekly and 
 asking nothing in return. She would ask, with tenderest 
 persistence, that her man, as she had said to Lady Royd, 
 should claim knighthood at her hands once every while. 
 Marriage, to her unproved heart, was a thing magical, re- 
 newing its romance each day but renewing, too, that every- 
 day and hard endeavour on which the true romance is founded. 
 
 And so she got to sleep at last, and woke in terror. She 
 had dreamed that Will Underwood, engaged in a single- 
 handed fight against a company of the Prince's enemies, lay 
 wounded sorely; and she had reached out hands, impotent
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 161 
 
 with nightmare, to succour him, and she had seen him fall. 
 
 At the end of the long, draughty corridor, not many yards 
 away from her, Rupert was fighting his new trouble. He and 
 Simon had been engaged on the King's business or the pre- 
 tence of it during these excursions that had taken them 
 afield for two days past. But he could only remember now 
 what had driven him into endeavour how he had come home 
 to find Nance flushed and eager, Simon carrying a couple 
 of muskets; and how she had told him, in plain words, that 
 women must needs take up soldiery, because the men about 
 the house were so infirm. 
 
 Since his soul was launched into the open sea of life, Ru- 
 pert had known many a Gethsemane, but the pain had never 
 been so keen as now. His love for Nance was of the kind she 
 claimed, but his power to do high deeds lagged far behind 
 the will to be a conqueror. And Nance, who had always 
 brought a sense of well-being and of inspiration to him, had 
 wounded him mortally, he thought. Sir Jasper had bidden 
 him guard the house, and he had overheard his father say 
 that the defence was a toy he left his heir to play with; and 
 the bitterness of that was past, not without hardship and a 
 struggle that, fought out in loneliness, was fine as a battle 
 against heavy odds. That was past, but Nance's taunt was 
 with him still, a sting that banished sleep and poisoned all 
 his outlook on the hills where Faith, crowned and a strong 
 monarch, looks down to see into the hearts of men and 
 choose her soldiers. 
 
 Old Simon Foster, for his part, had not slept well to-night. 
 As he put it to himself, he " was never one to miss sleep or 
 victuals, come peace or earthquakes " ; but to-night he could 
 not rest. He was with the master, fighting somewhere near 
 to that London which was a far-off land to him, unknown 
 and perilous, as if wide seas divided it from Lancashire. And 
 he was itching to be out of a house where the mistress could 
 still be anxious lest her spaniel missed his proper meals, 
 where, to his fancy, women crowded all the passages and
 
 162 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 hindered him at every turn. Simon was twisted out of shape 
 by exposure and harsh, rheumatic pains, but he was sick to 
 be out again with the wind and the weather that had crippled 
 him. 
 
 Simon Foster, too infirm to go with his master to the 
 wars, was ill-tempered these days, as a grey old hound is 
 when he sees the whelps of his own fathering go out to 
 hunting while he is left at home. He was in and out of the 
 house, till the women-servants grew tired of his grim, 
 weather-beaten face. Only Martha put in a good word for 
 him Martha who, at five-and-thirty, had not found a mate, 
 though she would have made a good wife to any man. Simon 
 was barely turned fifty, she said, and was hale enough " if 
 rheumatiz would only let him bide in peace." And when a 
 prim maid-of-all-work had suggested that bent legs tempted 
 no maid's fancy, Martha had answered hotly that the shape 
 of a man's heart mattered more than any casual infirmity 
 attaching to his legs. 
 
 He got up this morning, two hours before the wintry 
 dawn came red and buoyant over Pendle Hill, for he could 
 not rest indoors. He went to the stables, his lantern swing- 
 ing crazily in his gnarled hands, and roused the horses from 
 the slumber that is never sleep, because men ask so much 
 of them at all hours of the day and night, and patted them, as 
 a father touches his bairns gently, with a sort of benedic- 
 tion. For the smell of a horse to Simon was vastly com- 
 forting. 
 
 He came to an old, fiddle-headed nag that had been a pen- 
 sioner at Windyhough these many years, and stayed and 
 chatted with him with the ease that comes of long comrade- 
 ship. 
 
 " We're in the same plight, lad," he growled " old, and 
 left at home, the two of us. Ay, we're thrown on the lum- 
 ber-heap, I reckon." 
 
 He went out by and by ; and his face cleared suddenly like 
 wintry sunlight creeping over a grey stubble-field, as he saw
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 163 
 
 Martha cross from the mistals with a milking-pail over each 
 well-rounded arm. And, because there seemed little else to 
 to, he stopped to praise the trim shape of her. 
 
 " And your cheeks, Martha," he added, after a pause 
 " there's some warm wind been at 'em, or they'd never look 
 so bonnie." 
 
 " Winds blow cold up hereabout," said Martha demurely, 
 setting down her pails. " And my cheeks are my own, Simon 
 Foster, by your leave." 
 
 Simon had known this game of give-and-take with a lass 
 in the days before he grew harder and more keen on battle. 
 He returned now with ease to habits forsworn until the 
 Rising left him derelict among the women. 
 
 " Nay, but they're not, as the bee said to the clover." 
 
 " For shame, Simon and at your age, too ! " 
 
 "At my age! I'd teach ye I'm young if rheumatiz was 
 not like a hive o' bees about me." 
 
 She twisted a corner of her apron, half hid her face with 
 it ; and Simon admitted to himself that the brown eyes looking 
 into his " might be tempting, like, to a younger lad than me." 
 
 " At my age a man's just beginning to know women," he 
 said persuasively. " It takes a long 'prenticeship, Martha. 
 You can learn to break in a horse, or do smithy work, or 
 aught useful like, in a lile few years. But to learn the way 
 of a woman durned if it isn't a long job and a tough job, 
 Martha." 
 
 " We're very simple, if you men weren't blind as bats at 
 midday." 
 
 " Oh, ay ; you're simple ! " put in Simon, with a quiet 
 chuckle. " Simple as driving sows to market." 
 
 So then Martha put a hand to each of her milking-pails. 
 " I'd best be getting on with my work. If you're likening 
 me to a sow " 
 
 "There, there! It wasn't you lass; it was women not 
 just so bonnie the most part o' women, I mean." 
 
 Martha lingered. The deft flattery had pleased her, and
 
 164 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 she was willing to surrender any casual defence of her own 
 sex. " Well, the most part o' women, Simon, they're feather- 
 witted maybe. I'll own as much." 
 
 " And like sows," went on the other, with patient explana- 
 tion of his theme. " A man 'chooses his straight road and 
 sticks to it, but a sow, when you want to get her Lunnon 
 way, why, you've just to twist her by the tail, backward fore- 
 most, and pretend you want her to head straight for Scot- 
 land." 
 
 They eyed each other with a large, impassive silence. 
 There was plenty of leisure these days at Windyhough, too 
 much of it; and Simon found it pleasant to watch Martha's 
 wholesome, wind-sweet face, to hear the voice that seemed 
 made for singing to the kine while she sat at the milking- 
 pail. And Martha, for her part, had never known a wooing, 
 and the prime hunger of her life still went unsatisfied. 
 
 " Human nature it's a queer matter," said Simon by and 
 by. 
 
 "And there's a deal of it about," sighed Martha. "Hu- 
 man nature soon as ever a body can get away from moil 
 and toil and begin to think, like why, it's just made up o' 
 things we haven't got, Simon. And if we'd got them we 
 shouldn't care so much for 'em, and so it's all a round o' 
 foolishness, like a donkey treading at the mill-wheel." 
 
 A tear fell down on to Martha's hand, and, because the 
 grief was come by honestly, Simon felt an odd impulse stirring 
 him. " Martha, my lass, I wish I was a good twenty years 
 younger. If I were forty, now, and you " 
 
 " I'm nearing forty, Simon. We'll not talk of ages, by 
 your leave." 
 
 Simon walked up and down the yard, in a mood that was 
 half between panic and something worthier. Then he came 
 to Martha's side. " I've a mind to kiss you," he said. 
 
 " Well, I'm busy," said Martha ; " but I might happen spare 
 time." 
 
 And so they plighted troth. And Simon, when at last
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 165 
 
 he went indoors to get about the duties Lady Royd found for 
 him, was astonished that he had no qualms. He had given 
 his promise, and knew that, as a man of his word, he would 
 keep it. All old instincts whispered that he had been " varry 
 rash to tie himself in a halter in that fool's fashion " ; and yet 
 he felt only like a lad who goes whistling to help his lass 
 bring in the kine to byre. 
 
 As he reached the house, Nance, in her riding-habit, 
 stepped out into the courtyard. Tired of her restless dreams, 
 weary to death of the inaction and misery at Windyhough, 
 she had stolen out of the house like a thief, afraid lest Lady 
 Royd should need her before she made good her escape. She 
 flushed guiltily even at this meeting with Simon, as if he had 
 detected her in wrong-doing, though her longing for a gallop 
 was innocent enough. 
 
 " You're for riding on horseback, Miss Nance ? " he asked, 
 by way of giving her good-day. 
 
 " Yes, Simon. I shall die if I spend another day indoors. 
 It is like being wrapped in cotton-wool." 
 
 "Well, now, you're right! I've just been to the stables 
 myself," he added dryly, " and you've the pick of three rare 
 stay-at-homes to choose from. One's broken-winded, and 
 one's spavined, and t'other's lame in the off hind-leg. 
 There's a fine choice for you ! " 
 
 " Which of the three shall I choose?" laughed Nance. 
 
 " Oh, I'd take the broken-winded one, with the head like 
 Timothy Wade's bass-viol that he plays i' church. He's a lot 
 o' fire in him yet if you don't mind him roaring like a 
 half-gale under you. I was talking to him just now telling 
 him the oldsters had as much pluck in 'em as the youngsters. 
 It was a shame, I said, to leave such spirited folk as him and 
 me behind." 
 
 Nance gave him a friendly smile he had always been a 
 favourite of hers, by force of his tough, homespun strength 
 and honesty and crossed the yard. The stablemen and 
 grooms were off with Sir Jasper to the wars all save two
 
 166 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 who were past seventy, and were warming themselves in- 
 doors before facing the nipping wind. She found the three 
 horses left, like the stablemen, because of age and infirmity, 
 and helped Simon, with a quickness she had learned in child- 
 hood, to saddle the fiddle-headed beast that he had recom- 
 mended. 
 
 The beast had been eating his head off, and was almost 
 youthful in caprice and eagerness as Nance rode him up 
 into the moors. He had watched his comrades go out a 
 week ago mettled youngsters, neighing with wide nos- 
 trils from sheer lust of adventure and he had been left to 
 eat more corn than was good for him, left to think back along 
 the years when men had needed him to carry the burden of 
 their hopes. 
 
 The horse knew, perhaps, that Nance, like himself, was 
 seeking respite from indolence and the companionship of 
 ailing folk. He carried her bravely, and disguised from her 
 for a while, with a certain chivalry, the fact that he was 
 broken-winded. When they came to the moor, however, the 
 smell of the marshes and the ling seemed to get to his head, 
 like too much wine ; and twice he all but unseated Nance, who 
 was thinking of Will Underwood, riding south like her 
 father into that perilous country where George the Second 
 was seated on a stolen throne. 
 
 The horse, after his display of youthfulness, was content 
 to laze up and down the sheep-tracks of the heath ; and even 
 Nance, blind as she was by habit to the failings of her com- 
 rades, was aware that he was roaring now like a half-gale 
 from the north. 
 
 Then she forgot the horse, forgot the languid mother, the 
 weakling heir, down yonder at the bleak house of Windy- 
 hough. Her thoughts returned to her father, to Sir Jasper, 
 to gentle and simple of the Lancashire men who had ridden 
 out against long odds. Last of all, her maidenly reserve 
 broke down, and she knew that she was eager for Will Un- 
 derwood's safety. She saw him so clearly fearless, a keen
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 167 
 
 rider after hounds, a man who sought danger and coveted 
 it. Surely he was made for such reckless battles as were 
 coming. Through her anxieties, through her womanish pic- 
 turing of the wounds and sickness that were lying in wait 
 along this high-road that led south to victory and the Stuart, 
 she was glad that " Wild Will " would need her prayers, her 
 trust in him. 
 
 She rode slowly up by way of Hangman's Snout a bluff, 
 round hill that once had carried a gallows-tree. Line by 
 swarthy line the heath widened out before her as she climbed. 
 Crumpled hillocks, flat wastes of peat, acre after acre of dead 
 bracken intermixed with ling and benty grasses, swept out 
 and up to the sky that was big with sunrise and with storm. 
 The wind blew cold and shrill, and all was empty loneliness; 
 but to Nance it seemed that she was in a friendly land, where 
 she was free to breathe. They would not let her fight for 
 the true cause; she had no skill in arms; but here, on the 
 naked, friendly heath, she was free at least to grasp the mean- 
 ing of that stormy hardship which her folk had been content 
 to undergo. 
 
 There was Sir Jasper her father, and many who had 
 ridden out from the Loyal Meet at Windyhough under her 
 own eyes and all of them had seemed instinct with this 
 large, stormy air that lay above the moors. She was girlish 
 yet, healthy and in need of pleasure; and she had wondered, 
 seeing these men ride from Windyhough, that they were so 
 grave about the matter, intent and quiet, as if they went to 
 kirk instead of to the wars. Like Rupert, she had pictured 
 the scene in more vivid colours, had been impatient that no 
 music of the pipes, no rousing cheers had gone to the fare- 
 well. She had longed for the strong lights and shades of 
 drama, and had found instead a workaday company of gentle- 
 men who rode about their business and made no boast of it. 
 
 Here on the wintry heights she looked life in the face to- 
 day. These men who had ridden out Sir Jasper turning 
 only at the last moment to kiss his wife, though he was deep
 
 168 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 in love with her at the end of many years had been rugged 
 and silent as the hills that had nursed their strength and 
 loyalty. 
 
 Nance was not herself just now. The superstitious would 
 have said that she was " seeing far." And so she was far 
 as the red sunrise-glow that reached up to heaven. She and 
 the moors, between them, struck sparks 'of vivid faith from 
 the winter's barrenness and hardship. She was sure that 
 summer would return, fragrant with the scent of Stuart 
 roses. 
 
 They had reached the top of Hangman's Snout, she and 
 her broken-winded horse. And suddenly a doubt came 
 blowing down the breeze to her. Will Underwood had been 
 absent from the Loyal Meet. She was aware that men 
 doubted him in some subtle manner that did not need words 
 to explain its meaning. He was popular, in a haphazard 
 way, with his own kind; but always, as Nance looked back 
 along the years, there was a suggestion that he was happier 
 among the women, because he had the gift of fooling them. 
 And yet men admitted that he was a good companion in all 
 field-sports and yet again Nance remembered how, not long 
 ago, she had overheard her father talking with Oliphant of 
 Muirhouse, when they did not guess that she was within 
 earshot. 
 
 " Will Underwood will join us," Squire Roger had said, 
 with the testiness of a man who only half believes his own 
 words. " He takes any fence that comes." 
 
 " Yes," Oliphant had broken in, with the dry smile of one 
 who knew his world. " Yes, he can gallop well. Can he 
 stand a siege, though?" 
 
 "A siege?" 
 
 " There's not always a game fox in front, Squire and 
 hounds running with a fine, full-throated cry. I'm on the 
 other side o' life myself the long night rides, when a man 
 would barter all for one clean fight in open daylight. Under- 
 wood will not find this march such a gallop. Horse and foot
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 169 
 
 go together, and the roads are vile. Can he last, Squire, 
 crawling at a foot pace?" 
 
 Nance remembered the very tone of Oliphant's voice the 
 dry, sharp challenge in it, as of one who had learned to sum 
 up a man's character quickly. It was her own judgment of 
 Will Underwood, though warm liking for him his bigness 
 and his way of taking fences had stifled half her healthy 
 common sense. 
 
 She checked her horse, looked out across this land of win- 
 try nakedness. It was here on the uplands that she had let 
 Underwood steal into her friendship, here that her quick 
 need for romance had shaped him to the likeness of a gentle- 
 man gallant, debonair, a man to count on whether peace or 
 war were in the doing. 
 
 Something of the wind's free-roving heedlessness took hold 
 of her. She was free to choose her man, free to be loyal to 
 her heart and let her judgment go. 
 
 She looked down the slope. A horseman came suddenly 
 into view, riding up the trough of the hills. She checked her 
 horse, with a sharp, instinctive cry. The superstitions of the 
 moor, bred in its lonely marshes and voiced by its high priests, 
 the curlews and the plover, crept round her like the hill- 
 mists that bewilder human judgment. Will Underwood was 
 away with the Stuart, riding south to London and the Res- 
 toration ; yet he was coming up to meet her, over the slopes 
 which they had crossed together on many a hunting-day. 
 
 She watched him climb the slope. There was no mistak- 
 ing the dashing, handsome figure, the way he had of sitting 
 a horse ; and the wide emptiness of the heath, its savage loneli- 
 ness, seemed only to make bigger this intruder who rode up 
 into its silence. 1 
 
 The old, unconquerable legends of the moor returned to 
 Nance. Her nurse had taught her, long ago, what such 
 apparitions meant. The dead were allowed to return to those 
 they loved, for the brief hour before the soul, half between 
 heaven and earth, took its last departure.
 
 170 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 She watched the horseman ride nearer, nearer. And sud- 
 denly she broke into a flood of tears. He had died in battle 
 had died for the Stuart and was riding up, a ghostly horse- 
 man on a phantom steed, to tell her of it. He had died well 
 yes but she would miss him in the coming years. She 
 would miss him 
 
 Again she thought of Rupert. All his life the Scholar 
 had been struggling against impotence and misery. He had 
 grown used to it by habit; and, of all her friends, she longed 
 most to have him by her side, because he would understand this 
 trouble that unsteadied her. 
 
 Will Underwood's wraith came up and up the track. She 
 drooped in the saddle of the broken-winded horse, and hid her 
 eyes, and waited for the kiss, cold as an east wind over the 
 marshes, that would tell her he was loyal in the dying. The 
 tales of nursery days were very close about her now, and she 
 was a child who walked in the unknown. 
 
 " Why, Nance, what the devil is amiss ? You're crying like 
 a burn in spate." 
 
 Will's voice was sharp and human. Nance reined back a 
 pace or two. They were so near, so big, Will and his horse, 
 that they shattered her nursery tales with bewildering rough- 
 ness. 
 
 For a while she could not speak, could not check the sobs 
 which were a tribute, not to the living man but to his wraith. 
 Then she gathered up her strength, for she came of a plucky 
 stock. Will Underwood was good at reading women's 
 faces ; it was his trade in life ; but he could make nothing of 
 Nance just now. Her glance was searching, her eyes quiet 
 and hard, though tears were lying on her lashes still. All 
 her world had slipped from under her. There seemed no 
 longer any trust, or faith, or happiness in the bleak years to 
 come ; but at least she had her pride. 
 
 "Nance, what is it?" he asked. 
 
 " I thought you a ghost just now, Mr. Underwood the 
 ghost of your better self, may be. And now "
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 171 
 
 " Well, and now ? " he broke in, with the hardy self-assur- 
 ance that had served him well in days gone by. " I'm alive, 
 and entirely at your service, Nance. Surely there's no occa- 
 sion for distress in that." 
 
 She looked gravely at him for a moment, with clear eyes 
 that seemed to glance through and beyond him, as if his hand- 
 some body and his strength had disappeared, leaving only a 
 puff of unsubstantial wind behind. 
 
 " There is occasion," she said, very gravely and in a voice 
 that was musical with pain and steadfastness. " You had 
 better be lying dead, Mr. Underwood, along some road of 
 loyalty, than than be idling here, when other men are fight- 
 ing." 
 
 He reddened, seemed at a loss for words. Then, " Nance, 
 what a child you are and I fancied you a woman grown," 
 he said, with an attempt at playfulness. " What is this Ris- 
 ing, after all? A few Scots ragamuffins following a laddie 
 with yellow hair and flyaway wits. Let the women sing bal- 
 lads, and dream dreams; but level-headed men don't risk all 
 on moonshine of that sort." 
 
 " My father he is older than you, and is counted more 
 level-headed, shall we say? Sir Jasper Royd, too, is a soldier 
 whose record all men know. They have gone with the raga- 
 muffins and the yellow-haired laddie." 
 
 Underwood was startled by the quiet irony, the security, that 
 were instinct in the girl's voice, her bearing. She was not 
 the wayward, pleasure-loving Nance he had known ; she stood, 
 in some odd way, for all the pride and all the resolution of 
 her race. He had earned his title of " Wild Will " by taking 
 fences which men more sensitively built refused to hazard, 
 and by more doubtful exploits which were laughed at and 
 avoided by the cleaner sort among his comrades. He was 
 good to look at, gay and dominant; yet never, to his life's 
 end, would he lay hold of the subtle meaning which those 
 of an old race attach to that one word " loyalty." It was not 
 his fault that his father had been of slight account, except for
 
 172 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 a gift of money-making; but he had not cared to learn the 
 lessons which the second generation must, if it wished to lay 
 hold of old tradition and make itself a home among the great- 
 hearted, simple gentlemen of Lancashire. 
 
 He and Nance were alone here on the uplands. A ragged, 
 crimson sunset lingered over the moor. A cock-grouse got 
 up from the heather on their right, and whirred down the 
 bitter wind, chuckling harshly as it went. It was a man's 
 land, this, full of hills that stepped, sleety and austere, to the 
 red of the stormy sky. A man should have been easily the 
 master here; and yet Underwood knew that he was dwarfed, 
 belittled, by this slim lass of Demaine's, whose eyes held truth 
 and looked him through and through. 
 
 " Your excuse, Mr. Underwood ? " asked Nance, in a tone 
 as wintry as the hills. 
 
 He should have known, from the quiet and hungry long- 
 ing in her face, from the shiver that took her unawares, 
 though the wind's cold had no part in it, how eagerly she 
 waited for his answer. He had shared her dreams. He had 
 captured a liking that was very near to love; and she was 
 defending the last ditch of her faith in him. If he could 
 make amends, even now and surely he must, he who was so 
 big and strong if he could give her one sudden, inspired 
 word that would unravel all the tangle she was ready to 
 believe in him. 
 
 Instead, Will laughed like a country hobbledehoy. "My 
 excuse why, prudence, Nance; and prudence, they say, is a 
 quiet mare to ride or drive at all times. I'll join your Rising 
 when there's a better chance of its success. There were few 
 rode out from Lancashire, after all ; I've met many a stay-at- 
 home good fellow already since I returned from the business 
 that took me south." 
 
 He regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. 
 Her tone, her contemptuous air of question, had stung him. 
 Until now he had assumed the manners worn by these people
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 173 
 
 into whose midst his father had intruded, had carried lip- 
 service to the Stuart passably enough, had won his way by 
 conformity to the letter of their deep traditions. And here 
 and now, on the moor that would have none of lies, he had 
 plucked the mask aside, so that Nance shrank back a little in 
 the saddle, afraid of the meanness in his face. 
 
 There was a silence, broken only by the wind's fret, by the 
 ripple of a neighbouring stream whose floods were racing 
 banktop high. With sharp insistence, one memory came to 
 Nance. She recalled how, weeks ago, she had left Rupert 
 and his brother to their fight, had ridden down to Demaine 
 House with Will, had found her father eager as a boy because 
 Oliphant of Muirhouse had brought news of the Rising. 
 She recalled, too, how Underwood had seemed cold, how he 
 had followed her out into the hall and answered her distrust 
 of him. And she had listened to his pleading had bidden 
 him come before the month was out, if he were leal if he 
 were leal. 
 
 The moor, and the frost that made rose-pink and amber of 
 the sunset sky, were very cold to Nance just now. If she 
 had felt distrust of this big, loose-built ruffler, she had been 
 willing enough to let first love cover up her doubts. She had 
 cared for what he might have been, and had been concerned 
 each day to hide the traces of what, in sober fact, he was. 
 For a moment it seemed to her that pride, and strength, and 
 all, had left her. It was hard and bitter to know that some- 
 thing warmer, gayer than she had known as yet, had gone 
 from her, not to return. 
 
 Then courage came to her again, borrowed from the hard- 
 riding days that had fathered many generations of her race. 
 " Mr. Underwood," she said, not looking at him, " you picked 
 up my kerchief not long ago do you remember? and asked 
 to keep it." 
 
 Even now he could not rid himself of the easy hunting 
 days, the easy conquests, which had built up a wall of self-
 
 174, THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 security about him. " You'll give it me before the month 
 is out, Nance? You promised it," he said, edging his horse 
 nearer hers. 
 
 Nance took a kerchief from the pocket of her riding-coat. 
 " Why, yes," she said, " I keep my word. You may claim it." 
 
 He took it, put it to his lips, all with the over-done effront- 
 ery of a groom who finds the master's daughter stooping 
 to him. " I shall keep it," he said " until the next true 
 Rising comes." 
 
 " Yes," said Nance submissively. " You may keep it, Mr. 
 Underwood." 
 
 " Nay, call me Will ! " he blundered on. " Listen, Nance. 
 When I spoke of prudence just now, I I lied. You stung 
 me into saying what I did not mean. There were reasons 
 kept me here. You'll believe me, surely? Urgent reasons. 
 And here I am, eating my heart out while other men are tak- 
 ing happy risks." 
 
 Nance glanced once at him. His voice was persuasive as of 
 old ; he had the same easy seat in saddle, the handsome, dash- 
 away figure that had given him a certain romantic place of 
 his own among his intimates; but there was something new. 
 She understood, with sudden humiliation and self-pity, how 
 slight a thing first love may be. And, because he had forced 
 this knowledge on her, she would not spare him. 
 
 " You may keep it," she repeated. " The enemy may 
 come to Windyhough, and you will need a flag of truce, as 
 the old men and the disabled will and my kerchief it will 
 serve as well as another." 
 
 She was alone with him, here on the empty moor, and had 
 only a broken- winded horse to help her if need asked. Yet 
 her disdain of him was so complete, her humiliation so bitter, 
 that she had no fear. She spoke slowly, quietly ; and Under- 
 wood reined his horse back a little, as if she had struck him 
 with her riding-whip. 
 
 " AH this because I'll not risk my head for a wild-cat plot 
 to put a Stuart on the throne ? "
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 175 
 
 " Oh, not for that reason. Because you promised to risk 
 your head; because, in time of peace, you persuaded loyal 
 gentlemen that you were one of them; because, Mr. Under- 
 wood, you ran away before you had ever seen the enemy." 
 
 Nance's one desire was to hurt this man, to get through 
 his armour of good living and complacency; it was her way 
 the woman's way of digging a grave in which to hide the 
 first love that was dead, unlovely, pitiful. 
 
 " Well, we hunted yesterday," said the other doggedly. 
 " There were plenty of Lancashire gentlemen in my own case 
 our heads sounder than our hearts and we had fine sport. 
 And, coming home you'll forgive me we laughed at Sir 
 Jasper and his handful of enthusiasts. We like them we 
 shall miss them when they're gibbeted in London but we 
 laughed at their old-fashioned view of honour. Honour trims 
 pretty rosettes for a man to wear, but doesn't save his head. 
 Honour's a woman's pastime, Miss Demaine." 
 
 Nance looked at him with frank astonishment. This man 
 knew that her own father was of Sir Jasper's company, that 
 she was troubled, like all stay-at-homes, lest ill news should 
 come. And he chose this time to defend himself by confess- 
 ing that he and others had laughed at better men. And he 
 talked of Tower Hill. 
 
 " When the gentlemen of Lancashire return when the 
 Prince has come to his own, and England is free again and 
 happy what then, Mr. Underwood ? It will go ill, I think. 
 with masqueraders." 
 
 They faced each other, the man insolent, ungroomed true 
 to his breed, as folk are apt to be in time of stress Nance 
 in that mood of hot fury and contempt which is cool and 
 debonair. 
 
 " What then ? " he said, stroking his horse's neck. " The 
 Vicar of Bray was a very good man of the world, after all, 
 and he prospered. We shall toast the Stuart openly; it will 
 save all that clumsy ritual of passing the wine across the 
 water."
 
 176 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 Nance was healthy, eager, human. She shrank, with an 
 odd, childish loathing, from this man who counted the world 
 the big, gallant world of faith, and strife, and loyalty as 
 a dining-table, no more, no less, where wise men took their 
 ease. She gathered the reins into her hand, turned in saddle. 
 
 " Keep the kerchief, sir," she said gently. " As I told you, 
 you will need it when " her voice broke suddenly, against 
 her will " when our men come home from the crowning." 
 
 And then she left him. He watched her go down the slope 
 on her fiddle-headed nag. All his buoyancy was gone. He 
 had been spoiled by flattery, of word and glance ; he had been 
 accustomed to be taken at his surface value, giving his friends 
 little opportunity to test whether he rang true or not. And 
 now he was like a pampered child that meets its first rebuff. 
 His pluck had left him. He had no heart to follow Nance, 
 though by and by he would regret the lost opportunity to 
 claim rough satisfaction for her handling of him. She had 
 spoken, with such security and pride, of the loyalty that was 
 an instinct with her. Her men who had ridden out were of 
 the like mind ; and Underwood, in a flash of enlightenment 
 and dismay, saw how the coming days would go with him if 
 this haphazard venture of the Prince's carried him to London 
 and the throne. His comfortable house of Underwood, his 
 easy life, the dinners and the hunting and the balls all 
 would have to be given up. He had no illusions now as to 
 his power to continue here among them, explaining his share 
 in the enterprise, winning his way back to favour by excel- 
 lence in field sports and in ladies' parlours. If the Prince 
 came to his own, there would be an end of Wild Will, so 
 far as loyal Lancashire was concerned; for at every turn he 
 would have to meet the scorn that Nance had given him so 
 unsparingly to-day. 
 
 Nance looked back once, when she was half down the 
 slope, and saw him sitting rigid in the saddle, horse and 
 man showing in clear, lonely outline against the rainy sky. 
 He would be himself again to-morrow, for shallowness can
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 177 
 
 never suffer long; but she would have pitied him, may be, 
 could she have guessed his bitter loneliness just now. Shorn 
 of his self-love, Nance lost beyond hope of regaining in- 
 stinct told him so much alive to the cowardice which no 
 longer wore the more pleasant air of prudence, Underwood 
 looked out on lands as forlorn as himself; and, far down the 
 slope, he saw Nance's little figure, and knew that, in some 
 odd way that was better than himself, he loved this trim lass 
 of Demaine's. 
 
 Nance reached the lower lands, where the bridle-track ran 
 in and out beside the swollen streams, past coppices where the 
 trees were comely in their winter's nakedness. She saw each 
 line and furrow of the pastures, remembered they had found 
 a fox last month in the spinney yonder, recalled how she and 
 Rupert had fished the brook together, just where it ran un- 
 der the grey stone bridge below her. All her faculties seemed 
 to be sharpened, rather than deadened, by the blow, piti- 
 less and hard, that Will had given her just now. Her first 
 love the delicate and fragrant thing that had been inter- 
 woven with her waking and her dreaming hours had died 
 shamefully. She could not even bring a decent show of grief 
 to the graveside ; her only feeling was that it should be buried, 
 in the middle of a dark midwinter's night, out of all men's 
 sight and gossip. 
 
 And, in this hour of swift and unexpected trouble, she was 
 as her father and her brothers would have had her be un- 
 flinching, reliant, reaching out instinctively to the strong mor- 
 row, not to the dead, unlovely yesterday. Only, she was 
 very tired; and there was one friend she needed a friend 
 who could not come and put warm, human arms about her, 
 because her mother had died long ago, leaving her to the 
 care of men who love and honour and defend their women, 
 but who are weak to understand their times of loneliness. 
 
 She was a great figure, after all, this daughter of Demaine's 
 who rode on a broken-winded horse through the fieldways that 
 had bred her. It is easy to ride forward, head erect, into
 
 178 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 the city you have taken by assault; but it is hard to carry 
 upright shoulders and a firm, disdainful head, when only 
 faith and the clean years behind support you in the thick of 
 grave disaster. 
 
 At the bend of the track, where it passed Sunderland's 
 cornmill the water-wheel treading its sleepy round she saw 
 Rupert and Simon Foster twenty yards ahead. Simon was 
 carrying a couple of muskets, his pockets bulging with pow- 
 der-flasks and lead, and Rupert was limping a little, as if 
 he had given too much work to his damaged ankle ; and Nance 
 Demaine, who was in the mood that sees all and understands, 
 knew, from the look of Rupert's back, that he was pleased 
 with the day's adventure. 
 
 Her horse was tired now, and for the last mile she had 
 ridden him at a gentle foot pace. The track was heavy with 
 wet leaves that waited for a drying wind to scatter them. 
 The two on foot did not hear the muffled splash of hoofs, 
 and she was content to follow them. 
 
 She had been friendless; and now half her loneliness had 
 slipped away from her, at sight of Rupert limping on ahead. 
 He was more diffident than she, more sensitive to ridicule 
 and hardship; but he stood for the truths that matter in a 
 world where men and women are ready, for the most part, 
 to believe that all ends when death robs them of the power to 
 eat, and sleep, and dance foolishly from day to day, like 
 gnats when the sun is warm about them. He stood for her 
 own simple, downright view of creed and honour; he was a 
 comrade of the true breed, in brief, and she was in sore need 
 of companionship just now. 
 
 How well she seemed to know this cripple who jogged on 
 before her! Half- forgotten words of his; little, unselfish 
 surrenders when Maurice had shown a younger brother's 
 wilfulness; the patient chivalry that had bidden him show 
 deference to Lady Royd when her tongue was lashing his in- 
 firmities all these stood out with startling clearness. And 
 again that curious, sharp pain was at her heart, and the old
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 179 
 
 thought returned how good a knight was lost to Prince 
 Charles Edward. 
 
 They were near the gate of Windyhough now, and Rupert, 
 hearing hoofs behind him at last, turned quickly. The fa- 
 miliar eagerness came to his face at sight of her the instant 
 pleasure, followed by a hint of pain; the homage that was 
 there to be read plainly by any onlooker. 
 
 " So this is the King's business you have been about ? " said 
 Nance, looking down at him with a tenderness that set his 
 blood on fire. 
 
 " Why, yes. I said there was no mystery about it. Since 
 you told me you could not trust your men to shoot 
 straight " 
 
 " Oh, Rupert, I was foolish ; I did not mean it. I was out 
 of heart that day, and temper got the better of me." 
 
 " But it was true. I had fancied that, if the attack came, 
 it would be enough to fire one's musket and trust to Provi- 
 dence for marksmanship. It was a daft thought, Nance, was 
 it not? It was shirking trouble." 
 
 Nance got down from the saddle, gave the reins to Simon 
 Foster. " Take him to the stable, Simon," she said. " He 
 has carried me well, and deserves a double feed." She 
 wished to be alone with Rupert and the other's presence 
 seemed an irritating check on speech. And yet, when Simon 
 had left them, they stood looking at each other in troubled 
 silence. Each was in a tense, restless mood, and their trouble 
 only gathered weight by the companionship. 
 
 "Did you find it hard this learning how to shoot?" she 
 asked at last. 
 
 " It was easier than knowing you could not trust me, Nance, 
 to guard you." The old, whimsical self-derision was in his 
 voice. He had learned at least to carry his hurts bravely. 
 
 And she could find no words. There was some quality in 
 Rupert of manliness that touched her now with an emo- 
 tion deep and poignant, and clean as tempered steel. 
 
 " The pity of it ! " she murmured, after another long, un-
 
 180 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 easy silence. " To prepare so well for an attack that cannot 
 come " 
 
 " But it may come, Nance. These last days I cannot 
 tell you why I have not felt that all was make-believe, as I 
 did at first." 
 
 " How should it come, Rupert ? They are so far away 
 near London, surely, now " 
 
 " How will it come ? I do not know. But I know that 
 I have asked for it asked patiently, Nance and faith must 
 be answered one day." 
 
 " My dear," she said, " you are so so oddly staunch, and 
 so unpractical." And her voice broke, and she could get 
 no farther. 
 
 And Rupert smiled gravely, touched her hand, as a courtier 
 might, and limped up toward the house. 
 
 Nance stood there awhile, with long thoughts for com- 
 pany. Then, seeking a respite from her mood, she crossed 
 the stables to give a carrot to the fiddle-headed horse; but 
 she got no farther than the corner of the yard. At the stable- 
 door, deaf to all sounds from the outward world and careless 
 of the many windows looking out on them, Simon Foster and 
 Martha were standing hand in hand. Martha's face was 
 rose-red and smiling, her lover's full of an amazing foolish- 
 ness. 
 
 " There's the bonnie, snod lass you are, Martha ! " Simon 
 was declaring. " I never thought to see such a day as this. 
 Why didn't I think of it before, like?" 
 
 " Perhaps you were blind, Simon," put in the other, with 
 a coy upward glance. 
 
 Nance retreated out of eye-shot, and for the moment she 
 forgot her troubles. She just laughed until her eyes were 
 wet and her slim little body shook. The scene was so unex- 
 pected, so instinct with sheer humour, that the gravest must 
 have yielded to it. Then, as the pressure of the last ill-fated 
 days returned to her, she was filled with a childish wonder 
 that life should be so muddled, so rough-and-tumble, so
 
 THE STAY-AT-HOMES 181! 
 
 seemingly disordered. There was Sir Jasper, conquering or 
 defeated, but either way carrying his life in his hands. There 
 was Windyhough itself house, lands and all at stake. And 
 yet Simon and the dairymaid, whose discretion now, if ever, 
 should have ripened, were reading folly in each other's eyes. 
 
 She heard Martha cross, singing, to the kitchen, and turned 
 and sought the stables again. She was anxious to learn some- 
 thing which only Simon could tell her; for Rupert was diffi- 
 dent of his own skill at all times, and would not have given 
 her, had she asked it, a true account of his marksmanship. 
 
 Simon was brushing down the horse when she went in. 
 He glanced up with grave, stolid innocence, as if he had had 
 no other occupation than this of grooming. 
 
 " What has the master learned in these last days ? " she 
 asked abruptly. " Does he aim well, Simon ? " 
 
 " He shapes grandly ; but then, he always does when his 
 mind is fair set on a matter. We were in a lonely spot, too, 
 you see, with none to laugh at him while he made his first 
 mistakes." 
 
 Nance stroked the fiddle-headed nag, and watched him 
 munch his carrot, and seemed glad to linger here. 
 
 " He can hit his man now, you think ? " 
 
 "Well, I reckon if I were the man, I'd as lief be out of 
 range as in. I tell you, the young master does naught by 
 halves. The trouble is to get him started. You'd best come 
 with us when we go out again this afternoon, and shoot a 
 match with him." 
 
 And by and by Nance went indoors with a light step and 
 a sense of betterment. It was pleasant to hear Rupert 
 praised.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 HOW THE PIPES PLAYED DREARILY 
 
 WHILE the Lancashire farmers were watering their cattle, 
 milking them, tending the sheep whose fleeces were the great 
 part of their livelihood; while Lady Royd and Nance were 
 querulous because they had a roof above their heads, and fires 
 in the house, and food in plenty; while Rupert went dog- 
 gedly about his drill of musket-practice, with a heart yearn- 
 ing for the battles he pictured in the doing London way, the 
 Prince's army came to Derby came in the dusk of a wild 
 November day, with wind-driven rain across their faces, and 
 every house-roof running wet. 
 
 Derby was no fine town to see. It was commonplace and 
 dull, to the verge of dreariness. But, to those who marched 
 into it to-day on the Stuart's business, it stood ever after- 
 wards for a place of tragedy tragedy so poignant and so 
 swift that it gathered round its mean, ill-ordered streets a 
 glamour not its own the glamour of the might-have-been. 
 
 Sir Jasper Royd, neither then nor afterwards, could piece 
 together the tumult and unrest that troubled those two days 
 they spent at Derby. He knew that Lord Murray was 
 querulous, his temper shrewish; he saw the Prince move 
 abroad with unconquerable courage, but with the look in 
 his eyes that Skye men have when the sad mists hide the sun 
 from them. He was aware that some big issue, known only 
 to the leaders, was calling for prompt decision. For the 
 rest, he wondered that loyal gentlemen had any thought but 
 one to march on where Prince Charles Edward chose to 
 lead. 
 
 Once it was on the second morning of their halt at Derby 
 he met Lord Murray face to face in the street. 
 
 182
 
 HOW THE PIPES PLAYED DREARILY 183 
 
 "You look trim and happy, Sir Jasper," said Murray, un- 
 easy in his greeting since the duel he had fought with this 
 odd gentleman from Lancashire. 
 
 " My faith commands it. I obey. What else ? " growled 
 the older man. 
 
 " Then you're lucky in your creed," drawled the other " or 
 in your obedience. Few gentlemen of the Prince's could find 
 a smile to-day, as you do, if their heads depended on it. Give 
 me the trick of it, sir," he went on, with clumsy raillery. 
 " When all is lost when we're trapped like foxes, with three 
 armies closing in upon us you take your snuff-box out, and 
 dust your nostrils, and smile as if these cursed Midlands were 
 a garden." 
 
 Sir Jasper's distrust of the man yielded to a slow, unwill- 
 ing pity. He had so much, as he counted riches, and Murray 
 was so destitute, so in need of alms, that he spoke with quiet 
 friendliness, as if he taught a child that two and two, since 
 time's beginning, added up to four. 
 
 " All the world's a garden, to those who hold the Faith," 
 he said slowly, searching for the one right word to express 
 what was plain to him as the road to London. " When all 
 seems losing, or lost altogether are you so town-bred that 
 you do not know the darkest hour comes just before the 
 dawn the dawn, if a man can keep himself in hand and 
 wait for it?" 
 
 " Your sentiments, Sir Jasper, do you credit," sneered Mur- 
 ray, stung by the sheer strength, the reality, of this man's 
 outlook upon life. " They should be written, in a round, fair 
 hand, at the head of all good children's copybooks. For our- 
 selves, we are men and living in a rough-and-ready world 
 and we know there are some dark hours that never lift to 
 dawn." 
 
 " There are none," said Sir Jasper bluntly. " Believe me, 
 I talk of what I know. The black night always lifts." 
 
 Murray strode forward impatiently, turned back, regarded 
 the other with an evasive glance. It was plain that, what-
 
 184 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 ever was his errand down Derby's rainy main-street, he 
 brought a harassed mind to it. " You may be proved, sir, 
 sooner than you think. Suppose this Rising failed. Sup- 
 pose we were crushed like a hazel-nut between these three 
 converging armies; suppose the Prince were taken, and we 
 with him, would you stand on Tower Hill and say the dawn 
 was coming?" 
 
 " My lord Murray," the other answered gravely, " we none 
 of us know, until the hour, whether our courage will prove 
 equal to our needs. But I say this. If I'm the man I've 
 drilled myself to be, if I can keep my eyes clear as they are 
 now I will stand with you on Tower Hill, and you will know 
 that the dawn is very near to me." 
 
 " Gad, sir, you're tough ! " growled Murray. Piety had 
 shown to him till now as a dour, forbidding thing that made 
 fools or fanatics of men. He had not understood though 
 the Highlanders should have taught him so much that it 
 could be instinct with romance, and warmth, and well-being, 
 making endeavour and sacrifice a soldier's road to the steep 
 hill-tops of the certain dawn. 
 
 " I've need to be," said Sir Jasper, with the same unalter- 
 able simplicity. " There are too many weak-kneed folk with 
 us." There was a pause, and he looked Murray in the face 
 as he had done just before their duel in the wood. " You go 
 to the Prince's Council ? " he went on. 
 
 " Well, since you've guessed as much yes." 
 
 "And you will air your knowledge of arithmetic will 
 argue that all's lost already according to the known rules of 
 warfare. No, you need not disclaim. We know your mind. 
 My lord, I am in command only of a ragged company from 
 Lancashire, and not privileged to share your Council. But I 
 ask you to listen to a plain gentleman's view of this adventure. 
 We follow no known rules, save that the straight road is the 
 readiest. We have one thought only of advance. There 
 is the London road open to us, and no other, and God for-
 
 HOW THE PIPES PLAYED DREARILY 185 
 
 give you if you sound the note of retreat that will ruin all." 
 
 " My good Sir Jasper, my mind was made up long ago. 
 The world's as it's made, and battle is a crude reckoning up 
 of men, and arms, and odds " 
 
 " And the something more that you will not understand 
 the something that has carried us to Derby, as by a miracle. 
 Listen, my lord ! I ask you to listen. You go to this Coun- 
 cil. In an hour or so all will be settled, one way or the other. 
 Remember that you Highland chiefs have the Stuart's honour 
 in your hands, the lives of all these simple Highlanders. You 
 know that the Prince has one mind only to push forward 
 but that you can overrule him if you will." Sir Jasper's 
 voice was strained and harsh, so eager was he to bring his 
 voice to the Council, if only by deputy. " You know, Lord 
 Murray, that the Highlanders are with their Prince, in 
 thought, in faith, in eagerness to run the gauntlet. You 
 know, too, that your Scots tradition bids them, liking it or no, 
 follow their chieftains first, their Prince afterwards." 
 
 " I am well aware of it. That is the weapon I mean to 
 make full use of, since you compel my candour." 
 
 It was a moment when men are apt to find unsuspected, 
 gusty feelings stir and cry for outlet. For neither to Sir 
 Jasper nor Lord Murray was there any doubt that the whole 
 well-being of England England, thrifty, pleasant, mistress 
 of the seas, and royalist to the core of her strong, tender heart 
 rested on this Council that was soon to make its choice 
 between opposing policies. And Lord Murray, in his own 
 cold fashion, believed that he was the wise counsellor of the 
 enterprise, enforcing prudence on hot-headed zealots ; for 
 Murray was three parts honest, though he was cursed from 
 birth by lack of breadth and that practical, high imagination 
 which makes fine leaders. 
 
 " I am sorry," said Sir Jasper unexpectedly. " Till you 
 die, Lord Murray, you'll regret your share in this. You've 
 gained many to your side, and may carry what you have in
 
 186 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 mind ; but, if you have your way, I'd rather die on Tower 
 Hill than lie on the bed you're making for yourself. You'll 
 think better of it ? " he broke off, with a quick tenderness 
 that surprised him. " You're brave, you're capable ; surely 
 you will see the open road to London as I see it now the 
 only road of honour. For your own sake " 
 
 " For my own sake ? " snapped Murray, moved against his 
 will. " Why should you care so much, sir, for what con- 
 cerns my happiness?" 
 
 And then again Sir Jasper did not know his mood, was not 
 master of the words that found their own heedless outlet. 
 " Why ? Because, perhaps, we fought together long ago, it 
 seems because the man who wins a duel has always some 
 queer, tender liking for his adversary. My lord Murray, I 
 would wish to see you a strong man in this Council strong 
 as the Prince himself. I wish dear God ! I wish to ride the 
 London road beside you, forgetting we once quarrelled." 
 
 Murray's face was hard as ever, but he was moved at last. 
 This Lancashire squire, whose strength could not be bought, 
 or tamed, or killed by ridicule, had found a way through all 
 defences of prudence and arithmetic. It was the moment, 
 had they known it, when the whole fate of the Rising was at 
 issue; for the great councils are shaped often by those hap- 
 hazard meetings in the streets that sway men's moods before- 
 hand. 
 
 And, as it chanced, Lochiel came swinging down the street, 
 on his way to join the Council Lochiel, with his lean, up- 
 right body, his gaiety, not lightly won, that made sunshine 
 between the mean, grey house-fronts Lochiel, his wet kilt 
 swinging round his knees, and in his face the strong, tender 
 light that is bred of the big hills and the big, northern storms. 
 
 Murray glanced up the street, saw Lochiel. All finer im- 
 pulses were killed, as if a blight had fallen on them ; for Mur- 
 ray was ridden by the meanest of the sins, and was an abject 
 slave to jealousy. 
 
 Lochiel halted, and the three of them passed the time of
 
 HOW THE PIPES PLAYED DREARILY 187 
 
 day together, guardedly, knowing what was in the issue, and 
 reticent. 
 
 "You come in a good hour, Lochiel," said Murray, with 
 the disdain that had never served him well. " Sir Jasper here 
 has been talking moonshine and high Faith. You'll be 
 agreed." 
 
 Lochiel stood, just himself, schooled by hardship to a chiv- 
 alry that few men learn. " I think on most points we're 
 agreed, Sir Jasper and I. It is a privilege to meet these 
 gentlemen of Lancashire; they know their mind and speak it. 
 They'll not be bought, Murray, not even by Dame Prudence, 
 whose lap you sit in." 
 
 So then Murray's chilliness took fire. There was need, 
 even in his sluggish veins, to set the troubles of this venture 
 right by casual quarrels. 
 
 "When we find leisure, I shall seek satisfaction, Lochiel;. 
 you'll not deny it me." 
 
 And Lochiel laughed gently. " Dear Murray, I ask noth- 
 ing better. The only trouble is that we'll be dead, the two 
 of us, long before the promised meeting, if you have your 
 way with the Council that is going to end old England or to 
 mend her." 
 
 " I shall have my way," growled the other, and passed down 
 the street. 
 
 Lochiel put his arm on Sir Jasper's shoulder. He had no 
 gaiety now ; his heart was aching, and he spoke as friend 
 to friend. " I believe him," he said quietly. " Murray had 
 always the gift of rallying doubters round him. The Duke 
 of Perth is staunch. Elcho is staunch, and a few others. 
 For the rest, they've been tempted by this glib talk of strategy. 
 Murray has persuaded them that we've marched to Derby 
 simply to retreat in good order; that we shall do better to 
 fall back on some imaginary host of friends who happened 
 to be late for the Rising, and who are eager now to join 
 us." 
 
 "Retreat?" snapped Sir Jasper. "The devil coined that
 
 188 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 word, Lochiel. Murray's shrewd and a Scotsman and no 
 coward; he should know that the good way lies forward 
 always." 
 
 And then Lochiel, because he was so heart-sick and so 
 tired of strategy, fell into that light mood which touches men 
 at times when they're in danger of breaking under stress of 
 feeling. 
 
 " I can only think of one case where your gospel fails," he 
 said, with the quick, boyish smile that sat oddly on his 
 harassed face. " Retreat in good order, sir, has been known 
 to carry honour with it." 
 
 " I know of none, Lochiel," insisted the other, in his down- 
 right way. 
 
 " Oh, Potiphar's wife, perhaps. And, there, Sir Jasper, 
 you think me flippant ; and I tell you that my heart is as near 
 to breaking as any Hielandman's in Derby. It is a queer, 
 disastrous pain, this heartbreak." Lochiel's shoulders 
 drooped a little. The wind came raving down the street 
 and made him shiver as with ague. Then his weakness 
 passed, and he lifted his trim, buoyant head to any hardship 
 that was coming. " Fools' hearts may break," he said sharply. 
 " For me, I'll see this trouble through. I'll find a glimpse 
 of blue sky somewhere; aye, Sir Jasper, though Murray sets 
 the darkness of the pit about us." 
 
 The two men looked gravely at each other, as comrades do. 
 They were of the like unalterable faith; they were chilled by 
 this constant drag upon a march that, left to the leader of 
 it, would have gone forward blithely. 
 
 Most of all, perhaps, they felt the weakness that was the 
 keystone of their whole position. The Highlanders were 
 eager for the Prince, would have laid down their lives for 
 him, wished only for the forward march and the battle against 
 odds ; but, deep in those hidden places of the soul where the 
 far-back fathers have planted legacies, they were obedi- 
 ent to the tradition that a Highlandman follows his own
 
 HOW THE PIPES PLAYED DREARILY 189 
 
 chief, though the King himself bids him choose a happier and 
 more pleasant road. 
 
 Lochiel knew this, as a country squire knows the staunch 
 virtues, whims, and failings of his tenantry; and because his 
 knowledge was so sure, he feared the issue of this Council. 
 Murray could never have won the rank and file; but he had 
 captured the most part of the chiefs, who had been leading 
 too easy lives these late days and had softened to the call 
 of prudence. And the Council, in its view of it, had come 
 already to a decision shameful and disastrous. 
 
 " Sir Jasper," said Lochiel suddenly, " we go pitying our- 
 selves, and that is always waste of time. What of the Prince? 
 I cannot tell you the love the love proven to the hilt I have 
 for him. We give our little to this rising; but he, brave 
 soul, gives all. No detail of our men's comfort in this 
 evil weather, no cheery word when the world goes very ill 
 with us, has been neglected. And, above the detail oh, 
 above the detail that frets his nerves to fiddle-strings he 
 keeps the single goal ahead. He keeps the bridge of faith, 
 Sir Jasper, with a gallantry that makes me weak about my 
 mother's knees again, as if as if I did not need to be 
 ashamed of tears." 
 
 Sir Jasper passed a hand across his eyes. He had kept, 
 through the rough journey of his sixty years, a passionate 
 devotion to the Stuart; and he had travelled with Prince 
 Charles Edward, as wayfarers do with wayfarers, through 
 sleety roads, and had found, as few men do, that his fine, 
 chivalrous ideal was less than the reality. " I've been near 
 his Highness often," he said slowly. " He kept his temper 
 firm on the rein when I could not have done. He went about 
 the camp o' nights, when most of his gentry were asleep, and 
 tended ailing Highlanders. He's as big as Pendle Hill in 
 Lancashire; and, Lochiel, keep a good heart through this 
 Council, for he was cast in a bigger mould than most of 
 us."
 
 190 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 "He is royal," said Lochiel softly. "That is all. Put 
 him in peasant's homespun, with his lovelocks shorn, he'd be 
 still why, just the Stuart, reigning from the hilltops over 
 us." 
 
 "And, Lochiel, you talked of heartbreak. We're lesser 
 men, and can jog along somehow if the worst comes. The 
 Prince cannot. The heart of him it's like a well-grown 
 oak, Lochiel; it will stand upright to the storm, or it will 
 break. There is no middle way." 
 
 So then Lochiel remembered he would be late for the 
 Council if he stayed longer in the windy street. " There 
 never was a middle way," he said. " You, sir and the 
 Prince, God bless him! and Lochiel of the many weak- 
 nesses, we never trod the middle way." 
 
 And somehow a great sorrow and great liking came to 
 them, as if they were brothers parting in the thick of a 
 stormy night where ways divided. 
 
 " We shall meet soon again," said Lochiel, the foolish 
 trouble in his voice. "And, either way this Council goes, 
 we'll find a strip of blue sky over us, Sir Jasper." 
 
 He swung down the street, his head upright and his figure 
 lithe and masterful. He might, to all outward seeming, have 
 been going to his own wedding. For that was Lochiel's way 
 when hope and courage were at their lowest ebb, when he con- 
 quered his weakness by disdaining it. 
 
 And Sir Jasper watched him go watched other chieftains 
 hurrying, with grave, set faces, to the Council. And then, 
 for three long hours, he paced the streets. What Ru- 
 pert, his heir, was learning there at Windyhough the father 
 learned during this time of waiting for the news. The chiefs 
 were in the thick of debate, were speaking out their minds, 
 were guessing, from the shifting issues of the Council, which 
 way the wind was sitting. They were in the fighting-line at 
 least ; but he, whose heart was centred wholly on this Council 
 that would settle all, was compelled to stand by helpless to 
 serve his Prince by word or deed.
 
 HOW THE PIPES PLAYED DREARILY 191 
 
 He was not alone. It was an open secret that, behind the 
 closed doors of the Council Chamber, men were deciding 
 whether retreat or advance should be the day's marching- 
 order. Discipline was ended for awhile. The Highlanders 
 could not rest in their lodgings, but stood about the streets 
 in crowds, or in little knots, seeking what make-believe Derby 
 town could give them of the free air and the big, roomy hills 
 that, in gladness or in sorrow, were needful to them as the 
 food they ate. The townsfolk, stirred from their sleepi- 
 ness by all this hubbub of tattered, rain-sodden men who were 
 bent on some errand dimly understood, mixed with the 
 soldiery, and asked foolish questions, and got few answers, 
 because the most part of the army spoke only Gaelic. 
 
 The whole town, though men's voices were low and hushed, 
 was alive with that stress of feeling which is like a brewing 
 thunderstorm. Men gathered into crowds, saying little, 
 affect each other, till each feels in his own person the sum 
 total of his neighbour's restlessness; and for that reason 
 armies yield suddenly to a bewildering panic, or to a selfless 
 courage that leads to high victories in face of odds. 
 
 The wind swept down the streets of Derby. The rain was 
 tireless. It did not matter. To Sir Jasper to the men of 
 Lancashire, and the Highlandmen who were old to sorrow of 
 the hills there was nothing mattered, save the news for 
 which they waited. And the time dragged on. And still 
 the Council doors were shut. 
 
 Then, late in the afternoon, Lord Murray came out, and 
 walked up the street, with half a dozen of his intimates be- 
 side him. And, a little later, Lochiel came out, alone, and, 
 after him, the Duke of Perth, alone. And Sir Jasper, stand- 
 ing near the Council Chamber, knew at a glance which side 
 had won the day. 
 
 Last of all a long while after, so it seemed to Sir Jasper 
 the Prince crossed the threshold, stood for a moment, as if 
 stunned, with the rain and the spiteful wind against his cheek. 
 He was like one grown old before his time one bent and
 
 192 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 broken up by some disaster that had met his manhood by the 
 way. 
 
 Then, as Lochiel had done when he went down the street 
 to this unhappy Council, the Prince lifted his head, squared 
 his shoulders to the wind, and stepped out between the silent 
 bystanders as if life were a jest to him. So then Sir Jasper 
 was sure that retreat was the order of the day; was sure, 
 too, that his Prince had never shown so simple and conspic- 
 uous a gallantry as he did now, when he moved through the 
 people as if he went to victory, not to a heartache that would 
 last him till he lay, dead and at peace, beside his Stuart kins- 
 men. 
 
 At dawn of the next day the retreat began. It was a red 
 dawn and a stormy, though the rain had ceased, and the 
 wisp of a dying moon was lying on her back above the dis- 
 mal housetops. 
 
 The Prince stood aside and watched it all. A little while 
 before he had bidden Lord Murray ride at the head of the 
 outgoing army. " I have no strategy, my lord," he had said, 
 with chiselled irony. " I lead only when attack comes from 
 the front." And Sir Jasper, with the instinct of old loyalty 
 and new-found, passionate liking for the man, had drawn his 
 own horse near to the Prince's bridle; and they waited, the 
 two of them, till the sad procession passed, as if to burial of 
 their finest hopes. 
 
 Not till Derby's life is ended will she hear such trouble 
 and such master-music as went up and down her streets on 
 that disastrous, chilly dawn. The Highlanders were strong 
 and simple-hearted men. They had obeyed their leaders, 
 rather than the Prince who had sounded the forward note of 
 battle. But no old allegiance could silence their pipers, who 
 played a dirge to Prince Charles Edward, heir to the English 
 throne. 
 
 By one consent, it seemed, the pipers, as they went by their 
 Prince, played only the one air. Low, insistent, mournful as 
 the mists about their own wild hills, the air roamed up and
 
 HOW THE PIPES PLAYED DREARILY 193 
 
 down the wet, quiet streets, till it seemed there had been no 
 other music since the world began. There was no hope, no 
 quick compelling glamour, as of old ; the pipes, it seemed, were 
 broken-hearted like their leader, and they could only play for 
 sorrow. 
 
 Up and down the long, mean street, and down and up, 
 between the wet house-fronts that reared themselves to the 
 dying moon and the red murk of the dawn, the music roamed. 
 And always it was the same air the dirge known as " The 
 Flowers of the Forest," which was brought to birth when the 
 Scots lost Flodden Field. Since Flodden, generation after 
 generation, men skilled at the pipes had taught their growing 
 youngsters the way of it; and now the ripe training of the 
 fathers had gathered to a head. No pipers ever played, or ever 
 will again, as those who greeted the Prince as they passed by 
 him greeted him, with sadness and with music, as heroes sa- 
 lute a comrade proven and well-loved. 
 
 The riders and the men on foot went by. The tread of 
 hoofs, the tread of feet, was slow and measured, as the tread 
 of mourners is ; and down and up, and up and down, the echoes 
 of the pipes' lament roamed through Derby's street. It was 
 an hour and there are few such when men, with their 
 strength and their infirmities, and their rooted need of battle, 
 grow tender and outspoken as little children, who have found 
 no need as yet to face life in the open. 
 
 The Prince and Sir Jasper were alone. The fighting men 
 had passed them, and the chattering townsfolk. And from 
 afar, down the silence of the empty street, the sorrow of the 
 pipes came with a low, recurring lilt. 
 
 Lochiel, not long ago, had sounded the right note. They 
 were children, Sir Jasper and his Prince, gathered round their 
 mothers' knees again ; and, through the murk of Derby's street, 
 and through the falling sorrow of the music, God spoke to 
 them, as if they needed, in this hour of extreme weakness, to 
 reach out and hold with firm hands the faith that was slipping 
 from their grasp.
 
 194 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 And the moment passed, leaving them the sadder, but the 
 stronger for it. And they were men again comrades, facing 
 a disastrous world. And presently they rode slowly out of 
 Derby, and took the long road north again ; and between them 
 fell a silence chill and heavy as the rain that never ceased to 
 whip the puddles of the highway. 
 
 " Your eyes are wet, Sir Jasper," said the Prince, turning 
 sharply from the thoughts that were too heavy to be borne. 
 
 " So are yours, your Highness," the other answered gruffly. 
 
 " Well, then, we'll blame the pipes for it. I think there's 
 something broken in me, sir, since since Derby; but no man 
 in my army, except yourself, shall ever guess as much. We 
 shall be gay, Sir Jasper, since need asks." 
 
 A few hours later a motley company of horse three-and- 
 twenty strong rode into Derby. Some half-dozen of the 
 riders were English, but the rest, and the officer in command, 
 were Hessian soldiery. The officer, one Captain Goldstein, 
 spoke English with some fluency; and his business here, it 
 seemed, was to gather from the townsfolk such details of the 
 retreat as they could furnish. 
 
 They spent less than an hour in the town, snatched a hurried 
 meal for which, unlike the Prince's men, they did not pay 
 and rode back as fast as they could set hoofs to ground to the 
 main body of the Duke of Cumberland's army, which had been 
 hanging on the rear of the Stuart's men for many days, hoping 
 always to overtake them, and always finding them a few leagues 
 nearer London than themselves. 
 
 Captain Goldstein went straight to the Duke's lodgings, and 
 the sentry passed him in without demur when his challenge 
 had been answered. 
 
 " Ah, good ! " said Cumberland gruffly, looking up from a 
 map which he was studying. " What news from Derby ? " 
 
 " The best news. They've turned tail, though we could not 
 credit the rumours that came into camp. Derby is empty, your 
 Grace." 
 
 The two men were oddly like each other, as they stood in the
 
 HOW THE PIPES PLAYED DREARILY 195 
 
 lamplit room. They were big and fleshy, both of them; and 
 each had the thick, loose lips, the heavy jaw, that go with an 
 aggressive lust for the coarser vices, an aggressive ambition, 
 and a cruelty in the handling of all hindrances. 
 
 Cumberland drained the tankard at his elbow, thrust his 
 boots a little nearer to the fire-blaze. " What fools these Stu- 
 arts are ! " he said lazily. 
 
 " By your leave, no," said Captain Goldstein, wishing to be 
 exact in detail. " From all I gathered, it was not the Pre- 
 tender, but the leaders of the clans, who forced the retreat." 
 
 " Well, either way, it's laughable. The Elector bars their 
 way at Finchley with ten thousand men ; it sounds formidable, 
 Goldstein, eh ? but we know what a rotten nut that is to crack. 
 And I could not overtake them ; they march with such cursed 
 speed ; and poor old Marshal Wade, supposed to be converging 
 from the north, is always a week late for the fair. They held 
 the cards; and, Goldstein, are you jesting when you say that 
 they've retreated ? " 
 
 " I never jest, your Grace. Derby is empty, I say ; and it is 
 not my place to suggest that you order boot-and-saddle to be 
 sounded." 
 
 " No," snarled Cumberland, facing round on this officer 
 whom he was wont to kick or caress, according to his mood. 
 " No, Goldstein, it is not your place. Your place? You'd be 
 housed in the kennels if you had your proper lodgings. I res- 
 cued you from that sort of neighbourhood, because you seemed 
 to have the makings of a soldier in you." 
 
 " They'll retreat with speed, as they advanced. The wind's 
 in the feet of these Highlanders," said Goldstein stubbornly. 
 
 " We shall catch them up. To-day I've much to do, Gold- 
 stein an assignation with the miller's buxom daughter, a mile 
 outside the camp ; she's waiting for me now." 
 
 " She'll wait, sir, till your return. You have that gift with 
 women." 
 
 Cumberland stirred lazily, got to his feet. He was pleased 
 by this flattery that was clumsy as his own big, unwholesome
 
 196 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 body. "She'll wait, you think? Well, let her wait. Women 
 are best trained that way. There, Goldstein, I was only jest- 
 ing. You broke the good news too sharply. They've re- 
 treated? Say it again. Oh, the fools these Stuarts are! I 
 must drink another measure to their health." 
 
 A little later the whole Hanoverian army moved north. 
 Cumberland was keen and happy, because he saw butchery and 
 renown within his grasp. Through days and weeks of hard- 
 ship over sloppy roads he had hunted the Stuart whom he 
 loathed, had found him constantly elude pursuit. And now, 
 it seemed, his hour of triumph was at hand. And triumph, to 
 his Grace of Cumberland, meant always, not pardon of his ene- 
 mies, but revenge. 
 
 " They leave us a plain track to follow," he said to Goldstein 
 as, near midday, after riding slantwise from their camp to 
 strike the northern road, eight miles north of Derby, they came 
 from muddied bridle-paths to a highway that was deep in tram- 
 pled slush. "They were nimble in advance, but retreat will 
 have another tale to tell. We shall catch them to-morrow, or 
 the next day after." 
 
 And Goldstein agreed ; but he did not tell all he knew how 
 he had learned from the Derby townsfolk that the Prince rode 
 far behind his army, attended only by one horseman. Instead, 
 he spoke of the commission he held, as officer in command of a 
 roving troop of cavalry, and asked if he might be free to harass 
 the retreat. 
 
 " We ride lighter than your main body, your Highness, and 
 could pick off stragglers as well as bring news of the route 
 these ragged Pretender's men are taking." 
 
 " Yes, ride forward," growled Cumberland, " You've the 
 pick of my scoundrels with you, Goldstein hard riders and 
 coarse feeders they'll help you pick off stragglers." 
 
 The two men exchanged a glance of understanding. Dif- 
 ference of rank apart, they were brotherly in the instincts that 
 they shared ; and his Grace of Cumberland, from his youth up, 
 had had a gift for choosing his friends among those who rode
 
 HOW THE PIPES PLAYED DREARILY 197 
 
 unencumbered by conscience, or pity, or any sort of tenderness. 
 And, as he had said just now, he found them mostly in the ken- 
 nels. 
 
 " One word," said Cumberland, as the other prepared to ride 
 forward. "There's no quarter to be given. For the coun- 
 try's sake for the safety of the King we shall make an ex- 
 ample of these rebels." 
 
 Goldstein glanced warily at him, to see if he jested and 
 looked for an answering wink. But it pleased the Duke to as- 
 sume an air which he thought royal. 
 
 " An example, you understand ? " he repeated. " Tell these 
 gentle devils of yours that they can ride on a free rein. If you 
 scotch a Pretender's man, put your heel on him and kill him 
 outright. Our royal safety England's safety depends on 
 it." 
 
 Goldstein, as he spurred forward to gather his cavalry to- 
 gether, grinned pleasantly. " Our royal safety England's 
 safety," he muttered, mimicking the Duke's rough, broken ac- 
 cent. " He's got it pat by heart, though it seems yesterday he 
 crossed from Hanover." 
 
 He gathered his men, and rode forward at their head through 
 the rain and the sleety mud that marked the passage of the 
 Highlanders. And when they had gone three miles or so on 
 the northern road, they captured a frightened countryman, 
 who was getting his sheep down from the pastures in anticipa- 
 tion of the coming snow. It was the first blood they had drawn 
 in this campaign, and Goldstein made the most of it. He liked 
 to have a weak thing at his mercy, and he spared the farmer no 
 threat of what would follow if he failed to tell the truth. For 
 his pains, he learned that the Highlanders were marching fast 
 along the northern road, five hours ahead of them. He learned, 
 too, that one who answered to the Prince's description still rode 
 behind his army, and that he was accompanied only by one gen- 
 tleman on horseback. 
 
 They went forward, leaving the countryman half-dazed with 
 fright ; and presently Goldstein's men began to murmur at the
 
 198 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 hardships of the road. A rough company at best, united only 
 by a common lust of pillage and rapine, they needed a firmer 
 hand on them than one promoted from their own ranks could 
 give. 
 
 Goldstein, knowing this, drew them up in line. And first he 
 stormed at them, without avail ; for they were harder swearers 
 than himself, and missed that crisp, adventurous flow of tongue 
 which comes to gentlemen-officers at these times. So then, 
 seeing them mutinous and like to get further out of hand the 
 more he stormed, he grinned pleasantly at them. " My orders 
 from the Duke," he said, " are to capture the Pretender, dead 
 or alive, before he gets back to Scotland. There's thirty thou- 
 sand pounds on his head. He rides alone behind his army, as 
 you heard just now, and we shall share the plunder." 
 
 The appeal went home this time, for Goldstein knew his men. 
 They bivouacked that night four miles wide of Macclesfield, in 
 Cheshire, and the next day the sun showing his face at last 
 through tattered, grey-blue clouds they came in sight of the 
 Stuart army. They had crossed by a bridle-track which, from 
 a little knoll, gave them a view of the long, straight highway 
 that stretched, a grey, rain-sodden ribbon, between the empty 
 fields. They saw kilted men go by, and horsemen riding at a 
 foot pace ; and they heard the pipes that could not anyway be 
 still, as they played that air of " The Flowers of the Forest " 
 which was both dirge and battle-song. And Goldstein, some- 
 where under the thick hide he carried like a suit of armour, 
 was stirred by the strength and forlornness of it all. He saw 
 great-hearted men go by, shoulders carried square against re- 
 treat, and, in some crude, muddled fashion, he understood that 
 they were of fibre stronger than his own. He sat there in sad- 
 dle, moodily watching the horse and foot go by. There was 
 no chance as yet to pick off stragglers, for the army kept in 
 close order; yet Goldstein waited after the last company had 
 ridden by they chanced to be the MacDonald clan as if he 
 looked for some happening on the empty road below. 
 
 And presently, while his men began to fidget under this in-
 
 HOW THE PIPES PLAYED DREARILY 199 
 
 action in the rain, two horsemen came round the bend of the 
 highway. The Prince and Sir Jasper were riding together 
 still, but were talking no longer of the Rising and retreat. In- 
 stead, they were laughing at some tale the Prince had lately 
 brought from France; and Sir Jasper was bettering French 
 wit by a story, rough and racy and smelling of the soil, which 
 he had heard at the last meet of hounds in Lancashire before 
 he set out on this sterner ride. For women, when they are 
 heartsick, find ease in rending characters to shreds, especially 
 sister-women's; but men need the honest ease of laughter, 
 whether the jest be broad or subtle. 
 
 " Sir Jasper," said the Prince, " you're vastly likeable. 
 When I come to my own, you shall dine with me and set the 
 table in a roar. Meanwhile a pinch of snuff with you." 
 
 Sir Jasper dusted his nostrils, with the spacious air that set 
 well on him. And then, from old habit, he glanced up, in search 
 of the hills that were food and drink to him in time of trouble. 
 He saw no hills worth the name; but, for lack of them, his 
 eyes rested on a mound, wide of his bridle-hand, which from 
 lack of true proportion the country-folk named Big Blue Hill. 
 There was little inspiration to be gathered from the mound; 
 so he looked out with his world's eyes again, and saw that there 
 were horsemen gathered on the rise, and that they wore the 
 enemy's livery. 
 
 " Your Highness, we must gallop," he said briefly. 
 
 The Prince, following his glance, saw Goldstein plucking his 
 horse into a trot. " I prefer to wait," he said lazily. " It is a 
 skirmish of this sort I hoped for." 
 
 " And your Highlanders ? We're in the open without a wall 
 to set our backs to. You dare not leave your Highlanders." 
 
 " True, I dare not." He glanced wistfully at the down-rid- 
 ing men, as if death in the open were easier to him just now 
 than life. " It is retreat once more? Dear God, I must have 
 sinned, to have this sickness put on me! " 
 
 " Our horses are fresh. We'll give them Tally-Ho, your 
 Highness."
 
 200 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 Through the darkness and the trouble of his soul, through 
 the wish to die here and now and lie in forgetfulness of Derby 
 and retreat, the Prince caught up some tattered remnants of 
 the Stuart courage. It was easy to wait, sword ready, for the 
 oncoming ; but it was hard to gallop from an enemy he loathed. 
 Yet from the discipline of that long peril shared with his men, 
 since they came on the forlorn hope from Scotland, the strength 
 that does not fail returned to Prince Charles Edward. He set 
 his mare Nance Demaine's mare to the gallop ; and Sir Jas- 
 per rode keen and hard beside him; and Goldstein found his 
 heavy horse slip and lurch under him, as all his company did 
 while they blundered in pursuit. Goldstein followed headlong. 
 Three of his troopers came to ground in galloping down a 
 greasy slope, and their leader, if he had been a worse horse- 
 man, would have shared the same fate. As it was, he kept 
 forward, and at a bend of the road saw, half a mile ahead, 
 the company of MacDonalds who kept the rear of the Stuart 
 army. 
 
 " Well, it's not to-day we catch him," he snapped, reining up 
 and facing the ill-tempered men behind him. " We can bide 
 our time." 
 
 " Aye, we've been biding a good while," growled a weather- 
 beaten trooper. " Whichever way his back's turned, this 
 cursed Pretender always slips out of reach." 
 
 " The money's on his head, you fools ! " snapped Goldstein. 
 "You'll mutiny against God or man, but not against thirty 
 thousand pounds, if I know your breed. There's to-morrow ; 
 we shall catch him soon or late, while this mood is on him to 
 ride behind his army." 
 
 They were sobered by this hint of money. For they were 
 men who plied for hire, and only hire. And that night they 
 encamped on the outskirts of Manchester, where the Prince's 
 army lay, and dreamed they were rich men all. And the next 
 morning they were almost cheerful, this ragged cavalry of 
 Goldstein's, because the day's hunt was up, and because their 
 view of the Rising was narrowed to each man's share of the
 
 HOW THE PIPES PLAYED DREARILY 201 
 
 blood-money when they took Prince Charles Edward, dead or 
 alive. 
 
 Up at Windyhough, in Lancashire, this same red dawn had 
 shone through the open window of Rupert's bedchamber, rous- 
 ing him from uneasy slumber. He had gone to the casement, 
 and was looking out at the grim majestic moors. Line after 
 line the rugged spurs and knolls strode up from the night mists 
 into the crimson and purple that gained in splendour every 
 moment. Of a truth, it was a man's land ; and the thought 
 goaded Rupert into deep and passionate self-pity, as it had 
 always done. Over the hills yonder his father rode beside 
 the Stuart men going on a manly errand. Perhaps they 
 had fought their big battle already, were hastening to a Lon- 
 don eager to receive the conquerors. And he? He was 
 playing at the defence of a house remote from any chance 
 of action. And there was Nance, waiting for him to prove 
 himself, growing cold and contemptuous because each new day 
 found him still Rupert the Dreamer, inept, irritable, a burden 
 to himself and others. 
 
 Perhaps, out of the sympathy that had always bound Sir 
 Jasper and his heir together, the like mood had come to both 
 just now, the like need to face a stern and awful sickness of 
 the soul, to win through it, to plant Faith's standard in the wil- 
 derness of defeat and hope deferred. 
 
 " Nance was right. Nothing will ever again happen at Win- 
 dyhough, until my father returns from the crowning and then 
 the work will be done, and no more need of me." 
 
 Stubbornly, slowly, he came to a better heart and mind. Un- 
 doubtedly this scholar had pluck. 
 
 " I will not give in," he said, lifting his head to the ruddy 
 heath as if answering a challenge. 
 
 And at that hour the Prince and his father were riding north 
 from Derby were riding nearer to him than he thought, on a 
 journey whose end no man could foresee.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE TALE COMES TO WINDYHOUGH 
 
 NEARLY a week had gone since Nance came down from her 
 ride on the moor, from the meeting with Will Underwood that 
 had ruined one dream of her life for good and all. Each day 
 that passed was more full of strain for those at Windyhough. 
 They practised musketry together, she and Rupert and old 
 Simon Foster; and the rivalry between them, keen enough, 
 improved their marksmanship. At the week's end Rupert was 
 the best shot of the three ; it was his way to be thorough, and 
 to this business of countering Nance's taunt that she could 
 not trust her men to guard her he brought the same untiring 
 zeal, the patience not to be dismayed, that had kept his faith 
 secure against disastrous odds. 
 
 But as each short day closed in there was the return to the 
 silence of the house at Windyhough, to Lady Royd's wonder 
 if her husband were lying dead in some south country ditch, 
 to the yapping of the toy spaniel that harassed Rupert because, 
 soul and body, he was tired of mimic warfare. 
 
 They had come home this afternoon from musket-drill, and 
 Simon had left them in the courtyard. A little, sobbing wind 
 was fluting round the gables, and the red light on the hills 
 foretold, unerringly, that snow would come. 
 
 Nance looked up at the black front of Windyhough. The 
 homeless desolation of the land took hold of her. She was 
 cold, and tired of all things ; and she sought for some relief, 
 and could find none, save by way of the tongue that is woman's 
 rapier. 
 
 "What of your trust, Rupert?" she asked sharply. "A 
 week ago it seems half a lifetime you said there would be 
 some swift attack you said that you had faith. Faith, my 
 
 202
 
 THE TALE COMES TO WINDYHOUGH 203 
 
 dear I tell you it is cold and empty as the wind. Your only 
 answer is why, just your mother's spaniel barking at you 
 from within. Faith should know the master's footstep, Ru- 
 pert." 
 
 He had been sick at heart till now. The answer had not 
 come as soon as he had hoped, and his need was urgent; but 
 the faith in him rose clear and dominant. 
 
 " You're a baby, Nance. You talked of half a lifetime. I 
 could wait so long in patience, knowing the Stuart, soon or 
 late, would come to the good crowning." 
 
 She glanced at him with impatience, with a certain 
 wistful curiosity. " Does your creed go deep as that, Rupert ? 
 Mine does not," she said, with her frank, bewildering 
 honesty. 
 
 " My creed ? " Rupert's shoulders were squared in earnest 
 now. He stood to his full six feet, and in his eyes was that 
 look of the man who cannot be bought, or bullied, or flattered, 
 from allegiance to the straight road ahead. " It goes deeper, 
 Nance. What else? Faith! You seem to think it means 
 only kneeling in a church, a woman's refuge from the outside 
 storms, a ball to play with, when the time seems slow in pass- 
 ing." 
 
 " You will tell me more," said Nance gently. 
 
 " I cannot. Go to Sir Jasper, who can use a sword ; go to 
 your father, who can fight and hunt and play the man wherever 
 men are gathered. They kneel in church, Nance and in the 
 open roads they feel their swords the cleaner for it ; they carry 
 knighthood with them, so that clowns read it in their faces as 
 they pass." 
 
 " Who taught you this ? " she asked. 
 
 He laughed, with the diffidence and self-contempt that al- 
 ways lay in ambush for him. " I dreamed it, maybe. You 
 always said I was a dreamer, Nance a fool, you meant, but 
 were too kind to think it." 
 
 So they stood there, in the cold and ruddy gloaming, and 
 were helpless to find speech together. All that lay deep in
 
 204 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 Nance, secure beneath each day's indignities, went out to this 
 heir of Windyhough. His view of life was hers; his roots 
 were m the soil, tilled lovingly by far-back fathers, that breeds 
 the strong plants of chivalry. And yet and yet he was so 
 fitful in his moods, so apart from the needs of every day, so 
 galling to the women who looked, as a matter of course, for 
 their men to go out into the open. 
 
 And then, following some odd byway of memory, she re- 
 called how grim and steady and reliant he had been that win- 
 ter's day it seemed long since when he had sent Will Un- 
 derwood and herself down the moor while he prepared to 
 fight out the quarrel with his younger brother. 
 
 " Rupert," she said, seeking for some way of praising him, 
 " you shot well to-day." 
 
 " Yes," he growled. " I outshot a woman, Nance and a 
 man who was crippled in every joint he owned. I take no 
 praise for that. As men count shooting, I'm where I always 
 stood your patient fool, Nance." 
 
 So they stood helpless there, one aching with the love he had 
 each day of this close companionship making Nance more 
 lovable and more far off the other stifled by her pity for this 
 heir of Windyhough, who needed so little to touch his man- 
 hood into living flame. 
 
 And as they stood a horseman came clattering up. There 
 was mud on his horse, so that none could have told whether it 
 were roan or black or chestnut. There was mud on his clothes, 
 and on his hands, and on his lean, strained face. As he reined 
 up sharply, his gift of knowing faces and their records did not 
 fail him. 
 
 " You're Sir Jasper's son ? " he said. " I'm glad, sir, to 
 meet you out of doors, for it will save me time." 
 
 Rupert was aware of some sense of betterment. Dimly, and 
 far off as yet, he saw the answer to his faith take shape and 
 substance. " I remember you, sir," he answered gravely. 
 " You are Mr. Oliphant of Muirhouse, and once you you 
 praised my shortcomings. You you helped me, sir, that night
 
 205 
 
 you came to Windyhough. You do not guess the debt I owe 
 you." 
 
 Oliphant, sick with hard riding, more sick with the disas- 
 trous news that he was bringing to the loyal north, halted for 
 remembrance of that night when he had come to Sir Jasper's 
 and found Lady Royd and a slim, nerve-ridden lad who was 
 vastly like his own dead self, buried long ago under the hills of 
 fine endeavour. 
 
 " By your leave, sir," he said, gently as if the pipes were 
 sobbing for dead hopes, " I think you've pluck enough to hear 
 bad news and take it like a soldier. All's lost at Derby and 
 the Prince's men are coming north again." 
 
 Nance went apart and put weak, foolish hands about her 
 eyes. There could be no resurrection, she fancied, from this 
 death in life that was meant by the retreat from Derby. But 
 Rupert held his head up and looked at Oliphant with steady 
 eyes. The blow was sudden and bewildering; this retreat cut 
 deep into his faith, his certainty that the Prince could not fail 
 to carry London ; and his shoulders broadened to the burden, 
 so that he carried it well almost lightly, as it seemed to Nance. 
 
 "My father he is safe, sir?" he asked quietly. 
 
 " Yes, safe ; but his temper is like a watch-dog's on the 
 chain " 
 
 " He'll bite deeper when the chance comes." Rupert was 
 smiling gravely through his eagerness. " Mr. Oliphant, I I 
 dare not ask you what what my father and the Prince 
 and the Highlanders are feeling." 
 
 Oliphant set a rough hand on his arm. "Feeling? The 
 whole route north is one long burial. I've seen battle, I've 
 heard the wounded crying when the night-wind crept into their 
 wounds, but I never met anguish as I met it on the road from 
 Derby. My lad, I cannot speak of it and the Prince among 
 them all, with a jest on his lips to hearten them, and his face 
 as if he danced a minuet all but the eyes, the saddened eyes 
 the eyes, I think, of martyred Charles, when he stepped to the 
 scaffold on a bygone January morning and bade us all remem-
 
 206 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 ber." Oliphant halted a moment. A fury, resolute and quiet, 
 was on him. " By God, sir, some few of us are not likely to 
 forget!" 
 
 And suddenly Nance sobbed aloud, though she had never 
 learned the woman's trick of easy tears. And about Oliphant's 
 face, too, a softness played. It was a moment for these three 
 such as comes seldom to any of us a moment packed so full 
 with grief and tragedy that they must needs slip off the masks 
 worn at usual times. They three were of the old Faith, the 
 old, unquestioning loyalty. They had no intrigues, of policy 
 or caution, to hide from one another. One of the three had 
 been with the army of retreat, had felt the throb and pity that 
 put a finer edge to the sword he carried; and two of them 
 waited here at Windyhough, sending long thoughts out to help 
 the wayfarers. And now there was an end, it seemed ; and in 
 the chilly gloaming their hearts met, caught fire, were friendly 
 in a common grief. 
 
 As for Rupert, he felt his soul go free to prison; he was 
 finding now the answer to the unhappy, ceaseless trouble he 
 had undergone since childhood. He had been thrust aside by 
 folk more practical and matter-of-fact ; he had feared ridicule ; 
 he had heard men name him scholarly, and had retreated, like 
 a snail into its shell, to the dreams of gallantry that were food 
 and drink to him. But through it all he had kept one bridge 
 against all comers the bridge of his simple, knightly faith; 
 and it is the big deeds such as this wrought out in silence, so 
 that none guesses them that train a man for the forlorn 
 hope, the sudden call, the need to step out into the open 
 when there is no one else to face odds ludicrous and over- 
 whelming. 
 
 It was Rupert who broke the silence, and his voice was deep 
 and steady. " Mr. Oliphant," he said, not knowing how the 
 words came to him, " this may be for the best" 
 
 So Oliphant, who was saddle-sore and human, snapped round 
 on him. " By gad, sir, you are obstinately cheerful ! Ride 
 somewhere between here and Derby, and ask the Highlanders
 
 THE TALE COMES TO WINDYHOUGH 207 
 
 if all is for the best I tell you I have seen the Prince's face, 
 and faith grows dull. He would be in London now, if he had 
 had his way." 
 
 Rupert glanced up to the moors, where the last tattered ban- 
 ners of the sunset fluttered crimson on the hilltops. And in 
 his eyes was the look which any countryman of Lancashire, or 
 any Highlander from Skye, would have known as " seeing 
 far." 
 
 " The Prince has not had his way," he said, with queer, un- 
 hurried certainty. " You tell us he retreats as other men go to 
 a ball. You say his heart is breaking, sir, and that he still finds 
 jests. I know retreat and waiting know them by heart and 
 the going is not smooth. If he can do this why, he's bigger 
 even than my dreams of him." 
 
 Nance understood him now ; and Oliphant's ill-temper ceased 
 to trouble him. Here was one, bred of a soldier-stock, who 
 had missed his way along the road of deeds ; but to the bone of 
 him he was instinct, not with the ballad-stuff of victory, but 
 with the tedious prose of long, sick marches, of defeat carried 
 with shoulders squared to any onset of adversity. 
 
 Oliphant laughed grimly. It was his way when feeling 
 waded so deep that it was like to carry him away. " I've seen 
 many countries, lad have had my back to the wall a few times, 
 knowing who stood by me and who found excuse to save his 
 skin ; but I never in my travels met one so like a man, round 
 and about, find him in rough weather or in smooth, as as 
 the Prince, God bless him ! The ladies up in Edinburgh your 
 pardon, Miss Demaine, but some of your sex are fools para- 
 mount saw only his love-locks and the rest of it ; but we have 
 seen his manhood. There's none like him. And he retreats 
 because my Lord George Murray is mathematical and has cap- 
 tured the Scots prudence of the chiefs ; and he's still the great 
 gentleman among us greater now that he dances, not in Holy- 
 rood, but through the miry roads." 
 
 Nance glanced up sharply. She was thinking of Will Un- 
 derwood, who had killed first love for her with a clown's
 
 208 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 rough hand. " If there were more men of your breed and 
 Rupert's " 
 
 " By your leave," broke in Oliphant gruffly, " I think most 
 of us are bred straight. The mongrels make such an uproar 
 that you fancy them a full pack in cry, Miss Demaine. We're 
 not happy, not one of us three ; but we carry a faith bigger than 
 our hardships." He turned to Rupert with surprising grace 
 and charm. " My thanks, sir. I was tired before I met you, 
 and now my weariness is gone." 
 
 The door of Windyhough was opened suddenly, and Lady 
 Royd came running out bareheaded, and halted on seeing the 
 horseman and the two on foot in the falling dusk of the court- 
 yard. 
 
 " Rupert, I cannot find my little dog ! " she cried. 
 
 Her elder-born smiled grimly. He was struggling with the 
 need to stand firm against Oliphant's disastrous news ; and his 
 mother came to tell him, in her pretty, querulous way, that her 
 little dog was missing. 
 
 " Fido is in the house, mother," he answered patiently. " We 
 heard him barking at us when we crossed the courtyard." 
 
 " Oh, it is not Fido. It's the little black pug, Rupert. And 
 she's so delicate. An hour of this keen wind, if she is out of 
 doors, might kill the poor, wee doggie." 
 
 Oliphant of Muirhouse gave a muttered curse, for, to his 
 finger-tips, he was a man, his instincts primitive when they 
 were touched. Then he laughed gently, for his soul's health, 
 and got from saddle, and stooped to kiss Lady Royd's hand. 
 
 " You do not know me, Lady Royd, in this dim light? I'm 
 Oliphant of Muirhouse, and I bring Rising news." 
 
 Sir Jasper's wife put a hand to her breast. The movement 
 was quick, and another than Oliphant might easily have missed 
 it in this dim light ; but now his task grew harder, for he knew 
 that, apart from pet-dog whimsies, she loved her husband. 
 
 " Is he safe, Mr. Oliphant ? " she asked, bridging all usual 
 courtesies of greeting. 
 
 " Hale and well. I saw him three days since, and he sent
 
 THE TALE COMES TO WINDYHOUGH 209 
 
 messages to you, knowing I had errands here in Lancashire." 
 
 Lady Royd, easy for the moment because her good man did 
 not happen to be lying dead among the ditches of her night- 
 mares, grew almost roguish. "And his heart, sir? Is it 
 sound, too? There are so many pretty women in the south 
 I know, because I lived there once, before I came to these 
 bleak hills that frighten me." 
 
 Oliphant sought for some way of breaking news better left 
 untold. " You to fear rivalry ? " he said, in his low, pleasant 
 voice. " Sir Jasper has known you all these years " 
 
 " Precisely. And the years have left their mark. You need 
 not dwell on that, Mr. Oliphant." 
 
 " I meant that, to have known you all these years why, it 
 explains the loverlike and pressing messages he sent by me." 
 
 So then Lady Royd was like a girl in her teens. " Tell me 
 what he said." 
 
 " No, by your leave ! " laughed Oliphant. " He said so much, 
 and my time is not my own just now." 
 
 " How how comforting you are, like Mr. Underwood, who 
 finds always the right word to say." 
 
 " I say it with a difference, I hope," snapped Oliphant, too 
 weary to hide old dislikes. " I've known Mr. Underwood 
 longer than I care to remember. He's a man I'd trust to fail 
 me whenever the big hunt was up." 
 
 Nance laughed suddenly. The relief was so unexpected and 
 so rousing. " You've the gift of knowing men, Mr. Oliphant." 
 
 " There, child ! " broke in Lady Royd. " You must come to 
 my years before you talk of understanding men ; and even then, 
 if I die in my bed at ninety, I shall never know why we find 
 their daft ways so likeable." 
 
 Oliphant, afraid to hurt a woman always, was seeking for 
 some way to break his news. This wife of Sir Jasper's was 
 leal and tender, underneath her follies ; and her husband was 
 in retreat in a retreat dangerous to the safety of his body, but 
 more perilous still to the quick and fiery soul that had led him 
 south with Prince Charles Edward.
 
 210 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " He is in good health," he said slowly " but the Cause is 
 not." 
 
 "There has been a battle?'* She was alert, attentive now. 
 
 " Yes a battle of the Council-chamber, and the Prince was 
 outnumbered. The odds were four to one at least." 
 
 " I do not understand, sir." 
 
 " Nor do I," he went on, in a quiet heat of rage. " We were 
 cavaliers all, dashing straight through England on the forlorn 
 hope. All depended on looking forward. The chiefs chose 
 just that moment to look back along the road of prudence. It 
 is disastrous, pitiful. I dare not think of it." 
 
 " So they are in retreat ? " 
 
 " That is my message to you. Sir Jasper wishes you to stay 
 here at Windyhough. The march north will go wide of you, 
 through Langton, and you'll be secure here." 
 
 Lady Royd stood very still in the wind that at another time 
 would have made her peevish with longing for her warm south 
 country. Her surface tricks, the casual littleness that had dis- 
 turbed Sir Jasper's peace, were blown aside. She was think- 
 ing of her husband, of all this Rising meant to him, of his 
 heartsickness and the hazards that were doubled now. 
 
 " I would God, sir, that he had bidden me go out to join him 
 in retreat," she said at last. " I shall be secure here, he thinks ? 
 House walls about one, Mr. Oliphant, and food to eat, and wine 
 to drink are they security ? I'm weak and foolish on the sud- 
 den I never understood till now that, where he goes, there is 
 home for me. Shelter? I need none, except his arms about 
 me." 
 
 There are times moments set thick with trouble, when faith 
 and all else seem drowning in the flood that compel us to 
 struggle free of reticence. Oliphant of Muirhouse was not 
 aware that there was anything singular or unseemly in this 
 spoiled wife's statement of her case. Nance answered to the 
 direct appeal ; for her own heart was bruised, and fragrant 
 with the herb named pity. And Rupert, for his part, stood
 
 THE TALE COMES TO WINDYHOUGH 211 
 
 aside and gazed at his mother across the red, murky twilight, 
 and wondered how it came that one of his dreams was an- 
 swered after all. In face and voice and tender uprightness of 
 figure, this mother of his was something near the ideal he had 
 woven round her, despite her careless handling of him in the 
 years gone by. 
 
 "Ah, there!" said Lady Royd, with a coquettish, gentle 
 laugh. " Nance was talking not long ago of love and knight- 
 hood and all that the baby girl! and I rapped her over the 
 knuckles with my fan. It's a humdrum world we live in, Mr. 
 Oliphant ; and, by that token, you will come in to supper before 
 you carry on the news." 
 
 " Not even a mouthful and a glass of wine out here ; as for 
 coming in to the meal I crave why, I dare not do it, by your 
 leave. Sleep is waiting so near to me, to trip me up in the 
 middle of my errand." 
 
 She glanced at him, with the instinct that is never far from 
 women to play the temptress. " You look so tired," she said 
 gently. " Surely your news will wait ? A warm hearth, Mr. 
 Oliphant, and the meal you need " 
 
 " You said just now that house walls and food and drink 
 were of little consequence unless you had strong hands about 
 you." 
 
 " But you're strong of your hands already. And I am 
 weak." 
 
 " Yes," said Oliphant, " passably strong ; but it is each man 
 to his trade, my lady. The hands I need they greet me on 
 the uplands, when my horse and I are so tired out that it is 
 laughable. We get up into the roomy moors our business lies 
 in that sort of country and the curlews go crying, crying, as 
 if their sorrow could not rest since a Stuart once was martyred. 
 And we gather up our courage, my horse and I." 
 
 " You men," she broke in fretfully " your thoughts run al- 
 ways up the hills. And you find only the old feuds a Stuart 
 martyred near a hundred years ago, a king who's earth and
 
 212 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 bone-dust by this time, as we shall be one day. It matters so 
 little, Mr. Oliphant, when we come to the end of our lives to 
 the end of our singing-time." 
 
 Oliphant of Muirhouse had learned the hardest of life's les- 
 sons a broad and catholic simplicity ; and in the learning he 
 had gained an added edge to the temper that now was lithe as 
 steel. " King Charles is neither earth nor bone-dust," he said 
 pleasantly " He is alive, my lady, and he knows that we 
 remember." 
 
 "Remembrance? What of that?" asked the other lazily. 
 "Just last year's rose-leaves, sir, with the faded scent about 
 them. By your leave, Mr. Oliphant, I thought you more work- 
 manlike and modern." 
 
 It was Rupert who broke in. " Remember ? " he said storm- 
 ily. " My father taught me just that word, when he used to 
 come up into the nursery long ago, and play with us. He did 
 not know then how how like God's fool I was to grow up, 
 and he would tell me tales of Charles the First, how likeable 
 and kingly he was always ; how he'd have been glad to take his 
 crown off, and live like a country gentleman, following field- 
 sports all the day, and coming back to the wife and bairns he 
 loved, to spend long evenings with them." 
 
 Oliphant of Muirhouse felt pity stir about him. This lad 
 with the simplicity of one who was seeing far back along the 
 years, scarce knowing that he was speaking his thoughts aloud 
 was a figure to rouse any thinking man's attention. He was 
 so good a soldier wasted. 
 
 " Then father would tell me," went on Rupert, the passion 
 deepening in his voice, " how the King was asked to leave it 
 all ; how he could have saved his life, if he had given his Faith 
 in exchange, and how he would not yield. And then father 
 made it all so plain to me the King went out from Whitehall, 
 one bitter January day, and the scaffold and the streets were 
 thick with snow, and he went with a grave, happy face, as if he 
 had many friends about him. And he knelt awhile at the 
 scaffold in decent prayer ; and then he turned to Bishop Juxon,
 
 THE TALE COMES TO WINDYHOUGH 213 
 
 and said, ' Remember ! ' And then black Cromwell had his 
 way of him, for a little while." 
 
 ' My dear, that is past history," protested Lady Royd, with 
 petulant dislike of sorrow. " Of course he died well, and, to 
 be sure, the snow must have added to his great discomfort; 
 but we live in other times." 
 
 " No ! " said Oliphant, sharp as a bugle-call. " We live in 
 the same times, my lady. The way of men's hearts does not 
 change. I'm tired, and not so young as I was ; but your son 
 has marshalled all my courage up." 
 
 So then Rupert stood aside. His chivalry and hero-worship, 
 like his love for Nance, were too delicate as yet, for lack of 
 drill ; and he was ashamed that Oliphant of Muirhouse should 
 praise his littleness. 
 
 " Mr. Oliphant," said Lady Royd, with her roguish, faded 
 laugh, " you're like the rest of my daft men-folk ; you are all 
 for remembrance of the days behind " 
 
 " Yes. We take a few steps back, the better to leap for- 
 ward. That is the strict method of leaping any five-barred 
 gate. There's been so much surmise about that riddle of ' Re- 
 member,' and Rupert here has made it plain to me for the first 
 time." 
 
 " ' Out of the mouths of babes,' " said Rupert's mother, with 
 a flippancy that was born of this long idleness at Windy- 
 hough, the long anxiety for the safety of her husband, whom, 
 in some muddled way, she loved. 
 
 " He is no babe, by your leave. He is nearly a proven man, 
 my lady, and I think God finds no better praise than that for 
 any of us." 
 
 It was all quick in the saying, this talk of folk who heard 
 disaster sing down the bitter wind ; but Nance, looking on and 
 seeking some forward grip of life since Will Underwood had 
 fallen by the way, was aware that Rupert had sounded the 
 rally-call when all seemed lost. He was no longer scholarly, 
 unpractical ; from the background, with the murky gloaming 
 round him, he was a figure dominant among them. And from
 
 14 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 that background he stepped forward, lightly, with self-assur- 
 ance, because there was no pageantry about this game of sor- 
 row, but only the quick need to take hold of the every-day rou- 
 tine of hardship. 
 
 " It might happen that the retreat came up by way of Win- 
 dyhough ? " he asked, straightening the scholarly stoop of his 
 shoulders. 
 
 Oliphant looked gravely at him measured him, with an eye 
 trained to quick judgment of a man and dared not lie to this 
 son of Sir Jasper's who stayed here among the women, seeking 
 better work. " There's no chance of it," he said gruffly. 
 " They are taking the Langton road. I I am sorry, Rupert. 
 I wish the thick of it were coming this way. You're in need 
 of exercise, my lad." 
 
 And Rupert laughed suddenly. " Mr. Oliphant," he said, 
 with his quiet, disarming humour, " I've had drill enough a 
 useless sort of drill and I'm praying these days for assault, 
 and musketry, and siege anything to save us stay-at-homes 
 from sleep." 
 
 Oliphant looked down at the years of his own misshapen 
 boyhood, saw himself a weakling, unproven, hidden by the 
 mists of his own high desires. And he gripped Rupert's hand, 
 said farewell to Lady Royd, and got to saddle. 
 
 " Is that all ? " asked Rupert, with sharp, disconsolate dis- 
 may. " Take me with you, sir. There's a broken-winded 
 horse or two still left in stable." 
 
 " I obey orders," snapped Oliphant, with brusque command. 
 " You will do no less, and Sir Jasper was exact in his wish that 
 you should guard the women here." 
 
 Rupert was sick at heart, restless to be in the open, lest faith 
 and courage were killed outright by these stifled days at Win- 
 dyhough. 
 
 " They're safe, you tell me," he said, yielding to the queer, 
 gusty temper that few suspected in him. " Then I'm free to 
 breathe again. With you, or without you, I shall join the 
 Rising at long last"
 
 215 
 
 Oliphant's heart went out to the mettle of this ill-balanced, 
 stormy lad. For there are many who are keen to follow vic- 
 tory at the gallop; but Oliphant was a man who knew his 
 world knew it through all its tricks of speech and manner 
 and he had met few who were eager to ride out along the un- 
 sung, unhonoured road where retreat goes slowly through the 
 mire. 
 
 " You know what this retreat means ? " he asked, in the same 
 sharp tones, as if on parade. " Sullen men, and sullen roads, 
 and northeast winds that cut the heart out of a man's body? 
 Hard-bitten soldiers find it devilish hard to follow, Rupert 
 and there are the pipes, too, to reckon with. These daft High- 
 land bodies will ever go playing ' The Flowers of the Forest/ 
 till the pity of it goes up and down the wind, like Rachel seek- 
 ing for strayed children. It is all made up of emptiness and 
 sorrow, I tell you, this road from Derby." 
 
 " I should go from worse emptiness and sorrow, here at 
 Windyhough," said Rupert stubbornly. " I fear house-walls, 
 Mr. Oliphant, and the foulest road would seem easy-going " 
 
 Oliphant broke sharply in. This was his own feeling, but 
 it was not the time to give sympathy to Sir Jasper's heir. 
 " You come of a soldier-stock, lad. You want to learn sol- 
 diery one day? Well, you'll learn it I've trust absolute in 
 that and you begin to-night." 
 
 " Then I'll go saddle," said Rupert, eager to try a second 
 fall from horse again. 
 
 " No, by your leave ! " snapped Oliphant. " You'll play sen- 
 try here. Your orders are precise. You guard the house and 
 women, as Sir Jasper bade you." 
 
 " Because Sir Jasper knew that no assault would come," said 
 Rupert, with a return of the old heartache. " You leave me 
 as you found me, sir a toy soldier guarding a house that could 
 only tempt fools to capture it." 
 
 Oliphant straightened himself, clicked his heels together. 
 His voice was tired and husky, but precise. "Your officer 
 commands. You obey. What else? Men do not question at
 
 16 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 these times." Then, with sudden understanding of the man he 
 had to deal with with some remembrance of his own rebel- 
 lious and lonely boyhood Oliphant stood, rugged and uncom- 
 promising, a. lean, hard six-foot-two of manhood. " To your 
 post, sentry ! " he said sharply. 
 
 And Rupert found his heart leap out to the command. In- 
 stinctively because breed shapes us all he lost the scholarly 
 stoop of shoulders, lost his ill-temper and loneliness. He sa- 
 luted stiffly. And Oliphant got to horse, and was riding, slowly 
 forward, when Lady Royd ran to his saddle. 
 
 " I have the most dismaying curiosity, Mr. Oliphant," she 
 said, lifting the pretty, faded face that would always keep its 
 charm. " It is the woman's curse, they tell us. What did 
 King Charles mean when he said ' Remember ' ? We've been 
 guessing at the riddle for a hundred years or so, and it still 
 baffles us." 
 
 Oliphant glanced up at the roomy hills, at the red snow- 
 gloaming that was dying slowly round their crests. " What 
 did he mean that day he went to death? No words could 
 tell you. It was something high, and strong, and lasting, like 
 your moors up there." 
 
 " Oh, no ; that could not be. He was so full of courtesy, so 
 gentle so like the warm south-country I left long ago. King 
 Charles, sir, was never like these hills that frighten me." 
 
 Oliphant looked down at her, with some pity and a great 
 chivalry. " You hold the woman's view of him," he said, with 
 the simplicity inborn in him. " As a man sees him, Lady Royd, 
 he did what few among us could. His wife and bairns were 
 pulling him back from the scaffold and he loved them; his 
 ease, his love of life, his fear of the unknown all were against 
 him. He could have saved the most comely head in England, 
 and would not, because his faith was stubborn. By your leave, 
 I bow my head when the thought of Martyred Charles goes by 
 me." 
 
 Lady Royd looked at this man, so hard of body, so tired and 
 resolute. " I thought you practical, Mr. Oliphant."
 
 THE TALE COMES TO WINDYHOUGH 217 
 
 " None more so. I'm a Scotsman," he put in, with a laugh 
 that struck no discordant note. " If it had not been for King 
 Charles, I should not be here riding evil roads as if I danced 
 a pleasant measure." 
 
 " You're beyond me, sir ; but then, men always were. They 
 never seem to rest ; and when the wind blows keenest, they run 
 out into it, as if it were warmer than the fireside." 
 
 " And there the secret's out. That was King Charles's mean- 
 ing when he bade all Christian royalists remember. It was 
 your son who explained it all to me just now." 
 
 " Ah, Rupert ! The poor boy dreams too much. You're in- 
 dulgent, Mr. Oliphant." 
 
 They fell silent, as people do when feeling throbs and stirs 
 about them like thunder that is brewing up, but will not break. 
 And Oliphant, out of this thunder-weather that he knew by 
 heart, found sudden intuition. Sir Jasper's wife had not fol- 
 lowed him to learn what the last message meant of a King dead 
 these hundred years ; she had sought cover, as women do when 
 they are harassed, had waited till she found courage to ask the 
 question that was nearest to her heart. 
 
 " You're thinking of your husband, Lady Royd ? " he said, 
 with blunt assurance. " I shall see him soon, if all goes well, 
 and I shall tell him what? " 
 
 Women undoubtedly are as Heaven made them, a mystery 
 past man's understanding. Lady Royd, deep in her trouble, 
 chose this moment to remember how Sir Jasper had wooed 
 her as a girl chose to grow younger on the sudden, to carry 
 that air of buoyancy and happiness which makes the tired 
 world welcome all daft lovers. "You've read my heart, sir, 
 in some odd way. My husband I cannot tell you what he 
 means to me. I was not bre'd to soldiery. I I hated the 
 sword he carried out with him, because sharp steel has always 
 been a nightmare to me, and he was cruel when he bade me 
 buckle it on for him." 
 
 " As God sees us, he was kind," broke in Oliphant, moved 
 by extreme pity for this spoiled wife who had fallen on evil
 
 218 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 days. " He loves you. The summons came. It was for 
 your sake yours, do you not understand? that he kept faith 
 with the Prince." 
 
 " For my sake he could have stayed at home. I I needed 
 him. I told him so." 
 
 Oliphant was so tired that even compassion could not 
 soften the rough edge of his temper. " And if he'd 
 stayed? You would have liked your tame cat about the 
 house? You'd have fussed over him and petted him but 
 you'd never in this life have found the medicine to cure his 
 shame." 
 
 "Oh, there!" said the other fretfully. "You worship 
 honour. It is always honour with you men who need excuse 
 for riding far away from home." 
 
 " Honour ? " snapped Oliphant, eager again for the relief 
 of miry roads and saddle-soreness. " It is the Prince's 
 watchword. His heart is broken or near to it and honour 
 is the one light left him. It keeps him gay, my lady, through 
 fouler trouble than you or I have strength to face. And so 
 good-night, I think." 
 
 " No, no ! We must not part like this. I I am so foolish, 
 Mr. Oliphant and you are angry " 
 
 " Your pardon," he said, with quick and gay compunction. 
 " It was my temper my accursed temper. I'm too tired just 
 now to keep a tight rein on the jade." 
 
 " Ah, there ! You were always generous. It is a quality 
 that keeps men lean, I notice." She looked him up and down, 
 again with the hint of coquetry that became her well. " It 
 is a gallant sort of leanness, after all. For myself, I'm 
 growing a little plump, shall we say ? " 
 
 " More graceful in the outline than myself. I was always 
 a figure to scare corbie-crows away with." 
 
 Sir Jasper's wife, from the depth of her own trouble, knew 
 how weary and in need of solitude he was. She wondered 
 that he could keep up this game of ball nice coquetry and 
 chiselled answer when all the sky was red about the moor
 
 THE TALE COMES TO WINDYHOUGH 219 
 
 up yonder, and all the hazard of retreat was singing at their 
 ears. 
 
 " You will see my husband soon ? " she said softly. " I I 
 
 have a message for him " 
 
 " My trade lies that way. You can trust me with it." 
 " You may tell him that I I miss him, sir ; and if he seems 
 to miss me, too why, go so far as to say that my heart is 
 aching." 
 
 Oliphant, moved by a gust of feeling, stooped to her hand. 
 " I never had a wife, myself. God was not kind that way. 
 I'll take your message, and Sir Jasper will forget the miry 
 roads, I think." 
 
 He rode out, a trim, square-shouldered figure, carrying 
 hardship as a man should. And Lady Royd, because he re- 
 minded her of the husband whose memory was very fragrant 
 now, went down to the gate, and watched horse and rider 
 merge into the gloaming. And, long after they were out of 
 sight, she stood and listened to the tip-tap of hoofs, faint and 
 ever fainter, down and up the track that was taking Oliphant 
 along his road of every-day, hard business. 
 
 Behind her, Rupert and Nance Demaine were standing, fac- 
 ing each other with mute dismay. Without knowing that 
 they were eavesdroppers, they had heard Lady Royd's voice, 
 with its half-pleasant note of querulousness, and the rider's 
 low, tired answers to her questions. And they had not heeded 
 overmuch for each was busy with the ill news brought from 
 Derby until, merciless, exact, they heard across the court- 
 yard Oliphant's rough, "And if he'd stayed? You would 
 have liked your tame cat about the house ? " 
 
 Nance had looked sharply up at Rupert, had seen his 
 soldierly, straight air desert him, and she understood. 
 
 " My dear," she said, broken up by sharp sympathy, " he 
 he did not mean that you " 
 
 "So you, too, fit the fool's cap on? I'm going indoors, 
 Nance to my post, to find Simon Foster." 
 
 He was hard hit; and the strength of the fathers stiffened.
 
 220 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 his courage, now in the hour of shame, so that he was almost 
 gay. And Nance could make nothing of this mood of his, 
 because she was born a woman, and he a man. 
 
 " You always brought your troubles to me, Rupert," she 
 pleaded, laying a hand on his sleeve. 
 
 " Yes, till they grew too big for you. And now why, 
 Nance, I think I'll shoulder them myself." 
 
 He seemed to stand far away, not needing her. It seemed, 
 rather, in this moment of despair, that she went in need of 
 him. Will Underwood had deserted her, had trodden her 
 first love underfoot ; she was bruised and tired ; and the Ris- 
 ing news was wintry as her loneliness. 
 
 Rupert, his voice firm again, turned at the porch. " Good- 
 night, Nance," he said, with the gaiety that hurt her. " You 
 may sleep well the tame cat guards the house, my dear." 
 
 There was bitterness and heartache about this house of 
 Windyhough. The wind would not be still, and men's sor- 
 rows would not rest. And the stark moor above lay naked 
 to the wintry moon, and shivered underneath her coverlet of 
 sleet 
 
 Nance, by and by, followed Rupert indoors, and went into 
 the parlour, with its scent of last year's rose-leaves, its pretty, 
 useless ornaments, its air of stifled luxury, warring with the 
 ruddy gloaming light that strode down from the moors and 
 peeped through every window, as if to spy out the shams 
 within doors. 
 
 She sat down to the spinet, and touched a mellow, tender 
 chord or two ; and then, because needs must, she found relief 
 in song. Her singing voice was like herself, dainty, well- 
 found, full of deep cadences where tenderness and laughter 
 lurked. It was no voice to take the town by storm, but one 
 to hearten men, when they came in from the open, against 
 the next day's warfare. And she sang Stuart songs, with 
 a little lilt of sorrow in them, because of Oliphant's news 
 from Derby and because of Will Underwood's sadder retreat 
 from honour, and hoped somehow that Rupert would hear her
 
 THE TALE COMES TO WINDYHOUGH 221 
 
 and come to her, because she needed him. He was so fond 
 of ballads those, most of all, that had the Stuart constancy 
 about them and Nance was sure that she could entice him 
 down, could sing some little of his evil mood away from him. 
 
 Instead, as she halted with her fingers on the keys, she 
 heard Rupert tramping overhead, and Simon Foster's heavy 
 footfall, as they went their round of what, in irony and bit- 
 terness, they named the defences. 
 
 " This loophole covers the main door, Simon," she heard 
 Rupert say, with his tired laugh. " In case of a direct at- 
 tack from the front, I station myself here with six muskets, 
 aim sure and quickly, picking my man carefully each time, 
 and disorder them by making them think we are in force." 
 
 " That's so, master," growled Simon. " And while you're 
 busy that way, I make round to the left wing, and get a few 
 shots in from there across the courtyard. " Oh, dangment ! " 
 he broke off. " We have it all by heart, and there's only one 
 thing wanting the attack itself. I'm nigh wearied o' this 
 bairn's play, I own. It puts me i' mind, it does, of Hunter- 
 comb Fair, last October as ever was." 
 
 "What happened there?" asked Rupert, as if the other's 
 slow, unhurried humour were a welcome respite. 
 
 " Well, they were playing a terrible fine piece where soldiers 
 kept coming in, and crossing th' stage, till you counted 'em 
 by scores. But, after I'd seen what was to be seen, I went 
 out ; and I happened to go round by the back o' the booth, and 
 I saw how it was done. There were just five soldiers, mas- 
 terone was Thomas Scatterty's lad, I noticed, who's said 
 to run away from a sheep if it bleats at him and these 
 durned five, why, they went in at one end o' the booth, and 
 marched across th' stage, and out a t'other end. Then they 
 ran round at th' back, and in again ; and so it went on, like, 
 till th' sweat fair dripped from them, what with hurrying in 
 and out." 
 
 Nance, listening idly, could hear that low, recurrent laugh 
 of Rupert's the laugh that was tired, and hid many troubles.
 
 222 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " Yes, Simon, yes," he said, with high disdain of himself 
 and circumstance, " it is all very like Huntercomb Fair ; but 
 at Huntercomb they had the jostling crowd, the lights, the 
 screech of the fiddles. Here at Windyhough we have just 
 silence a silence so thick and damnable, Simon, that I'm 
 praying for a gale, and fallen chimney-stacks, and the wind 
 piping through the broken windows." 
 
 " Aye, you were ever a dreamer. The dreamers are all for 
 speed, and earthquakes, and sudden happenings. Life as it's 
 lived, master, doesn't often gallop. It creeps along, like, same 
 as ye and me are doing, and keeps itself alive for fear of 
 starving, and gets up, some durned way or another, for th' 
 next day's work. Well, have we done, like, or must we finish 
 this lad's game ? " 
 
 And then Nance heard a sharper note in Rupert's voice. 
 She had heard it once before, that day he fought with his 
 brother on the moor because he thought her honour was in 
 question. " We finish, Simon. What else ? " 
 
 " Now you're at your faith again, master. I can hear it 
 singing like a throstle. Well, I'm a plain man myself, ask- 
 ing plain proof. Just as man to man and want o' respect 
 apart has your pretty, gentleman's faith done much for 
 you?" 
 
 " Yes," said Rupert, unexpectedly. " It has given me pluck 
 to see this business through. A houseful of women and 
 cripples my father taking all the burden on his shoulders 
 while I skulk at home dear God! I'd be in a coward's 
 grave by now, Simon, if faith had not stood by me." 
 
 " Then there's summat in it, after all ? " 
 
 " It is powder in the musket," said Rupert, as if there could 
 be no further argument. " No more, no less. But you and 
 I, Simon, have to find the spark that fires it." 
 
 Nance heard them pass overhead, heard the sound of 
 Simon's heavy boots die along the corridor. And she turned 
 again to the spinet, and her fingers moved up and down the 
 keys, their colour mellowed by long service, and played ran-
 
 THE TALE COMES TO WINDYHOUGH 223 
 
 dom melodies that were in keeping with her thoughts not 
 Stuart airs, because these asked always sacrifice, and the big 
 heart, and the royal laugh that comes when things go wrong 
 in this world. 
 
 Nance was too tired to-night for the adventurous road. 
 To-morrow she would be herself again, eager, resolute, pre- 
 pared for the day's journey. But just now she needed the 
 sleep, that stood far away from her; needed some charitable, 
 firm voice to tell her she was foolish and unstrung; needed 
 Rupert, as she had not guessed that she could lack any man. 
 And Rupert had tramped overhead, concerned with make- 
 believe defences. 
 
 " Oh, he does not care ! " she said, believing that she hated 
 him. " Simon Foster, crippled in both legs, and musty loop- 
 holes, and powder that he'll never use they're more to him 
 than all this heartbreak gathering over Windyhough." 
 
 Into the scented room, with its candles shining from their 
 silver sconces, Lady Royd came, tremulous and white of face, 
 from watching Oliphant of Muirhouse ride out. 
 
 " Nance, my dear, I I am tired," she said. 
 
 " I think we all are," Nance answered, rising from the 
 spinet with a deference that had no heart in it. 
 
 " Oh, you're querulous, and so am I," said the other, with 
 a shrewd glance at the girl's face. " If our men could see 
 us now our men who fight for us they would be aston- 
 ished, Nance. We're so little like their dreams of us. You 
 in a bad temper, and I ready to cry if a mouse threatened 
 me, and our men, God bless them ! thinking only of old Eng- 
 land, and our beautiful bright eyes, Nance your eyes and 
 mine just red, my dear, if you'll forgive me, with the tears 
 men think our luxury." 
 
 Nance, made up of hill-rides, and free winds, and charity, 
 looked quietly at Lady Royd, read some fellowship in the 
 pretty, faded face. " I have a few griefs of my own," she 
 said, with the sudden penitence that was always like April's 
 sunshine after rain. " I forgot that you had yours."
 
 224 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 The older woman grasped Nance's hand, and held it, and 
 looked into the young, faithful eyes. She needed youth just 
 now ; for she felt that she was growing old. 
 
 " Nance, he is out with the Rising. And they've retreated. 
 And and, girl, when you come to my age, and have a hus- 
 band and a son who will go fighting for high causes oh, 
 you'll know, Nance, how one's heart aches till it goes near to 
 breaking." 
 
 " You will tell me," said Nance, laying a gentle hand on 
 the other's arm. 
 
 And Lady Royd looked gravely at her for a moment, 
 through the tears that lay thick about the babyish, blue eyes. 
 And then she laughed with gallantry and tiredness, as Ru- 
 pert had laughed not long ago when he listened to Simon 
 Foster's tale of Huntercomb Fair. 
 
 " My dear, I should be glad to tell you if I could. How 
 should I find words? I've loved him for more than six-and- 
 twenty years, Nance, and guessed as much long since, but was 
 never sure of it till he rode out. And now he's in the thick 
 of danger, and I cannot go to him." 
 
 " He is happy," said Nance, with stormy wish to help this 
 woman, stormy grasp of the courage taught her by the hills. 
 " Our men are bred that way ; they are happiest when they're 
 like to lose their necks in the hunting-field, or on Tower 
 Hill, or wherever the good God wills. I think Sir Jasper is 
 happier than you or I." 
 
 " That is true." Lady Royd made the most of her slender 
 height. She was learning the way of royalty at last, after 
 Sir Jasper had tried patiently to teach it to her all these 
 years. "And I? My heart is breaking, Nance; but I'll 
 carry my wounds as as he would carry his. They're in re- 
 treat, I tell you, and and we shall not meet again, I think 
 I, and the husband whom I love." 
 
 " Oh, you will meet and and, if not " said Nance, 
 
 with that nice handling of high faith and common sense which 
 made her charm so human and so likeable " you love him,
 
 THE TALE COMES TO WINDYHOUGH 225 
 
 and his one thought is for you; and Rupert would tell you 
 that death is so little, after all." 
 
 " I suppose it is," said Lady Royd, with a petulant shrug 
 of the shoulders ; " but it is tiresome of you, Nance, to remind 
 one of the end of all things pleasant. Oh, by your leave, my 
 dear, no talk of faith! I've had no other food to live on 
 these last months, and I need a change of diet, girl, need 
 just my man's arms about me, and his voice bidding me take 
 heart again. I tell you, we're not strong, we women, without 
 our men to help us." 
 
 Nance remembered her liking for Will Underwood, the 
 shameful end of it; remembered Rupert, tramping overhead 
 not long ago with Simon Foster and disdaining all the songs 
 that should have brought him to her side. And her grasp of 
 life grew firmer on the sudden. It was true, as spoiled, way- 
 ward Lady Royd had said, that women, since the world's be- 
 ginning, need the strong arms of their men about them. 
 
 Simon Foster, meanwhile, had done his round of the house, 
 had said good-night to Rupert; and afterwards he had gone 
 down to the kitchens, his step like a lover's. He did not find 
 Martha there, and answered the sly banter of the women-serv- 
 ants by saying that he needed to cross to the mistals, to 
 see how the roan cow, that was sick of milk-fever, was 
 faring. 
 
 " You'll find Martha there," said a pert scullery-maid ; " and 
 I'm sorry for the roan cow, Simon." 
 
 " And why ? " asked Simon, tired long since of all women 
 except one. 
 
 " Well, you alone or Martha alone you're kindly with all 
 ailments. But, put the two o' you together within kissing 
 distance and the roan cow must learn to bellow if she needs 
 be heard." 
 
 Simon Foster turned about. He was the lone man fighting 
 for his liberty. " I'm fair blanketed with women these days," 
 he growled. " Their lile, daft ways go meeting a plain man at 
 every turning of the stairs."
 
 226 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " One maid's lile, daft ways have sent your wits astray, 
 Simon," purred his adversary. 
 
 Simon straightened his bent shoulders. The young light 
 was in his eyes again. He looked comely; for a man at bay 
 shows always the qualities that are hidden by sleek prosperity. 
 " Well, yes," he said ; " but Martha happens to be worth 
 twenty of you silly kitchen wenches that's why I chose her." 
 
 The pert maid took up a clout from the table, aimed it at 
 Simon, and missed him by three feet or so. 
 
 " The master [could teach you a lesson," he chuckled. 
 " We've been up the pastures these days, shooting. And 
 master has got a bee in his bonnet, like, about this gunshot 
 business. ' Simon/ he says to me, no further back than yes- 
 terday, 'there's nothing matters, except to see straight and 
 to aim straight. We may be needed by and by/ " 
 
 It was so that Simon got away, and went out a conqueror 
 for his little moment, because he had silenced the strife of 
 women's tongues. Across the darkness of the mistal-yard 
 a lanthorn came glimmering fitfully, as Martha crossed from 
 the byres to the house. 
 
 " Well, Martha ? " said Foster, striding into the flickering 
 belt of light. 
 
 "Well, Simon?" she answered, without surprise. She was 
 no lass in her teens, to think that grown men welcome fright ; 
 and so she did not scream, sudden as his intrusion was. 
 
 " I've been thinking, lass." 
 
 "And so have I. The roan cow is easier, thanks to me; 
 and all the while I put the salt-bags on, and cosseted her, 
 and teased her back to health, I thought a deal, Simon." 
 
 " What, of me ? " he asked, with a sprightly air. 
 
 An owl, far down the sloping fields, sounded her call as 
 she swooped to kill rats and field-mice for her larder. And 
 Martha, though the light from her lanthorn was dim enough 
 to hide it, could not forego a touch of coquetry. 
 
 " Of you ? " she laughed, setting a finger to her dimpled
 
 THE TALE COMES TO WINDYHOUGH 227 
 
 cheek. " Hark to yond owl. You're all alike, you hunting- 
 folk; you've the masterful, sharp voice with you." 
 
 " Seems somebody has got to be masterful these days. I've 
 driven sheep to market, and I've tried to drive pigs, and I've 
 handled skew-tempered horses; but for sheer, daft contrari- 
 ness, give me a houseful o' women, with few men to guide 
 'em." 
 
 " You're not liking women these days ? " said Martha 
 tartly. 
 
 " Aye, by ones or twos. It's when they swarm about a 
 house, like a hive o' bees, that lone men get feared, like, o' 
 your indoor fooleries. Anyway, Martha, I wish I were out 
 with Sir Jasper just as Master Rupert does." 
 
 " And you talked of of liking me not so very long since." 
 
 "Aye, and meant it; but how's a man to find speech wi' 
 the one lass he wants, when yard and kitchen's filled wi' 
 women he's never a need for?" 
 
 " Well, that's how I feel," said Martha, unexpectedly. 
 " Women are made that way, Simon ; they're silly when they 
 herd too thick together." 
 
 " There's like to be a change before so very long," put in 
 the other hurriedly, as if he talked of the next day's ride to 
 market. " It seems this bonnie Prince they make such a 
 crack of has turned back from Derby. And we're near the 
 line they'll take, Martha; and, please God, there's a chance 
 the fight will come Windyhough way." 
 
 " And you'll be killed, Simon ? " she said, coming so close 
 to him that the horn-top of her lantern scorched his hand. 
 
 " Maybe not. There's two sides go to a killing, same as to 
 a bargain. It might happen, like, that t'other lad went 
 down." 
 
 " But what of me, Simon, if if it chanced otherwise?" 
 
 " I'm not meaning to let it chance otherwise, my lass. 
 I've you to think of these days." And then he drew apart, 
 after the fashion of men when 'war is in the air. " Master
 
 228 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 Rupert shapes gradely," he said. " I always said he had 
 the makings of a soldier in him." 
 
 "Oh, he's a scholar," said Martha. "I like him well 
 enough we all do but he wears his head i' the clouds, 
 Simon." 
 
 " Tuts ! He's never had his chance. You're all for young 
 Master Maurice; he's stronger and more showy, as second 
 bairns are apt to be; but gi'e me the young master's settled 
 pluck." 
 
 " Gi'e me," said Martha, with bewildering tenderness, " the 
 end of all this Rising trouble, and us two in a farm together, 
 wi' a churn to work at, and an ingle-nook to sit by when the 
 day's work is over wi'. I'd not sell that farm I've dreamed 
 of, Simon, for all your bonnie Prince's love-locks." 
 
 " Well, as for love-locks," said the other, his thoughts still 
 busier with war than peace, " he has none so many left these 
 days. He's a plain man, riding troubled roads; and he car- 
 ries himself like a man, they say, or near thereby." 
 
 Martha lifted her lanthorn suddenly to his face. " Aye. 
 you carry the * far ' look," she said jealously. " Cattle i' the 
 byre, the quiet lowing o' them, and a hearth-place warm and 
 ready for ye they're windle-straws to ye just now, my lad." 
 
 And Simon laughed. " I'd like one straight-up fight, I 
 own, before I settle down. It's i' the blood, ye see. I car- 
 ried a pike i' the last Rising, and killed one here and there, 
 and took my wounds. A man no way forgets, Martha, the 
 young, pleasant days. And there's danger near the house, if 
 all Mr. Oliphant said be true." 
 
 " Well, gang in and meet it, then," snapped Martha, " if 
 your stiffened joints will let you." 
 
 She was sore with jealousy, though Simon's battle-hunger 
 was her only rival, and struck at random, cruelly, as women 
 do at these times, because God made them so. And Simon, 
 because men are made so, winced, and recovered, and said 
 never a word as he crossed to the kitchen door. 
 
 " Simon ! " she called, with late-found penitence.
 
 THE TALE COMES TO WINDYHOUGH 229 
 
 He did not turn his head, but strode indoors, through the 
 running banter that met him by the way, and went upstairs to 
 find Rupert standing by the loophole that overlooked the main 
 doorway. 
 
 "At your post, master?" he said dryly. 
 
 Rupert turned sharply. " You disturbed a dream of mine," 
 he said, in his well-bred, scholarly voice. " I was fancying 
 men were out in the moonlit courtyard, that I aimed straight, 
 Simon, and shot a few of those black rats from Hanover." 
 
 Simon chuckled soberly. He liked to hear his favourite 
 lapse from the orderly speech that was his usual habit. 
 
 "They'll come, sure enough," he said gruffly. "We've 
 waited over-long, you and me, to miss some chance o' frolic 
 at the last." 
 
 Rupert, with his large, royal air, disdaining always the lean, 
 scholarly form he carried, laughed gently. " My faith is 
 weak to-night, Simon. So little happens, and God knows I've 
 prayed for open battle." 
 
 " Well, bide," said Simon. " I've my own fancy, too, 
 though I was never what you might call a prayerful man, that 
 the battle's coming up this way. My old wounds are plaguing 
 me, master, like to burn me up; and you may say it's th' 
 change i' the weather, if it pleases ye, but I think different." 
 
 Rupert welcomed the other's guarded prophecy, for to- 
 night he needed hope. And he fell again to looking through 
 the loophole on to the empty, moonlit courtyard; and sud- 
 denly, from the far side of the house, he heard Nance's voice 
 again, as she tried to sing a little of Lady Royd's heart- 
 sickness away. 
 
 The voice, so low and strong and charitable, the thought 
 of her face, her brown, waving hair, her candid eyes, struck 
 Rupert with intolerable pain and sense of loss. He recalled 
 the years when he should have been up and doing, winning his 
 spurs like other men. His shy, half-ironic, half -scholarly 
 aloofness from the life of every day showed as a thing con- 
 temptible. He magnified his shortcomings, accused himself
 
 280 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 of cowardice, not physical cowardice, but moral. All these 
 years, while his love for Nance was growing, he should have 
 been conquering the weakness that separated him from his 
 fellows, should have been climbing the steep path of hard- 
 ship, training himself to be strong as his passion for Nance 
 Demaine. 
 
 To-night, as he thought of these things, he understood, 
 to the last depth, this love that possessed him utterly. It was 
 a soldier's love, a strong man's. It was content to forego, 
 content to watch and guard and work, so long as Nance was 
 happy, though to himself it brought tumult and unrest 
 enough. The keen, man's longing to claim her for his own, 
 to take her out of reach of such as Will Underwood, had 
 given him many an evil day and night; but through it all, 
 unconquerable, had come that strong, chivalrous desire to keep 
 her feet from the puddles and the mire of life, to serve her 
 hand and foot, and afterwards, since he was needful to her 
 in no other way, to stand by and watch her happiness from 
 some shadowed corner. 
 
 There was all his life's training, all the tenor of his long, 
 boyhood's thoughts, in this fine regard he brought Squire 
 Demaine's daughter. There was, too, the Stuart training 
 that had deepened the old Royd instincts given him at birth. 
 It was, in part, the devotion he would have given a queen 
 if he had been her cavalier; and, through it all, there went 
 that silver skein of haplessness and abnegation bravely borne 
 which is in the woof and weft of all things Stuart. He knew 
 the unalterable strength and beauty of his love; and, with a 
 sudden overmastering shame, he saw himself himself, unfit 
 to join the Rising, useless and a stay-at-home, beside this 
 other picture of his high, chivalrous regard for Nance. He 
 laughed bitterly. It was grotesque, surely, that so fine a pas- 
 sion should be in charge of such a weakling. 
 
 And then, from the midst of his humiliation and pain, he 
 plucked courage and new hope. It was his way, as it had been 
 his father's. If this dream of his came true if the retreat
 
 THE TALE COME3 TO WINDYHOUGH 231 
 
 swept up this way, as Simon hoped, and gave work into his 
 hands he would give Nance deeds at last. 
 
 " The night is not so empty as it was, Simon," he said, 
 turning sharply. " We'll patrol the house."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE GALLOP 
 
 THE retreat had moved up through Staffordshire and 
 Cheshire, always evading the pursuit that followed it so 
 closely from many separate quarters. The Highlanders had 
 ever their hearts turned backward to the London road the 
 road of battle; but old habit made their feet move briskly 
 along the route mapped out for them. They set the pace for 
 the Lowland foot, less used to the swinging stride that was 
 half a run ; and for this reason the Prince's army went north- 
 ward at a speed incredible to Marshal Wade, the Duke of 
 Cumberland, and other heavy-minded generals who were 
 eager in pursuit. 
 
 There was irony in the whole sad business. A few cau- 
 tious leaders of the clans apart, few men were anxious to 
 succeed in this retreat. They would have welcomed any 
 hindrance by the way that allowed one or more of the pur- 
 suing armies to come up with them. Food was often lack- 
 ing, because defeated folk are apt t'o find less wayside hospi- 
 tality than conquerors; their feet were sore from long con- 
 tact with the wet roads, that both chafed and softened them ; 
 yet their worst hardship was the need for battle that found no 
 food to thrive on. Behind them Cumberland was cursing his 
 luck because he could not catch them up; yet, had he known 
 it, he was the gainer by his failure. If he and his mixed com- 
 pany of hirelings had met the Prince's men just now, they 
 would have been ridden through and through, as Colonel 
 Gardiner's men had been at Prestonpans in the first battle of 
 the Rising. For the Highlander is sad and gusty as the mist- 
 topped hills that cradled him; but when the mood is on him, 
 when all seems lost, and he is gay because the odds are ludi- 
 
 232
 
 THE GALLOP 233 
 
 crously against him, he goes bare-sark to the fight and accom- 
 plishes what more stolid men name miracles. 
 
 They went north the men who wished to overtake and the 
 men who yearned to be overtaken. And the luck was all with 
 Marshal Wade and Cumberland, for the Prince's army con- 
 stantly evaded them. There are times, maybe, when God 
 proves His gentlemen by the road of sick retreat, by denial 
 of the fight they seek. But few win through this sort of 
 hazard. 
 
 Sir Jasper was leading his own little troop of gentry, yeo- 
 men, and farmer-folk when they crossed the Cheshire border 
 and made up into Lancashire, and neared the bluff heights 
 that were his homeland. The wind was shrewd still from the 
 northeast, and sleet was driving from the grey-black mist that 
 swept the hilltops, yet Sir Jasper, by the look of the shrouded 
 hills, by the smell of the wind in his teeth, knew that he was 
 home again in Lancashire. Love of women is a hazardous 
 and restless enterprise, and a man's leal liking for his friend 
 is apt to be upset by jealousies ; but love of the hills that can- 
 not lie, love of the feel and scents and sounds of the country 
 that he loves never desert the native-born. They are there, 
 like a trusty dog, running eagerly before him when he is home 
 again, biding on the threshold with a welcome if he chances 
 to be absent. 
 
 Until now Sir Jasper had been much with his men, had light- 
 ened their spirits as best he could through this evil march 
 toward reinforcements in which few believed. But now 
 some wildness seemed to come to him from the windy moors 
 that had bred him. He was tired of leading men against the 
 emptiness that met them day by day, and remembered the 
 lonely figure of his Prince, who was still obstinate, despite 
 Captain Goldstein's late attack, in riding often behind the rear- 
 guard of his army. More than once, since leaving Derby, 
 Sir Jasper had ridden back along the route, had found the 
 Prince separated by a few hundred yards from the last of the 
 stragglers, and had tarried with him, partly to be near if the
 
 234 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 danger which he seemed to court recurred, and partly because 
 the close and friendly intimacy that was growing between 
 them had a charm that lightened the trouble of the road. 
 
 To-day, as they came nearer still to his own country the 
 march was planned to reach Langton by nightfall Sir Jasper 
 yielded to his restless mood. He turned to Maurice, who was 
 riding at his bridle hand. 
 
 " Take our men forward, boy," he said. " I'll join ygu by 
 and by." 
 
 Maurice showed few traces of the high spirits that had 
 set him galloping once after Nance Demaine in a race for 
 the glove she was to forfeit if he caught her up, of the fiery 
 eagerness with which he had fought his brother Rupert on the 
 moor. He could not understand the reason of his turn about 
 from Derby. Since childhood he had been used to find action 
 ready to his hand, used to the open life of the fields, in saddle 
 or with a gun under his arm ; and he was baffled by this slow, 
 rain-sodden tramp over roads that led only to the next night's 
 bivouac. The constant rains, moreover, had increased his 
 saddle-soreness and had given him a maddening toothache; 
 and it is hard, at two-and-twenty, to bear any pain of body, 
 apart from that associated with heroic wounds. 
 
 " I will take them forward, sir," he answered moodily, 
 " though I've no gift of heartening them, as you have. If 
 you promised me all Lancashire, I could not crack a jest with 
 them just now." 
 
 Sir Jasper turned his head sharply, glanced at Maurice 
 with the shrewd, steady eyes of middle age. " You were not 
 out in the '15 Rising, lad," he snapped. " I was through it 
 and thirty years have gone under the bridge since then and 
 I've learned to wait. Waiting trains a man, I tell you." 
 
 " Waiting has given me the most devilish toothache, sir." 
 
 And his father laughed. So had he felt himself when, 
 long ago, an untried boy, he had shared the troubles of a dis- 
 astrous Rising. " There's a worse malady," he said dryly. 
 
 " None that I can think of at this moment."
 
 THE GALLOP 235 
 
 "Try heartache, Maurice the Prince can tell you what 
 that means. And I can tell you, maybe. It comes to older 
 men, like gout. For the rest, you take your orders. You're 
 in command of our Lancashire lads till I return." 
 
 Maurice answered, not the words but the quiet hardihood 
 of this father who had licked him into some semblance of a 
 man. " I'm in charge, sir till you return," he answered 
 gravely. 
 
 Sir Jasper drew apart, to the edge of the rising, heathery 
 bank that flanked the road ; and he watched the horsemen and 
 the foot go by. Highlanders passed him with bowed shoul- 
 ders, moving like dullards who have forgotten hope ; for they 
 had the temperament which does high deeds to set the world's 
 songs aflame, or which refuses hope of any sort. The Low- 
 landers wore a grim and silent air, carrying disillusion with 
 dourness and reserve. But grief was manifest in every 
 face. 
 
 Whether he died soon or late, Sir Jasper would not forget 
 this long pageant of despair that went by him along the sod- 
 den northward tracks. Five thousand men, with souls keen 
 and eager, had been ready for the fight ; and they were march- 
 ing north unsatisfied. Sir Jasper by habit, was careful of 
 his tongue; but now he cursed Lord George Murray with 
 quiet and resolute exactness. The wind was cold, and the 
 sleet nipped his face; but the chilliest thing that he had met 
 in life was this surrender of leal folk to such a man as Mur- 
 ray. It was unbelievable, and he was compelled to take a 
 new, firmer grip of the faith which had heartened him through 
 lesser storms. 
 
 The last of the army passed, and Sir Jasper sighed sharply 
 as he reined his horse toward the south and looked for the 
 one figure the figure prominent among them all that had 
 been missing. And presently a solitary horseman came round 
 the bend of the highway. He carried his shoulders square, 
 his head erect ; yet, under his royal disdain of circumstances, 
 there was the Stuart sadness plainly marked.
 
 236 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 The Prince glanced up as he saw the other ride to meet 
 him. " Ah ! you, Sir Jasper," he said quietly. " You 
 were ever of my mind to be where our soldiers need us 
 most." 
 
 " You give me too much praise," began Sir Jasper, and 
 could get no farther. 
 
 The Prince and he were alone on this barren road alone 
 in the world, it seemed, comrades in the bitter sleet-time of 
 adversity and he was shaken by a sudden, desperate pity, 
 by a loyalty toward this royal fugitive and a gladness that he 
 was privileged to share a moment of defeat with him. He 
 knew, to a heart-beat, what the other was suffering. They 
 had the like aims, the like hardihood; and intuition taught 
 them to be brothers, the older man and the young, here on 
 the northern road. 
 
 "Your Highness, I have I have no words/' he said at 
 last. 
 
 " Ah, there ! " said the Prince, with a gentleness that was 
 cousin to abiding sorrow. " I know what you would say. 
 Best leave it unsaid." 
 
 They jogged up the road together in silence, each busy with 
 thoughts that were the same. 
 
 " It is incredible," growled Sir Jasper presently, as if the 
 words escaped him unawares. 
 
 The Prince shrugged his shoulders, with a touch of the 
 French habit that still clung to him. " But so is life, my 
 friend each day of it the most astounding muddle of sur- 
 prises. They said I could not land in Scotland and bring an 
 ill-trained army through the heart of England. I did it, 
 by grace of God. And then we said that the road from 
 Derby to the throne was open to us and so it was, but for 
 one obstacle we had forgotten." 
 
 " Your Highness," said the other, with sharp remembrance 
 of the past, " I could have removed that obstacle and would 
 not. I did not serve you well." 
 
 " What ! removed the Highlanders' gospel that they serve
 
 THE GALLOP 237 
 
 their own chieftain first and after that their king? With 
 faith you might do it, sir the faith that removes mountains; 
 but otherwise " 
 
 " I had my lord Murray's life at command and I did not 
 take it." 
 
 The Prince's face was hard when he heard the way of that 
 duel in the wood. He was thinking not at all of pity and 
 chivalrous scruples, but of the men entrusted to his care who 
 had been routed by Murray's prudent obstinacy. " God for- 
 give you, sir ! " he said gravely. " I wish you had not told 
 me this. With Murray laid aside I should have had my way 
 at Derby." 
 
 Sir Jasper peeped now behind the veil of that disastrous 
 Council, guessed how disordered the party of retreat would 
 have been without their leader. And he glanced at the 
 Prince's face he who loved and had followed him into the 
 unknown for sake of warm, unquestioning loyalty and read 
 only condemnation there. And because he was wearier than 
 he knew, it seemed that all his strength and steadfastness 
 were leaving him. Until now the cold and hardship had 
 touched his body, but not the soul of him the soul that passed 
 sorrows through the mills of faith, and made forward battle- 
 songs of them. 
 
 His comrade in adversity glanced round on him suddenly, 
 saw how hardly he was taking the rebuke. And the Prince, 
 as his habit was, forgot the bitter might-have-beens and ral- 
 lied to the help of one in need. 
 
 " Sir Jasper," he said, with a grace boyish in its candour, 
 " we're bred of the same stuff, you and I. We are hot and 
 keen, and we hate as far as the gallows, but not as far as 
 the rope. It seems idle that one Stuart should chide another 
 of the breed." 
 
 " I served you ill," said the other. " He was known already 
 as the weak link of the chain and I did not snap it." 
 
 " It would have lain on your conscience. You could not 
 do it, that was all."
 
 238 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 "You are kind," said Sir Jasper slowly "but you struck 
 deep just now. I've feared many things in my time, but 
 never once that I should fail the Stuart." 
 
 The Prince fumbled in the tail pocket of his riding-coat, 
 took out a battered pipe, filled and lit it with some difficulty, 
 for the tinder in his box was none too dry. " I've found 
 three good things in my travels," he said, blowing clouds of 
 smoke about him " a dog, a pipeful of tobacco, and friends 
 like yourself, Sir Jasper ; they seldom fail a man. I was hasty 
 just now, for I was thinking of of my Highlanders, God 
 help them ! " 
 
 And again a silence fell between them as they rode up and 
 down the winding road that lay now a short six miles from 
 Langton. It was all odd and unexpected to Sir Jasper, this 
 ride at a foot pace through the lonely, hill-girt lands that were 
 his homeland. He was with the yellow-haired laddie who had 
 painted dreams for him on the broad canvas of endeavour. 
 And the dreams had had their end at Derby; and they were 
 here, beaten men who looked each other in the face and 
 were content to be together. 
 
 " You are oddly staunch, sir," said the Prince by and by. 
 " It is good to meet a man in all this wilderness of sleet and 
 cold arithmetic." 
 
 " I was bred to be staunch, your Highness. My father 
 taught me the way of it and his father in the days before. 
 There's no credit to the tree because its roots happen to be 
 planted deep." 
 
 The other smiled at Sir Jasper's childlike statement of his 
 case, as if it were a truth plain to all men. " You've sons 
 to follow you, I trust? They'll be the better for training of 
 that sort." 
 
 The wind blew in bitter earnest now against Sir Jasper's 
 face. All his love for Rupert, all his hidden shame that the 
 heir could not ride out with him, were so many weights added 
 suddenly to the burden he was carrying already. " I have 
 one son with me in the Rising," he said gravely. " I pre-
 
 THE GALLOP 239 
 
 sented him to your Highness at Langton, I think, when 
 we rode south." 
 
 " Why, yes." The Prince seldom forgot a man's record or 
 his face. " A ruddy, clean-built youngster, who went pale at 
 sight of me, as if as if, comrade, I were made of less com- 
 mon clay than he. I remember him. He tried to stammer 
 out some hero-worship, and I reminded him that his record 
 was probably cleaner than my own, because the years had 
 given him less chance of sinning. And he was shocked by 
 my levity, I think. Yes, it was at Langton, just before the 
 Vicar went up the street to ring his bells for me." 
 
 Once again Sir Jasper was surprised by this Prince's close 
 touch with the road of life as men follow it every day, his 
 catholic, broad understanding of his fellows. It was the 
 Stuart gift the gift that had carried them to the throne or 
 to the scaffold that they had a kingly outlook on men's needs 
 and their infirmities, and would not surrender, for any wind 
 of circumstance that blew about them, their royal love for 
 big or little of the men who trusted them. Sir Jasper was 
 learning, indeed, what afterwards the folk in Skve were to 
 learn in Skye and in Glenmoriston and in a hundred lonely 
 glens among the Highlands that the Prince he served was 
 the simplest and most human man, perhaps, among them all. 
 
 The wind dropped as they rode, and the sleet ceased falling 
 for a while; and the sun, an hour before its setting, struck 
 through the clouds that had hindered it all day. Lights, mag- 
 ical and vivid, began to paint the land's harsh face. The 
 moorland peaks, to right and left, were crowned with fugitive, 
 fast-racing mists of blue and green and rose colour; and 
 ahead of them, astride the steep, curving rise of the highway, 
 there was a belt of scarlet that seemed to flame the hills with 
 smoky fire. 
 
 " Your land is beautiful, Sir Jasper," said the Prince, halt- 
 ing a moment to breathe his horse as they reached the hill- 
 top. " I did not guess it when we rode south through sun- 
 less mire."
 
 240 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 It is in time of defeat and stress that the deep chords of a 
 man's soul are struck, and now Sir Jasper's face lit up. " My 
 land of Lancashire it is always beautiful to me. It cradled 
 me. There's no midwinter bleakness can drive away remem- 
 brance of the pleasant days we've shared." 
 
 " You speak as men do who are married happily," laughed 
 the Prince. " This barbarous country is just a wife to you, 
 I think her temper may be vile, but you remember gentler 
 days." 
 
 Sir Jasper fell in with his mood, and smiled as if he jested ; 
 but he talked of matters very dear to the honest, simple heart 
 of him. " I can count on my fingers, your Highness, the 
 things in life that are of importance to me my Faith, my 
 Prince, the wife who's waiting for me over yonder at Windy- 
 hough, and my lads and the dear moors o' Lancashire that 
 bred me." 
 
 Their eyes met; and, somewhere from his tired, hunted 
 mood, the Prince found a candour equal to Sir Jasper's own. 
 " Faith first," he said quietly, " but your wife before your 
 Prince, by your leave. I I have not deserved well of you, 
 Sir Jasper. I asked you to take me to the throne, and I 
 have given you this." 
 
 Sir Jasper thought of his wife, her weak caprices, the 
 yapping of the toy spaniel that had its mimic cradle in their 
 bedroom at Windyhough thought of Rupert, who should 
 have been beside him now thought of all that had hindered 
 him through these years. For he was not as young as his 
 keen ardour wished, and these empty days of bodily hard- 
 ship, with no reward of fight to hearten them, had sapped his 
 courage. Yet he responded, bravely enough, to the challenge. 
 
 " My wife, God bless her ! is so dear that we'll not give 
 her any place, your Highness. She claims her own, by 
 right." 
 
 The Prince puffed gently at the disreputable, blackened 
 pipe he cherished. He glanced at the hills, saw the next 
 storm creep grey and wan across the sunset lights. " It is
 
 THE GALLOP 241 
 
 a savage land," he said dispassionately. "I never guessed 
 it could breed courtiers. Your wife, if she were near, would 
 be pleased to know the temper of your constancy it is hard 
 and lithe as whipcord, sir, like a sword-blade forged by old 
 Andrew Ferrara." 
 
 They jogged on again, at the foot pace to which the Prince 
 had trained himself since Derby; and presently they came 
 to a broad, grassy lane that led, wide to the left hand, into 
 the sunset moors. And Sir Jasper checked his horse and sat 
 rigidly in saddle, looking up the byway. 
 
 " What ails you ? " asked the Prince. 
 
 " Remembrance," said Sir Jasper, turning his horse's head 
 away from the road it knew by heart. " It is no time for 
 rosemary, you think? And yet " 
 
 " You talk in riddles." 
 
 " No, pardon me ; I talk of the road that leads to my own 
 house of Windyhough and to my wife and to the son I 
 left at home." 
 
 " Why, then, ride across and snatch a glimpse of them," 
 said the other, quick to respond to the need of a man's 
 heart. 
 
 "And desert a retreating army, your Highness?" 
 
 " There's no desertion. We are hear our quarters for the 
 night and nothing happens, as you know, in the way of sud- 
 den battles. Our luck is out just now. Go, see your wife, 
 sir you've earned the holiday and then ride across coun- 
 try to Langton. We march from there at daybreak." 
 
 " I do not ask ease," said Sir Jasper stubbornly. " We're 
 following the road of discipline, and wives, I think, must 
 wait." 
 
 The Prince glanced pleasantly at him. " Probe light or 
 deep, sir, you're most amazingly a soldier." He smiled so 
 had Mary Stuart smiled once amid disaster, and so had 
 Charles when he stepped to the scaffold secure and gravely 
 happy. " You will take your orders," he went on, " as good 
 soldiers do. There was a breach of discipline I forgot to
 
 242 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 chide you when you spoke of it just now. I mean the duel 
 you provoked with Lord Murray in the wood. Your pun- 
 ishment is just to ride through the vile weather you breed 
 up here and give my thanks to Lady Royd for the husband 
 she lent so recklessly to barren leadership. And rejoin me 
 with the dawn. I command you, sir ! " he added sharply, 
 seeing that Sir Jasper hesitated stilL 
 
 " Then I obey, your Highness ; but you will let me watch 
 you out of sight" 
 
 " But why ? Langton is so near. Are you afraid that an- 
 other band of cavalry cart-horse cavalry will catch me 
 up? Miss Demaine's mare, that carries me, will show them 
 light heels enough." 
 
 Sir Jasper looked at this man, whose body and whose soul 
 were kingly, this man to whom he had entrusted many dreams 
 and sacrifices. And the tears were in his eyes again, he knew 
 not why. " When a man loves deep, your Highness, he fears. 
 I ask you to let me guard the road behind you." 
 
 " You love me ? After this retreat after the cursed roads 
 and hopelessness you you love me? Say it again, sir." 
 
 " What else ? None ever loved a Stuart yet by halves." 
 
 The Prince tapped him gently on the shoulder. "When 
 better days come in," he said, " I shall make you acquainted 
 with my Highlanders. They love as deep as you, and, know- 
 ing myself, I wonder at their blindness." 
 
 It was so they parted, wayfarers who had found leal com- 
 radeship and trust. And no momentary parting of the wa,vs 
 could ever sunder them again ; for trust is not born among the 
 crowded shows of life, but in the lonely byways where man 
 meets man and finds 'him likeable. 
 
 Sir Jasper sat in saddle at the parting of the ways, and 
 watched the Prince go slowly up the road. The long strain 
 was telling on him, and the bitter wind chilled all his outlook 
 for a moment. A sense of foreboding took him unawares. 
 It seemed that the Prince, in riding so far behind his army, 
 was courting death; as if he preferred to be overtaken, here
 
 THE GALLOP 245 
 
 in England, rather than go back, a broken man, to his own 
 land across the border. 
 
 "No!" he growled, with sharp contempt of the thought. 
 " He's heart-sick but no coward." 
 
 He gave a last glance up the road, as one follows a de- 
 parting friend long after he is lost to sight, sighed impa- 
 tiently, and turned his horse into the bridle-way that led to 
 Windyhough. Then he reined about, suddenly aware of gal- 
 loping hoofs, of the fret of horses checked too sharply on 
 the curb, of a harsh voice that bade him halt. 
 
 Goldstein's men had tracked their quarry, day after patient 
 day, since their first attempt at Derby to capture the Prince's 
 person. Three times they had found him so far behind his 
 army that he seemed an easy prey; and three times follow- 
 ing what some would call a random whim, and others the 
 guidance of the God he served the Prince, not knowing his 
 enemies were near, had grown tired of guarding the rear and 
 had galloped forward suddenly to join his men and pass a 
 jest among them. And Goldstein knew that his hold on the 
 rough cavalry he led was weakening day by day. He had 
 kept them to heel only by crude and persistent reminders that 
 thirty thousand pounds, as represented by the Stuart, were 
 worth some patience in the gaining. 
 
 Sir Jasper, reining sharply round, saw a company of men 
 a score or so who wore the Hanoverian livery; and at the 
 head of them was a blunt, red-featured officer who looked 
 singularly like a farmer who had lived neighbour to the ale- 
 barrel. And he knew them for the men who had given chase 
 at Derby, though as yet they had no answering recollection 
 of the friend who had ridden close beside the Prince's bridle- 
 hand that day. 
 
 "Your business, sir?" asked Goldstein sharply. "You're 
 too near the retreat to be let pass without a challenge. Be- 
 sides " with a laugh, following long scrutiny " you've the 
 look, somehow, of one of those cursed Jacobites." 
 " You flatter me, sir," said Sir Jasper coolly. " It has been
 
 244 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 my business in life to feel like one and, by your leave, it is 
 pleasant that you know my breed at sight." 
 
 The sleet was drifting in quiet flakes before a wind that 
 was tired for a while of its own speed. From the western 
 spur of moor a long, slanting gleam of sunlight lit up this 
 bleak land's loneliness lit up Sir Jasper's figure as he sat, 
 unconcerned, disdainful, in the saddle of a restive horse. 
 For a moment the dragoons drew back; they had lived in a 
 world where each fought for his own advancement only, and 
 they were perplexed by this spectacle of a man who, alone and 
 far behind retreating comrades, made open confession of his 
 faith. 
 
 Goldstein swore roundly not as the gently-born do in 
 times of stress, but like a ploughboy when his team refuses 
 to obey him. " Are you a fool, sir ? " he sputtered. 
 
 " Well, yes," Sir Jasper answered gravely. " As much as 
 my fellows. I'm human, sir, as you are." 
 
 The troopers laughed, and Goldstein felt his hold on them 
 grow ever a little and a little less. " You're one of the Pre- 
 tender's men?" he snarled. "We shoot all vermin of that 
 sort at sight." 
 
 " No, sir. I am attached to the army of Prince Charles 
 Edward. No man is a pretender when he asks only for his 
 own again." 
 
 " Then you're tired of life?" said Goldstein, trying clumsily 
 to catch something of Sir Jasper's easy handling of the situ- 
 ation. 
 
 " Again you are in the wrong. I never guessed, till now, 
 how good life is. I have been riding with one stronger and 
 better than myself and after that I ride, when you are tired 
 of questioning me, to the wife and the home I love. It is 
 all so simple, if you would believe me." 
 
 Sir Jasper, under all his honesty of speech, was aware that 
 he was delaying the advance of these rough-riders along the 
 Langton road, was helping the Prince to safety while he rode 
 so perilously behind his army. He was aware, too, in some
 
 THE GALLOP 245 
 
 random way, as he listened to Goldstein's queer, guttural 
 English, that he had been exact when he told Lady Royd, over 
 and over again, that it was no civil war the Rising men had 
 stirred up, but simply the resistance of the English to the 
 foreign invader; a resistance old and stalwart as that of 
 Hereward the Wake ; a resistance that would last the English 
 till they triumphed or they died. 
 
 Goldstein, his muddied wits stirred, may be, by some vision 
 borrowed from Sir Jasper, knew his man at last. " It was 
 you who rode with the Pretender, when we went near to cap- 
 ture you after Derby ? " 
 
 " I was with the Prince," said Sir Jasper, with a smile that 
 bewildered Goldstein and his troopers ; " but, sir, you did not 
 come near to capturing us. You were too too clumsy, shall 
 I say?" 
 
 Goldstein's troopers liked the free, courageous bearing of 
 the man, and he knew it. " Well, we're here," he said dourly. 
 " You admit little, but your life it's not worth a poor man's 
 purchase, surely ? " 
 
 Sir Jasper took a look at the hills, as moor-bred men will 
 do at these times. " It was worth a poor Man's purchase 
 once near two thousand years ago," he said, with the bear- 
 ing of a man and the simplicity of a child who does not fear 
 or doubt. 
 
 Goldstein had gone through many a rugged fight, over- 
 seas in Flanders ; but the way of this man's courage was un- 
 familiar, and it daunted him. 
 
 "There are one-and-twenty of us," he said irresolutely, 
 "and you're alone. You'll not fight single-handed?" 
 
 "No," said Sir Jasper, handling his snuff-box lazily and 
 giving no outward sign that he had crossed himself. " No, 
 in any case I shall not fight single-handed. Have you any 
 further questions to ask, sir? The sun is getting down, and 
 I've a ride before me." 
 
 To Goldstein this man's calm was insolence, and he knew 
 that he was losing ground constantly with the men behind
 
 246 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 him. " Yes, I've a question or two to ask," he snapped. 
 " You can buy your life by a straight answer." 
 
 " But the price may be too heavy," protested Sir Jasper. 
 
 " You were with the Pretender soon after Derby, on your 
 own confession." 
 
 " With Prince Charles Edward, by your leave," the other 
 corrected, with the same pleasant smoothness. 
 
 " Oh, curse you ! what do titles matter ? The pretty boy 
 with the love-locks you were with him, that day we nearly 
 took you both." 
 
 " I was with him, and it was a privilege. Believe me, sir, 
 I have some miles to go, and dusk is coming on. Can I 
 answer any other doubts you have of my honesty, shall I 
 say?" 
 
 Sir Jasper had glanced round, had seen a sheer wall of rock, 
 twenty paces behind him, from which some farmer long ago 
 had quarried the stones for his homestead on the moor above. 
 He had chosen his vantage-ground; and still, through all this 
 talk that gained a few moments by the way, he had only the 
 one, simple-minded plan to get his back to the wall, and fight 
 single-handed till he dropped, and give his life to earn for 
 his Prince a few more precious moments. He edged his 
 horse backward gently pretending that it was fidgeting on 
 the curb and drew near the quarry-face. He thought of 
 Windyhough, of his wife and Rupert, of the free, hard-riding 
 days behind; and then he thought no more of these things, 
 but only of the narrow track of loyalty. It was so that the 
 Lancashire gentry the strong men among them had trained 
 themselves to live for the Stuart cause. And, as a man lives, 
 so he finds himself prepared to die. 
 
 " You're the Prince's watch-dog," said Goldstein. 
 
 " May be. I wish he had a better." 
 
 " He's somewhere near then." 
 
 " That is vastly probable, sir." Sir Jasper glanced at the 
 hills again, as if seeking counsel. These men had followed 
 the retreat persistently. If he denied all knowledge of the
 
 THE GALLOP 247 
 
 Prince's whereabouts, they would spur forward up the main 
 road, would come in sight of that desolate, square-shouldered 
 figure who stood, in his own person, for the strength, the 
 gallantry, the hoping against odds, of this disastrous 'Forty- 
 Five. 
 
 He sat in saddle, looking from the hills to the faces of 
 these one-and-twenty troopers. He needed a ready tongue, 
 and was more accustomed to straightforward action than to 
 play of stratagem. He must keep these rascals dallying for 
 as long as might be, must afterwards lengthen the fight to the 
 last edge of his strength. He had a single purpose, and his 
 hold on it was firm to keep pursuit at bay until the Prince 
 rode nearer to Langton and the night's bivouac than he did 
 just now. 
 
 And as he tried to find words to relieve the burdensome, 
 tense silence, Captain Goldstein blundered into one of those 
 seeming inspirations that lead callous folk into the marshes, 
 as moorland will-o'-wispies do. " The Pretender is afraid 
 of the thirty thousand pounds on his head," he said, turning 
 to the men behind him. " The watch-dog is waiting here at 
 the turning that leads to his own home; the Pretender is out 
 of sight; the plot is all so childish. Our road lies this way, 
 and you, sir, will show it to us. The Pretender, I take it, is 
 your guest to-night if we don't catch him first? You will 
 lead us, sir, I say." 
 
 Sir Jasper, his back to the quarry-wall now, could not 
 grasp at once the help this captain of rough-riders was giving 
 him. His mind was set on the simple business of gaining 
 time by a fight to the death, and his hand was on his sword- 
 hilt. " I never led a rabble yet," he said, with easy conde- 
 scension, " and I am too old to learn new exercises." 
 
 Goldstein was in the company of a gentleman ; and. know- 
 ing it, he winced. But he kept his temper; for his view of 
 life was bounded by advancement, and he wished to make all 
 sure in this big affair of capturing the Prince, dead or alive. 
 
 " You do not deny that the Pretender is making for your
 
 248 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 own house?" he asked, with a sharp glance. "You're 
 shepherding him along this bridle-track ? " 
 
 " I would God that his Highness might lie safe at my own 
 house of Windyhough to-night." Even now Sir Jasper 
 found it hard to lie outright, though he realised suddenly 
 that there was a better way of service than death at the 
 quarry-face. 
 
 As it chanced, however, his words suggested evasion to 
 Goldstein evasion, and a manifest desire to cloak his errand. 
 " You'll not show us the way, then ? You're bent on being 
 riddled through with bullets? Your sword's out but it can 
 whistle as it will. You shall answer it with musketry." 
 
 It was like Sir Jasper that he had forgotten their firearms 
 when he drew his sword. Long companionship with those 
 of his own breed had led him to expect, instinctively, that a 
 score men, coming up against one, would at least meet him 
 with his own weapon. He laughed at his own simplicity 
 laughed the more quietly because now it was of no conse- 
 quence either way. His view of the Prince's safety grew 
 broader every moment. It was not enough that he should 
 head off pursuit from him until he had reached safety in to- 
 night's camp at Langton. This company of horse had fol- 
 lowed the retreat so diligently that to-morrow there would be 
 danger to Stuart's person, and the next day after, and every 
 day that found him riding at the rear of his sad Highlanders. 
 The plain way of service, as Sir Jasper saw it now, was to 
 take these nondescript cavalry across country, wide between 
 the Lancashire hills, and so give the Prince a longer respite 
 from pursuit. 
 
 " Am I privileged to change my mind ? " he asked, putting 
 his sword in sheath again. 
 
 "Allowed to save your skin?" said Goldstein, the bully in 
 him quick to take advantage of any show of weakness in an 
 adversary. " As for your mind you may change it once, 
 my friend, but not twice." 
 
 " I pledge my honour that I will lead you to Windyhough."
 
 THE GALLOP 249 
 
 "Oh, your honour! That will be safe enough. You 
 will lead, and my men carry their muskets loaded; and 
 if anything goes wrong between this and Windyhough 
 you'll die for the Stuart, sir," he finished, with a savage 
 grin. 
 
 " I make one condition only," went on the other suavely 
 " that I ride at my own pace." 
 
 "How far is Windyhough from here?" asked Goldstein, 
 with suspicion. 
 
 " Ten miles." 
 
 " Then ride at any pace you like. If we crawl, we shall be 
 there before the Pretender has well got through with supper, 
 and our horses are none too fresh, I own." 
 
 Sir Jasper took a pinch of snuff, and rode out in silence 
 from the quarry-face. He was easily master in this enter- 
 prise, and wondered that the gross body of the man could dull 
 Goldstein's reason so completely. 
 
 " You will want to share the thirty thousand pounds with 
 us ? " said Goldstein, feeling now that his men were with him, 
 answering to his brutal jests. " You've saved your skin, sir, 
 and your house of Windyhough; and you need a little ready 
 money in your pocket. Well, we shall see." 
 
 Sir Jasper was suddenly ashamed of what these men were 
 thinking of him. Sensitive, alert, he gauged the meaning of 
 Goldstein's insolence, of the troopers' careless laughter. They 
 fancied this was the stuff the Prince's gentlemen were made 
 of to talk loftily one moment, and the next to play the trai- 
 tor and the coward. They believed, these shock-headed ras- 
 cals gathered from the foreign kennels, that a gentleman of 
 Lancashire could rate his own life dearer than the Stuart's, 
 could afterwards accept blood-money. And then, because he 
 knew himself, Sir Jasper shrugged his shoulders, as if to rid 
 them of an evil burden. 
 
 " We ride forward," he said, moving from the quarry-face 
 and trotting to the head of the company. 
 
 " That is so," said Goldstein, with rough banter ; " and re-
 
 250 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 member, sir, that your honour your Stuart honour is 
 guarded by one-and-twenty muskets, ready primed." 
 
 Again the troopers laughed ; and again Sir Jasper's instinct 
 was to vindicate himself. Then he remembered the dogged 
 patience of another who rode in safety, so far at the rear- 
 guard of his army. And he disdained the ill-favoured mob 
 behind him. 
 
 They went up and down the bridle-track that threaded this 
 white land of hills and cold austerity. It was a track whose 
 every turning was a landmark to Sir Jasper, reminding him 
 of other days. He had ridden it when he went hunting 
 when he went south to the wooing; when, afterwards, he 
 needed respite from the lap-dog follies of his wife, from the 
 knowledge that his heir was never likely, in this world, at 
 least, to prove himself a man of action. This lane was thick 
 with memories for him; but never, until now, had he ridden 
 it a fugitive. 
 
 He thought of Derby and the sick retreat. He thought of 
 many might-have-beens, and because the pain of it was so 
 sharp and urgent he gathered up his courage. He held the 
 Faith ; he was strong and stubborn ; and out of this windy ride 
 to his own home he plucked new resolution. 
 
 They came he and Goldstein's men to Lone Man's Cross, 
 a wayside monument that marked the spot where a travelling 
 pedlar had been murdered long ago. And as he passed it 
 Sir Jasper recalled how, as a boy, he had been afraid to ride 
 by the spot at dusk. They came to the little kirk of St. 
 Michael's on the Hill, and passed it wide on the left hand, 
 and went down by way of Fairy-Kist Hollow, where the leaf- 
 less rowans were gowned in frosted sleet. From time to time 
 some ribald jest would come to him from one or other of the 
 troopers ; but he did not heed. One half of him was think- 
 ing of the memories this bridle-track held for him, of the 
 hopes and fears and gallant dreams that had kept him com- 
 pany along it in the years gone by; the other half the 
 shrewd-witted, practical half was content to know that each
 
 THE GALLOP 251 
 
 mile they traversed was leading danger farther from the 
 Prince, that each step of the rough, up-and-down track was 
 telling on horses that were too southern in the build for this 
 cross-country work. His own mare was lithe and easy un- 
 der him, for she was hill-bred. 
 
 They rode forward slowly through a land that turned con- 
 stantly a cold and sleety shoulder to them at every bend of 
 the way. And they came to the Brig o' Tryst a small and 
 graceful bridge to which, so country superstition said, the 
 souls truly mated came at last. 
 
 " You live in a cursed climate, Sir Jasper," said Goldstein 
 gruffly ; " and gad ! Your roads match it." 
 
 Sir Jasper was alert again. Some quality in Goldstein's 
 voice roused in him a loathing healthy and inspiriting. 
 Dreams went by him. He took hold of this day's realities, 
 saw the strip of level going ahead, remembered that he was a 
 short five miles now from Windyhough, with a game mare un- 
 der him. There would be time to get into his own house, to 
 barricade the doors ; and afterwards there would be the swift, 
 hard battle he had hungered for at Derby. 
 
 He put spurs to his mare, and she answered blithely. And 
 Goldstein understood on the sudden what this gentleman of 
 Lancashire had meant when he passed his word to lead them, 
 at his own pace, to Windyhough. 
 
 "Halt! Fire!" he roared. "Are you daft, you fools?" 
 
 His men recovered from a surprise equal to his own. The 
 light was wan and sleety, with mist coming down from the 
 hills; but the fugitive was well in sight still as they brought 
 their muskets to the shoulders. A sharp volley rang out be- 
 tween the silent hills, as if every trooper had pulled his trig- 
 ger in instant answer to command. It seemed that one here 
 and there of the shots would tell ; but Sir Jasper went gallop- 
 ping over the level, and dipped down the further rise, and their 
 horses would not answer when they tried to gallop in 
 pursuit. 
 
 "So that is all the wars in Flanders taught you?" said
 
 252 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 Goldstein savagely. "You should have brought your wives 
 to shoot for you." 
 
 A low growl went up. These men were tired of Gold- 
 stein's leadership, tired of the hardship and bad weather. 
 And their leader knew the meaning of that growl. 
 
 " Keep your cursed tempers," he said, with what to him 
 was suavity. " There's the Pretender at the end of this day's 
 journey and a price on his head." 
 
 At Windyhough, Rupert and his mother sat in the parlour, 
 with its faded scents and tapestries. They waited for great 
 happenings that did not come their way; and they were sick 
 at heart. Rupert was hungry for news of the father who was 
 braver and stronger than he the father whom he missed at 
 every turn of the day's road. He had done his round of the 
 house with Simon Foster; and Nance, who cheered his out- 
 look for him whenever she came in sight, was absent on some 
 wild hill-scamper, shared by the broken-winded horse who had 
 grown close comrade to her. 
 
 Lady Royd, with the new-found motherhood that made her 
 comelier, guessed what was passing in the boy's mind; and 
 she fussed about him, when he was asking only for free air 
 and the chance to fight like other men. And Rupert thought, 
 with a shame that deadened all his outlook, of the years when 
 he had stood, scholarly, ironical, apart from the blood and 
 tears that meet wayfarers who take the open road. He saw it 
 all, to-night when the peevish wind was beating through the 
 draughty house saw the weakness that had divided him 
 from the open-air, good fellows who liked and pitied him. 
 
 " There's powder and shot stored here, and I know how to 
 use them," he said, with light contempt of himself. " And 
 yet nothing happens, mother. It is as Simon Foster says 
 ' we're needing storms and earthquakes, just to make to-day 
 a little different, like, fro' yesterday.' " 
 
 " Oh, your chance will come," said Lady Royd, with the 
 pitiful feigning of belief that she thought was faith. " Your 
 father taught you, just before he went, how to direct a siege.
 
 THE GALLOP 253 
 
 You remember that he taught you ? " she insisted. " He 
 trusted you to hold Windyhough for the Prince." 
 
 Rupert laughed a sudden, dreary laugh that startled her. 
 " He taught me well. I've not forgotten the lesson, mother. 
 But he knew there would be no siege. I heard him tell 
 you so." 
 
 There was no sharp riding-in of enemies. The night was 
 still, and empty, and at peace. Yet Lady Royd was plunged 
 deep, by her own son, into tragedy and battle. She remem- 
 bered the night of Sir Jasper's departure the talk they had 
 had in hall her husband's weary confession that he had lied 
 to Rupert, telling him a fairy-tale of the coming attack on 
 Windyhough. 
 
 Rupert had overheard them, it seemed; and through all 
 these days of strain and waiting he had not spoken of his 
 trouble, had let it eat inward like a fire. As if in punish- 
 ment for the indifference of earlier years, Lady Royd's per- 
 ception of all that touched her son was clear to the least de- 
 tail now. With her new gift of motherhood, of courting pain 
 for its own sake, she retraced, step by step, the meaning of 
 these last few days to Rupert. He had grown used to the 
 sense that he stood apart from stronger men, unable to share 
 full life with them; but always, behind it all, he had been 
 sure, until a little while ago, that his father trusted him to 
 prove his manhood one day. 
 
 She went to him, and put her arms about him, as any cot- 
 tage mother might have done. " Oh, my boy my boy ! " she 
 cried, understanding the fierceness, the loneliness, of this last 
 trouble. 
 
 In this mood of his, with his back to the wall which no 
 man asked him to defend, Rupert could have withstood many 
 dangers; but sympathy exasperated him. 
 
 "It is hard for my father," he said, with desperate sim- 
 plicity. "There was never a weak link in the Royd chain 
 till I was born the heir. Why did I come to to bring him 
 shame ? "
 
 254 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 Some ruggedness, borrowed from the land that was hers 
 by marriage, bade Lady Royd stand straight and take her 
 punishment. 
 
 " I will tell you why," she said, her voice passionate and 
 low ; " I hindered you before your birth. I went riding when 
 your father bade me rest at home and my horse fell " 
 
 " Just as mine did when I went to join the Rising," said 
 Rupert, following his own train of thought. " Mother, I 
 should have been with the Prince's army now if if my horse 
 had not stumbled." 
 
 Lady Royd crossed to the mantel, leaned her head awhile 
 on the cool oak of it. "Yes," she said, turning sharply. 
 " Yes, Rupert. It has taken five-and-twenty years but I'm 
 answering for that ride of mine." 
 
 He looked at her in wonder. And suddenly he realised 
 that this beautiful, tired mother of his was needing help. She 
 had not guessed what strength there was in her son's arms 
 until he drew her close to him. 
 
 " What ails us, mother ? " he asked, with surprising tender- 
 ness. " We've Windyhough, and powder and ball, and Lan- 
 cashire may need us yet." 
 
 Hope took her unawares. This boy was transformed into 
 a man of action ; for only active men can glance from their 
 own troubles to understand the weakness that is planted, like 
 lavender, in the heart of every woman. 
 
 " I would God it needed us," she said, with a touch of her 
 old petulance. "Lancashire men can sing leal songs 
 enough " 
 
 " Can live them, too. The hills have cradled us." 
 
 Lady Royd smiled, as if her heart were playing round her 
 lips. " You're no fool, son of mine," she said. " I wish the 
 Retreat were sweeping straight to Windyhough, instead of 
 leaving us in peace. I wish you could be proved." 
 
 Rupert glanced shyly at her. He was son and lover both, 
 diffident, eager, chivalrous. " Suppose there's no attack on 
 the house, mother suppose I were never proved? I have
 
 THE GALLOP 255 
 
 learned so much to-night so much. Surely there's some- 
 thing gained." 
 
 It was a moment of simple, intimate knowledge, each of the 
 other. And the mother's face was flower-like, dainty; the 
 spoilt wife's wrinkles were altogether gone. 
 
 " It is my turn to ask why," she said, with a coquetry that 
 was rainy as an April breeze. " I've not deserved well of 
 you, my dear not deserved well at all, and have told you 
 so; and you choose just this time to honour me. Men are 
 perplexing, Rupert. One never knows their moods." 
 
 Her toy spaniel began barking from somewhere at the far 
 end of the house; and the old inconsequence returned from 
 habit. 
 
 " Oh, there's poor Fido crying ! " she said eagerly. " Go 
 find him, Rupert. The poor little man is so sensitive you 
 know he's almost human, and he is crying for me." 
 
 And Rupert went out on the old, foolish quest willingly 
 enough this time. He had seen beneath the foolish, pam- 
 pered surface of his mother's character, and was content to 
 hold secure this newborn love for her, this knowledge that she 
 needed him. He was needed at long last. 
 
 " You look gay, master," said Simon Foster, meeting him 
 down the corridor. " Well, it's each man to his taste ; but I 
 shouldn't have said, like, there was much to hearten a man 
 these days." 
 
 " You've not sought in the right place," laughed the master. 
 
 And then Simon grinned, foolishly and pleasantly. For he 
 remembered how he had helped Martha the dairymaid to milk 
 the cows not long ago. " I'm not complaining," he said, 
 guardedly.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE RIDING IN 
 
 SIR JASPER, sure of his mare, had ridden hard toward Windy- 
 hough. He had promised, in good faith, that he would lead 
 Captain Goldstein on the road, but he had not passed his 
 word that he would ride at the pace of heavy cavalry. He 
 heard the bullets singing, right and left and overhead, after 
 Goldstein's call to fire ; but the lean, hill-bred mare was going 
 swiftly under him, and it was only five miles home to Windy- 
 hough. There had been a sharp pain in his left shoulder, a 
 stab as if a red-hot rapier had pierced him, in the midst of the 
 crackling musket-din behind him; but that was forgotten. 
 
 The mare galloped forward gamely. She was untouched, 
 save for a bullet that had grazed her flank and quickened her 
 temper to good purpose. Sir Jasper's spirits rose, as the re- 
 membered landmarks swept past him on the wind. His 
 mind, his vision, his grip on forward hope, were singularly 
 clear and strong. This was his holiday, after the sickness of 
 retreat. 
 
 He had gained a mile by now. His pursuers, riding jaded 
 horses, were out of sight and hearing behind the hump of 
 Haggart Rise. He remembered, once again, the Prince's fig- 
 ure, riding solitary on the Langton road ; and he was glad 
 that these one-and-twenty louts were being led wide of their 
 real quarry. And then he forgot the Stuarts, and recalled 
 his wife's face, the tenderness he had for her, the peril he 
 was bringing north to Windyhough. Behind him was Cap- 
 tain Goldstein, of unknown ancestry and doubtful morals, and 
 with him a crowd of raffish foreigners, who would follow any 
 cause that promised licence and good pay. 
 
 Sir Jasper saw the danger plainly. He was thinking, not 
 
 956
 
 THE RIDING IN 257 
 
 of the Prince's honour now, but of his wife's. He knew that 
 he must win to Windyhough. And still his spirits rose; for 
 this was danger, undisguised and facing, him across the sleety, 
 rugged hills he loved. Windyhough had stout walls,' and 
 powder and ball, and loopholes facing to the four points of 
 the compass ; Simon Foster would be there, and Rupert could 
 pull a trigger ; it would be in the power of this little garrison 
 to hold the house, to pick off, one by one, this company of 
 Goldstein's until the rest took panic and left it to its lone- 
 liness. 
 
 It was a hazard to his liking, and Sir Jasper's face was 
 keen and ruddy as he clattered down and up the winding 
 track. He was a short mile now from Windyhough, and he 
 eased his mare because she showed signs of trouble. 
 
 " We've time and to spare, lass," he muttered, patting her 
 neck. " No need to kill you for the Cause." 
 
 And then from the midst of his eagerness and hope a 
 sickness crept over the horseman's eyes. His left shoulder 
 was on fire, it seemed; and, glancing down, he saw dimly 
 that his riding-coat was splashed with crimson. The mare, 
 feeling no command go out across the reins, yielded to her 
 own weariness, and halted suddenly. Sir Jasper tried to urge 
 her forward; but his hand was weak on the bridle, and the 
 grassy track, the hills, the flakes of sleet, were phantoms mov- 
 ing through a nightmare prison. 
 
 He had come to the gate of Intake Farm, and the farmer 
 Ben Shackleton by name was striding up the road to 
 gather in some ewes from the higher lands before the snow 
 began to drift in earnest. 
 
 "Lord love you, sir!" he said nonchalantly, catching Sir 
 Jasper as he slid helplessly from saddle. "Lord love you, 
 sir, you're bleeding like a pig ! " 
 
 "It's nothing, Ben." Even now Sir Jasper kept his spa- 
 cious contempt of pain, his instinct to hide a wound as if it 
 were a crime. " Help me to horse again. My wife needs 
 me needs me, Ben."
 
 258 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 Then he yielded to sheer sickness for a moment; and Ben 
 Shackleton, who was used to helping lame cattle, grew brisk 
 and businesslike. " Here, William ! " he called to a shepherd 
 who was slouching in the mistal-yard. " Come lend a hand, 
 thou idle-bones! Here's master ta'en a hurt, and he's a 
 bulkier man than me. We've got to help him indoors to the 
 lang-settle." 
 
 Sir Jasper, by grace of long training, was able to keep his 
 weakness off for a space of time that seemed to him inter- 
 minable. He saw Windyhough at the mercy of these raga- 
 bouts of Goldstein's saw his wife standing, proud, disdain- 
 ful, pitiful, while they bandied jests from mouth to mouth. 
 
 "It's nothing, Ben, I tell you!" he muttered testily. 
 " Help me to saddle." 
 
 He staggered forward, tried to mount, fell back again into 
 Ben's arms. And still he would not yield. And then at last 
 he knew that Windyhough would not see him to-day, if ever 
 again ; and the pity he had for his wife, left defenceless there 
 by his own doing, was like a knife cutting deep and ceaselessly 
 into his living flesh. 
 
 He was in torment, so that his wound, save that it ham- 
 pered him, seemed a trivial matter. To Ben Shackleton and 
 the shepherd all passed in a few minutes; they did not guess 
 how long the interval was to Sir Jasper between this going 
 down to hell and the first ray of hope that crossed the black- 
 ness. 
 
 Sir Jasper passed a hand across his eyes. If only he could 
 understand this sudden hope, the meaning of it if his wits 
 were less muddled there was a chance yet for Windyhough. 
 Then he remembered Rupert his son, to whom he had told 
 a fairy-tale of gunpowder and ball, and the defence of the 
 old house and a weight seemed lifted from him. He re- 
 called how he had said to the boy's mother that Rupert was 
 leal and stubborn at the soul of him, however it might be with 
 his capacity for every-day affairs. He smiled, so that Ben 
 and the shepherd, looking on, thought that he was fey; for he
 
 THE RIDING IN 259 
 
 was thinking how weak in body he himself was, how, like 
 Rupert, he had only his leal soul to depend upon. 
 
 Then, for the last time before he surrendered to the weak- 
 ness that was gripping him in earnest, he had a moment of 
 borrowed vigour. " Ben," he said, in the old tone of com- 
 mand, "you've your horse ready saddled?" 
 
 " Aye, sir ! " answered the other, bewildered but obedient. 
 
 " Ride hard for Windyhough. There's a troop of the 
 enemy close behind. Gallop, Ben, and tell my son " he 
 steadied himself, with a hand on the shepherd's shoulder 
 " tell him that he must hold the house until I come, that I 
 trust him, that he knows where the powder is stored. Oh, 
 you fool, you stand gaping! And there is urgency." 
 
 " I'm loath to leave you, Sir Jasper " 
 
 " You'll be less loath, Ben," broke in the other, with a fine 
 rallying to his shattered strength, " if I bring the blunt side of 
 my sword about your ears." 
 
 So Ben Shackleton, troubled and full of doubt, got to 
 horse, following that instinct of obedience which the master 
 had learned before he taught it to his men, and rode up the 
 windy track. Sir Jasper, when he had seen him top the rise 
 and disappear in the yellow, dreary haze, leaned heavily 
 against the shepherd. 
 
 " Now for the lang-settle, since needs must," he said, with 
 a last bid for gaiety. " I can cross the mistal-yard, I think, 
 with a little help. So, shepherd! It heaves like a ship in 
 storm ; it heaves, I tell you ; but my son out yonder my son 
 at Windyhough oh, the dear God knows, shepherd, that I 
 taught him taught him how to die, I hope ! " 
 
 They crossed the mistal-yard, blundering as they went; 
 and somehow the shepherd got Sir Jasper into the cheery, 
 firelit house-place, and on to the lang-settle. Ben Shackle- 
 ton's wife was baking an apple-pasty when they came in, 
 and glanced up. If she felt surprise, she showed none, but 
 wiped the flour from her arms with her apron, and crossed 
 to the settle. She looked at Sir Jasper as he lay in a white
 
 260 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 and deathlike swoon, and saw the blood oozing from his 
 wounded shoulder. 
 
 Shackleton's wife was quick of tongue and quick of her 
 hands. " Take thy girt lad's foolishness out o' doors, Wil- 
 liam ! " she snapped. " I know how to dress a wound by 
 this time, or should do, seeing how oft Shackleton lames him- 
 self by using farm-tools carelessly. Shackleton has a gift 
 that way." 
 
 The shepherd passed out into the windy, cheerless out-o'- 
 doors. He knew the mistress in this humour, and preferred 
 a chill breeze from the east. As he crossed the mistal-yard 
 he saw a company of horsemen, riding jaded nags ; and they 
 were grouped about Sir Jasper's mare, that, too tired to 
 move, was whinnying for her absent master. 
 
 " Hi, my man ! " said Goldstein. " Whose mare is this ? " 
 
 " Sir Jasper Royd's," the shepherd answered. His voice 
 was low and pleasant, as the way of Lancashire folk is when 
 they prepare to meet a bullying intrusion. 
 
 "Then he's here?" 
 
 " No," said the shepherd, after picking a straw from the 
 yard and chewing it with bucolic, grave simplicity. " No. 
 Sir Jasper changed horses here, and rode for Windyhough." 
 
 " How far away ? " 
 
 The shepherd thought of Sir Jasper, lying yonder on the 
 lang-settle. He was touched, in some queer way, by the mas- 
 ter's gallantry in the dark hour of retreat. He was so moved 
 that he was brought, against his will, to tell a lie and stick 
 to it 
 
 " Oh, six mile or so, as the crow flies more by road," he 
 said nonchalantly. " Ye'd best be getting forrard, if ye want 
 to win there by nightfall." 
 
 Goldstein mistook this country yokel's simplicity for hon- 
 est dullness. Men more in touch with the Lancashire char- 
 acter had done as much before his time, especially when 
 horse-dealing was in progress on market days. " You look 
 honest, my man," he said, stooping to slip a coin into Wil-
 
 THE RIDING IN 261 
 
 Ham's hand. " Tell me what sort of road it is from here to 
 Windyhough." 
 
 " Well, as for honest," said the other, with the vacant grin 
 that was expected of him, " I may be honest as my neigh- 
 bours, if that be much to boast of ; and it's a terrible ill-found 
 road, for sure. Best be jogging forrard, I tell ye." 
 
 " It's cursed luck, men," said Goldstein, spurring his horse 
 into the semblance of a trot; "but we're hunting big game 
 this time. A mile or two needn't matter. There's the Pre- 
 tender at Windyhough, remember, and a nice bit of money to 
 be earned." 
 
 The shepherd watched them over the hilltop, then glanced 
 at the piece of silver lying in his palm. There was so much 
 he might do with this money might buy himself a mug or 
 two of ale at the tavern in the hollow, just by way of chang- 
 ing the crown-piece into smaller coin and he was " feeling 
 as if he needed warming up, like, after all this plaguy wind." 
 
 He glanced at the coin again, with a wistfulness that was 
 almost passionate. Then he spat on it, and threw it into the 
 refuse from the mistal lying close behind. 
 
 " Nay, I'll have honest ale, or none," he growled, and 
 crossed quietly to the house, and stood on the threshold, look- 
 ing in. 
 
 He saw Shackleton's wife bending over Sir Jasper, who 
 lay in a swoon so helpless and complete that it was like a 
 child's sleep a sleep tired with the day's endeavours, yet 
 tranquil and unfearful for the morrow's safety. 
 
 " Oh, it is thee, is't ? " said Shackleton's wife, facing round. 
 " Well, he's doing nicely or was, till ye let in all this wind 
 that's fit to rouse a body from his grave." 
 
 " Well-a-day, mistress," said the shepherd, with a pleasant 
 grin, " if that's your humour, I'm for the mistal-yard again. 
 It's rare and quiet out there." 
 
 " Nay, now," she said, glancing up with sharp, imperious 
 kindliness. " Shut t' door, lad, and sit thee down by th' 
 peats, and keep a still tongue i' thy head. I wouldn't turn
 
 262 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 a dog out into all this storm that's brewing up. And, be- 
 sides, Sir Jasper's mending. I'd doubts of him at first; but 
 he's sleeping like a babby now. We'll keep watch together, 
 till Shackleton comes home fro' his ride to Windyhough. 
 He'll not be long, unless the maids there 'tice him to gossip 
 and strong ale." 
 
 " I might smoke, mistress just, like, to pass the time?" 
 " Aye, smoke," snapped Shackleton's wife. " Men were 
 always like bairns, needing their teething-rings, in one shape 
 or another." 
 
 " Better than spoiling their tempers," said the shepherd. 
 And he lit his pipe from a live peat, and said no more ; for he 
 was wise, as men go.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE GLAD DEFENCE 
 
 AT Windyhough the gale sobbed and moaned about the leaf- 
 less trees that sheltered it from the high moors. Sleet was 
 driving against the window-panes, and there was promise, if 
 the wind did not change, of heavy snow to follow. And in- 
 doors were Lady Royd and Nance, the women-servants, and 
 the men too old to carry arms behind Sir Jasper these, and 
 the lean scholar who was heir to Windyhough. 
 
 Simon Foster he who had carried a pike in the '15 Ris- 
 ing, and felt himself the watch-dog here had been moving 
 restlessly up and down all day, like a faithful hound whose 
 scent is quick for trouble. And now, near three of the aft- 
 ernoon, he was going the round of the defences once again 
 with the young master. 
 
 " You're not looking just as gay as you were yesternight," 
 he growled, snatching a glance at Rupert's face. " Summat 
 amiss wi' the Faith ye hold by, master ? " 
 
 Rupert was sick with bitter trouble, sick with inaction and 
 the frustration of long hopes; yet he held his head up sud- 
 denly and smiled. " Nothing amiss with that," he answered 
 cheerily. " I'm too weak to carry it at times, that is all, 
 Simon." 
 
 Simon stroked his cheek thoughtfully. "Well, it's all 
 moonshine to me speaking as a plain man; but I've noticed 
 it has a way o' carrying folk over five-barred gates and walls 
 too high to clamber. For my part, I'm weary, dead weary; 
 and I see naught before us, master, save a heavy snowstorm 
 coming, and women blanketing us wi' whimsies, and a sort o' 
 silent, nothing-doing time that maddens a body. You've the 
 gift o' faith just tell me what it shows you, Maister Rupert." 
 
 263
 
 264 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 The master laughed. It tickled his humour tfiat fie, who 
 was wading deep in sickness and disillusion, should be asked 
 for help in need by this grizzled elder, who had loved and 
 pitied him, who had tried, these last days, to teach him the 
 right handling of a musket. "Just this, Simon square 
 shoulders, and a quick eye, and the day's routine ahead. 
 What else?" 
 
 " Then faith is a soldier's game, after all." 
 
 "Yes, a soldier's game," Rupert answered dryly. 
 
 And so they went forward from room to room, from loop- 
 hole to loophole, that cast slant, grey eyes on the sleet that 
 was blowing across the troubled moonlight out of doors. 
 And, at the end of the round, after Simon had gone down to 
 see if he could catch a glimpse of Martha in the kitchen, Ru- 
 pert heard the sound of spinet keys, touched lightly from be- 
 low. And then he heard Nance Demaine singing the ballads 
 that were dear to him, and a sudden hunger came upon him. 
 
 He went down to the parlour, stood silent in the doorway. 
 Lady Royd was upstairs, putting her toy spaniel to bed with 
 much ceremony; and Nance was alone with the candlelight 
 and the faded roseleaf scents. With ache of heart, with a 
 longing strong and troublesome, he saw the trim figure, the 
 orderly brown hair, the whole fragrant person of this girl 
 who was singing loyal ballads this girl who kept his feet 
 steady up the hills of endeavour, and of longing for the bat- 
 tle that did not come his way. 
 
 And the mood took Nance to sing a ballad of the last Stu- 
 art Rising, thirty years ago, when all was lost because the 
 leaders of the enterprise were weaker than the men who rode 
 behind them. 
 
 "There's a lonely tryst to keep, wife, 
 
 All for the King's good health. 
 God knows, when we two bid farewell 
 I give him all my wealth." 
 
 It was the song of a cavalier, written to his wife the night
 
 THE GLAD DEFENCE 265 
 
 before he went to execution for the Stuart's sake. And it 
 had lived, this ballad, because to its core it rang true to the 
 heart's love of a man. And Nance was singing it as if she 
 understood its depth and meaning. This was the man's love, 
 royal, simple, courageous, of which she had talked to Lady 
 Royd not long ago, for which she had been laughed at by 
 the older woman. Yet one man at least had found grace to 
 carry such love with him unblemished to the scaffold. The 
 resignation, the willing sacrifice for kingship's sake summed 
 up by " the lonely tryst to keep," as if this were a little mat- 
 ter the human note of loss and heartbreak when she reached 
 the last love confession, strong, tender, final in its simplicity 
 Nance's voice found breadth and compass for them all, as 
 if she had stood by this cavalier long dead, feeling pulse by 
 pulse with him. And so, in a sense, she had ; for these royal- 
 ists of Lancashire had faults and weaknesses in plenty, but 
 they had been strong in this from generation to generation 
 they had reared their children to a gospel resolute and thor- 
 ough as the words of this old ballad. 
 
 Nance lingered on those last words as if they haunted her 
 " I give him all my wealth." And Rupert, standing in 
 the doorway, was aware that, even to his eyes, Nance had 
 never shown herself so tender and complete. She leaned 
 over the spinet, touching a key idly now and then; and her 
 thoughts were of Will Underwood, who had courage of a 
 sort, a fine, reckless horsemanship that was needed by the 
 Rising ; of Wild Will, whose whole, big, dashing make-believe 
 of character was ruined by a mean calculation, a need to keep 
 house-room and good cheer safe about him. She remem- 
 bered her trust in him, their meeting on the moor, the sick, 
 helpless misery that followed. And then she thought of Ru- 
 pert, standing scholarly and apart from life no figure of a 
 hero, but one whom she trusted, in some queer way, to die 
 for the faith that was in him, if need asked. And then again 
 she laughed, a little, mournful laugh of trouble and bewilder- 
 ment. Life seemed so wayward and haphazard, such a waste
 
 266 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 of qualities that were hindered by weaknesses tragic in their 
 littleness. If Rupert's steady soul could be housed in Will 
 Underwood's fine, dominant body, the world would see a man 
 after its own heart. 
 
 And Rupert had his own thoughts, too, in this silence they 
 were sharing. He knew to a heart-beat the way of his love 
 for Nance, the gladness and the torture of it; and again he 
 wondered, with passionate dismay, that he had done so lit- 
 tle to make himself a man of both worlds, ready to fight 
 through the open roads for her. He had given her a regard 
 that, by its very strength and quality, was an honour in the 
 giving and the receiving; he had built high dreams about 
 her, feeling her remote and unattainable; but he had failed 
 in common sense, in grasp of the truth that a man, before 
 he reaches the hilltops where high dreams find reality, must 
 climb the workaday, rough fields. He understood all this, 
 knew for the first time that his father had been just in leav- 
 ing him behind, because the fighting-line needs men who can 
 use their two hands, can sit a horse, can face, not death only 
 but all the harsh, unlovely details that war asks of men. His 
 humiliation was bitter and complete. There was Nance, sit- 
 ting at the spinet, the gusty candlelight playing about her 
 trim, royal little figure, and she was desirable beyond belief; 
 and yet he knew that she stood, not for faith only but for 
 deeds, that he had only gone a few paces on the road that 
 led to the fulfilment of his dreams. 
 
 The silence was so intimate, so full of the strife that hin- 
 ders comrade souls at times, that Nance knew she was not 
 alone. She glanced up, saw Rupert standing in the door- 
 way, read the misery and longing in his face. For women 
 have a gift denied to men they see us as an open book, clear 
 for them to read, while we can only sight them at odd mo- 
 ments, like startled deer that cross the mountain mists. 
 
 " You're sad, my dear," she said, with pleasant handling 
 of the intimacy that had held between them since they were 
 boy and girl together.
 
 THE GLAD DEFENCE 267 
 
 " No," he answered, hard pressed and dour. " I am 
 your fool, Nance, as I always was." 
 
 " Come sit beside me," she commanded. " I shall sing 
 Stuart songs to you sing them till you hear the pipes go 
 screeling up Ben Ore, till I see the good light in your face 
 again." 
 
 Her tenderness was hard to combat. " I need no Stuart 
 songs," he said, with savage bluntness. 
 
 " Why, then, you're changeable. You liked them once." 
 
 " I'll like them again, Nance but not to-night. It is Stu- 
 art deeds I ask, and they do not come my way." 
 
 Rupert had crossed to the spinet, and, as he stood looking 
 down at her with grave eyes, Nance was aware of some new 
 mastery about him, some rugged strength that would have 
 nothing of this indoor, parlour warmth. 
 
 " Rupert, what is amiss with you ? " she asked gravely. 
 
 He was himself again scholarly, ironic. " What is amiss ? 
 You, and the house where I'm left among the women, because 
 I have learned no discipline it is a pleasant end, Nance, to 
 my dreams of the riding out. Your fool, listening to his 
 mother's spaniel whining as she puts him to bed, and the 
 empty house, and the wind that calls men out to the open 
 just that." 
 
 She came near to understanding of him now. While there 
 was peace, and no likelihood at all of war, he had been con- 
 tent, in his odd, indifferent way, to stand apart from action. 
 But now that war had come he reached back along the years, 
 ashamed and impotent, for the training other men had under- 
 gone the training that made his fellows ready to follow the 
 unexpected call, the sudden hazard. 
 
 " It is cruel ! " said Nance, with a quick, peremptory lift- 
 ing of the head. " You could fight, if only they would let 
 you " 
 
 " Just so. The bird could fly, if its wings had not been 
 broken in the nest." 
 
 She knew this dangerous, still mood of his. He was a
 
 268 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 civilian, untrained, unready, left at home while stronger men 
 were taking the hardships. In every line of his face, in the 
 resolute, dark eyes, there was desperate shame and self-con- 
 tempt; and yet he fancied he was hiding all show of feeling 
 from her. Nance felt the pity of it felt more than pity 
 found the tears so ready that she turned again to the spinet 
 and began playing random odds and ends of ballads. And 
 through all the stress she took a grip of some purpose that had 
 been with her constantly these last days. Will Underwood 
 his dominant, big person, his gift of wooing had gone from 
 her life. She was lonely and afraid, and found no help ex- 
 cept along the road of sacrifice the road trodden hard and 
 firm by generations of women seeking help in need. 
 
 " Let me mend your life for you," she said, glancing, up 
 with bewildering appeal and tenderness. 
 
 Rupert was young to beguilement of this sort. Her eyes 
 were kindly with him. There was a warmth and fragrance 
 round about the parlour that hindered perception of the finer 
 issues. And he knew in this moment that even a good love 
 and steady can tempt a man unworthily. 
 
 From the moors that guarded Windyhough there came a 
 sudden fury of the wind, a rattle of frozen sleet against the 
 windows. And Rupert lifted his head, answering the bid- 
 ding of the open heath. " You cannot mend my life," he said 
 sharply. " How could you, Nance ? " 
 
 " You thought so once." Her glance was friendly, full of 
 affection and great liking; and so well had she been schooling 
 herself to the new, passionate desire for sacrifice that Rupert 
 read more in it than the old comradeship. " What have I 
 done, that I cannot help you now ? " 
 
 He was dizzied by the unexpectedness, the swiftness of this 
 night surprise. Here was Nance, her face turned eagerly 
 toward him, and she was reminding him of the devotion he 
 had shown her in years past. He had no key to the riddle, 
 could not guess how desperate she was in her wish to hide 
 Will Underwood's indignities under cover of this sacrifice for
 
 THE GLAD DEFENCE 269 
 
 Rupert's sake Rupert, whom she liked so well and pitied. 
 
 " Shall I not sing to you now ? " she repeated, with pleasant 
 coquetry. "If you have no Stuart songs why, let me sing 
 you Martha's doleful ballad of Sir Robert who rode over 
 Devilsbridge, and came riding back again without his head. 
 It was a foolish thing to do, but it makes a moving ballad, 
 Rupert." 
 
 Her mood would not be denied. Tender, gay, elusive, she 
 tempted him to ask what she was ready for sake of sacri- 
 fice to give. There was reward here for the empty boy- 
 hood, the empty days of shame since the men of the house 
 rode out. It was all unbelievable, unsteadying. He had only 
 to cross to Nance's side, it seemed, had only to plead, as he 
 had done more than once in days past, for the betrothal kiss. 
 He recalled how she had met these wild love-makings of his 
 with pity and a little laughter, and a heart untouched by 
 any sort of love for him. And now all that was changed. 
 
 The moment seemed long in passing. Within reach there 
 was Nance, desirable beyond any speech of his to tell ; and yet 
 he could not cross to her. It was as if a sword divided them, 
 with its keen edge set toward him. He did not know him- 
 self, could not understand the grip that held him back from 
 her, though feet and heart were willing. Then it grew clear 
 to him. 
 
 " Nance," he said sharply, " do you remember the Brig o' 
 Tryst?" 
 
 " Why, yes," she answered, with simple tenderness. " I 
 remember that I hurt you there. You pleaded so well that 
 day, Rupert and now you're dumb, somehow." 
 
 " Because Nance, there has war come since then, and it 
 has proved us all." He laughed, the old, unhappy laugh of 
 irony and self-contempt. " There's Simon Foster, bent with 
 rheumatism, and Nat the Shepherd, too infirm to do anything 
 but smoke his pipe and babble of the '15 Rising, and your 
 fool, Nance. You've a gallant house of men about you." 
 
 And Nance was silent. Some deeper feeling than pity or
 
 270 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 haphazard sacrifice was stirring her, for she saw Rupert as 
 he was, saw him with a clearness, a knowledge of him, that 
 would never leave her. In retreat, against his will, in utter 
 darkness of hope and forward purpose, he had found the 
 right way and the ready to Nance's heart. His grip of hon- 
 our was so resolute. There was nothing scholarly or fanci- 
 ful about him now. Through temptation of her own mak- 
 ing, through a desire extreme and passionate and easy to be 
 read, he had won through to this starry sort of abnegation 
 that set well on him. He was no proven man, and he dis- 
 dained for that reason to claim a woman's favours; and the 
 breed of him showed clear. 
 
 The wind swept down from the moors with a snarl that set 
 the windows shaking. And Rupert, without a backward 
 glance, went into the hall and opened the main door. The 
 wind came yelping in, powdering the threshold with driven 
 sleet and chilling him to the bone. He was aware only of 
 heart-sickness, of the fragrance that was Nance Demaine, of 
 his need to get out into the open road; and there was some- 
 thing in the lash of the sleet across his face that was friendly 
 as the moors he loved. 
 
 And as he stood there he heard the tippety-tap of hoofs, 
 far down the bridle-road that led to Windyhough. And 
 hope, a sudden vivid hope, returned to him. He had not 
 needed the warm, scented parlour, the songs of old alle- 
 giance ; but, to the heart of him, he was eager for this music 
 of a hard-riding man who brought news, maybe, of Stuart 
 deeds. 
 
 Tippety-tap, tappety-tip, the sound of hoofs came intermit- 
 tently between the wind-bursts, and it seemed now to be very 
 near the gate. While he waited, his head bent eagerly 
 toward the track, Lady Royd came downstairs after bidding 
 her spaniel good-night, shivered as the wind swept through 
 the hall, and ran forward fretfully when she saw Rupert 
 standing in the doorway. 
 
 " My dear, is it not cold enough already in the house ? " she
 
 THE GLAD DEFENCE 271 
 
 complained. "You need not let the wind in through open 
 
 1 99 
 
 doors. 
 
 " Listen, mother ! " he said, not turning his head. " There's 
 a horseman riding fast. He is bringing news." 
 
 "Oh, you are fanciful. This Hunter's Wind always sent 
 your wits astray, Rupert. You heard too many nursery-tales 
 of the Ghostly Hunt, and Gabriel's Hounds, and all their fool- 
 ish superstitions." 
 
 " I hear a rider coming up with news," said Rupert ob- 
 stinately, moving out into the courtyard. "It may be Oli- 
 phant of Muirhouse." 
 
 Simon Foster, at this time, was just outside the gate, work- 
 ing to the last edge of dusk to get in a few more barrow- 
 loads of wood for the indoor fires. Not all the scoldings of 
 the other servants had persuaded him to so necessary a bit 
 of work, but Martha had, when she drew a tearful picture 
 of the cold kitchen they would have to sit in to-night if he 
 failed them. There were barely logs enough, it seemed, to 
 feed the rest of the house, and the kitchen must go fireless. 
 And Simon, with steady contempt of household labour when 
 he longed to be out in the open fight, had grumbled his way 
 to the pile of tree-trunks that littered the outside of the court- 
 yard. 
 
 " And I thought myself a fighting man," he muttered, saw- 
 ing and chopping with a speed born, not of zeal, but of ill- 
 temper; " and the end of it all is just bringing wood in, so that 
 silly wenches can. sit up late and gossip over a wasteful fire. 
 Well, life's as it's made, I reckon, but I'm varry thankful I 
 had no hand i' the making." 
 
 He had filled his barrow, and was stooping to the handles, 
 when he, too, heard the beat of hoofs come ringing up be- 
 tween the wind-beats. The storm, perhaps, had stirred even 
 his unfanciful outlook upon life; for he was strangely rest- 
 less to-night, and ready to believe that some miracle might 
 come to rouse them from their fireside life at Windyhough. 
 He turned his head up-wind, one hairy ear cocked like a span-
 
 272 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 iel's, and listened for a while. The gale began to fall a lit- 
 tle, and he could hear the quick, recurrent tippety-tap more 
 frequently. 
 
 He left his barrow, hobbled across the courtyard, saw Ru- 
 pert and his mother standing in the light of the scudding 
 moon that fought for mastery with the gloaming. 
 
 " There's a horse galloping, Simon," said Rupert. " Did 
 you hear him?" 
 
 " Ay, I heard him right enough ; and I'm wondering who 
 the rider is. It might be Sir Jasper, or it might be one o' 
 Maister Oliphant's wild-riding breed " 
 
 " Oh, you're mistaken, both of you ! " broke in Lady Royd 
 fretfully. " The snow would deaden hoof-beats. I can hear 
 none, I tell you." 
 
 " Nay," said Simon stolidly, " the road's harder than the 
 snow's soft just yet. By and by it will be different, when the 
 wind drops. We'll be snowed up by morn, my lady." 
 
 And now her untrained ear caught the tippety-tap, the ring 
 of a gallop close at hand. " It may be Sir Jasper," she echoed. 
 " Oh, I trust you are right, Simon so long as he rides un- 
 wounded," she added, quick to find the despondent note. 
 
 The wind was settling fast. Now and then it yelped and 
 whined like a dog driven out from home on a stark night; 
 but the snow was falling ever a little more steadily, more 
 thickly. And into the blur of snow and moonlight, across 
 the last edge of the gloam, the galloping horseman rode 
 through the open gate into the courtyard, and pulled up, and 
 swung from saddle. He looked from one to another of those 
 who stood this side the porch. 
 
 " Is that you, Master Rupert ? " he asked, without sign of 
 haste or emotion. 
 
 "Yes, Shackleton. What's your news?" 
 
 " Sir Jasper's lying at my farm. He's ta'en a hurt, and 
 sent me forrard seeing he couldn't come himself and he 
 said to me that you're to keep Windyhough against a plaguy 
 lot o' thieves."
 
 THE GLAD DEFENCE 273 
 
 " What thieves, Ben?" 
 
 " Nay, I know not. He said they were riding an odd mile 
 or two behind, and no time to waste." 
 
 Lady Royd was crying softly in the background, secure in 
 her belief that the worst had happened and that her husband's 
 hurts were mortal. Rupert did not heed her, did not heed 
 anything except the tingling sense of mastery and strength 
 that was firing his young, unproved soul. Through the long 
 nights and days of self-contempt he had longed for this. 
 When his heart had been sick to find himself among the 
 women and the greybeards, he had fought, as if his life de- 
 pended on it, for the dim hope that his chance would come one 
 day. And, because he was prepared, there was no surprise 
 in Shackleton's news, no hurried question as to how this sud- 
 den onset must be met. 
 
 " My father sent no other message, Ben ? " he asked curtly, 
 
 " Aye, he did, and he seemed rare and anxious I shouldn't 
 forget it, like. He said he trusted you just trusted you." 
 
 Rupert had kept his watch, through the sickness of the wait- 
 ing-time ; and at the end of it was this trumpet-call from the 
 father who had bred him. And Simon Foster, watching him 
 with affection's close scrutiny, saw the scholarly, lean years 
 slip off from the shoulders that were squared already to the 
 coming stress. 
 
 " Bar the outer gate, Simon," he said. Then, with a 
 soldier's brisk attention to detail, he turned to Ben Shackle- 
 ton. " How many of them ? " he asked. 
 
 " A score or more, so Sir Jasper said." 
 
 " Then step indoors. We need you, Ben." 
 
 Shackleton made a movement to get up to saddle again. 
 " Nay, nay ! I've the kine to fodder, and a wife waiting for 
 me." 
 
 " I'm in command here," said the master sharply. " We 
 need you, and you say there's no time to waste." 
 
 Simon Foster came back from drawing the stout oaken 
 bars across the gate. " They're riding up the gap," he said.
 
 274 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " I could hear their horses slipping all ways, master, as if 
 the roads had teazed 'em; but they're riding varry near. 
 We haven't a year and a day to waste in talk, though Shackle- 
 ton fancies we have. Besides," he added grimly, " the gate's 
 barred, and they'll be here before you could open it and ride 
 through." 
 
 " What's to be done with my horse, supposing I did stay ? " 
 asked Shackleton. Like a true farmer, he was not to be hur- 
 ried, and his first thought was always for his live-stock. 
 
 Simon Foster snatched the bridle from his hand, went across 
 to the stables, and was back again before Shackleton had re- 
 covered from his surprise. 
 
 " That is horse-stealing, Simon, or summat like it," grumbled 
 the farmer. 
 
 " No," answered Simon, " it's horse-keeping. We need you, 
 Ben. The master spoke a true word there." 
 
 " And what's all the moil about ? I relish a square fight 
 as well as another; it's a bit of a holiday, like, fro' farming 
 peevish lands; but I like to know just what I'm fighting for. 
 Stands to plain reason I do." 
 
 " For the honour of the Royds," said Rupert, with sharp 
 appeal. 
 
 " Well, then, you have me, master. Just tell me what I've 
 to do; I'm slow i' my wits, but quick wi' my hands, and 
 always was; and I learned young to fire a musket." 
 
 " It's a varry good habit to learn," growled Simon Foster, 
 " 'specially when a body learns it young." And then again 
 he turned his head sharply. " They've come, I reckon, mas- 
 ter," he said, with stolid satisfaction. 
 
 Goldstein's men had ridden the last mile of their journey in 
 evil temper. The track was rough, full of steep hills and 
 sharp, dangerous corners that rendered it difficult enough in a 
 dry season ; in this weather, and in the snowy, muddled light, 
 it seemed impassable to horsemen used only to flat country. 
 They were hungry, moreover, and wet to the skin, and their 
 only achievement so far was to lose the first fugitive they
 
 THE GLAD DEFENCE 275 
 
 had pursued since Derby town was left behind. Goldstein 
 himself was thankful for one thing only that this lonely track 
 had no byways opening out on either hand. The road, twist 
 as it would, kept to its single line, showing them no choice of 
 route in a country unknown and difficult. 
 
 It seemed interminable, this travelling at a slow, uneasy 
 trot over broken ground; but, just as he began to fear that 
 his men would mutiny outright, he looked up the rise ahead 
 and saw lights twinkling through the moonlit storm of snow. 
 The lights were many, blinking down on him from a house 
 that surely, by the length of its front, was one of quality. 
 
 " We're home, my lads," he said, with a sharp laugh of re- 
 lief. " That yokel lied about the distance." 
 
 " Time we were," snarled one of the troopers, with a 
 rough German oath. 
 
 Goldstein did not heed, but slipped from saddle and put a 
 hand to the courtyard gate. When he found it barred, he 
 thrust his heavy bulk against it. It did not give to his 
 weight. And this daunted him a little ; for he had not looked 
 for resistance of any sort, once they had reached the end of 
 this long, hilly road. He had pictured, indeed, a house of 
 women, with only the Prince and Sir Jasper to stand against 
 them, a swift surprise, and after that food and licence and 
 good liquor to reward them for the hardships of the day. He 
 kicked the gate impatiently, and cried to those within to open ; 
 and the dogs shut up in kennel answered him with long, run- 
 ning howls. 
 
 Rupert standing with Simon Foster on the threshold of the 
 porch, felt gaiety step close to his elbow, like a trusted friend. 
 He crossed the yard and stood just this side the gateway. 
 
 "Who knocks?" he asked. 
 
 " The King," snapped Goldstein. 
 
 " You will be more explicit," said Rupert, with a touch 
 of the old scholarly disdain. " By your voice, I think you 
 come from Hanover. We serve the Stuart here." 
 
 Through the spite of the falling wind, through his weari-
 
 276 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 ness of mind and body, Goldstein knew that a gentleman 
 stood on the far side of this gateway. And breeding, in a 
 farm-hand or a king, disturbed his sordid outlook on this 
 life. 
 
 " You'll not serve him long. Where's Sir Jasper Royd ? " 
 
 " Somewhere on the open road, following his Prince. I 
 am his son, and master here, at your service, till he re- 
 turns." 
 
 Nance, hearing the confusion out of doors, had run into 
 the courtyard. Lady Royd was standing apart, as if nothing 
 mattered, now she had heard that Sir Jasper lay wounded at 
 the farm; if her man had not been strong enough to ride in 
 and guard her at such a time, he must be near to death, she 
 felt. She had made him her idol, starving her sons of love 
 because the father claimed it; and she was paying her debts 
 now, in confusion and humiliation. Nance scarcely heeded 
 her. Her eyes passed from Simon and Ben Shackleton to 
 the slim, erect figure at the gate, and instinctively she crossed 
 to Rupert's side. There was peril on the far side of this 
 gate peril grave and urgent and yet she was conscious only 
 of a thrill of pride and tenderness. The scholar had longed 
 for his chance to come; and the answer had reached him, 
 without warning or preparation, from the heart of the stormy 
 night. Her thoughts were running fast ; she contrasted Will 
 Underwood's response to the first call of the Rising with Ru- 
 pert's gay acceptance of this hazard; and she was glad to be 
 here at Windyhough. 
 
 " Sir Jasper's ' on the open road, following his Prince ' ? " 
 mimicked Goldstein, breaking the uneasy silence. " To be 
 plain, he has followed the Pretender indoors here, and I know 
 it." 
 
 Rupert had known only that he was bidden to guard the 
 house against what Shackleton had named " a plaguy lot o' 
 thieves," had accepted the trust with soldierly obedience ; but 
 the venture showed a new significance. He was cool-headed, 
 practical, now that his years of high dreaming were put to
 
 THE GLAD DEFENCE 277 
 
 the touchstone; and he snatched at Goldstein's explanation 
 of this night assault. 
 
 " You think the Prince is a guest here at Windyhough ? " 
 he asked suavely. 
 
 " I know it. We've followed the two of them over the 
 foulest bridle-track in England just because we were so 
 sure." 
 
 Sir Jasper's heir looked at the sturdy, snow-blurred gate 
 that stood between the honour of his house and these troopers, 
 whose oaths, with an odd lack of discipline, threaded all their 
 leader's talk. And he laughed, so quietly that Nance glanced 
 sharply up, thinking his father had returned; for Sir Jasper 
 carried just this laugh in face of danger. 
 
 " The Prince is here ? " he said. " Then hack your way 
 through the gate and take him. He is well guarded." 
 
 Goldstein, chilled for a moment by the unexpected strength 
 of the defence, grew savage. "You'll not surrender?" 
 
 " No Royd does, sir. We live leal, or we die leal." 
 
 " Then God help you when my troopers hack a way in ! 
 They're not tame at any time, and your cursed roads have not 
 smoothed their tempers." 
 
 " We are waiting," said the master quietly. 
 
 " Oh, well done, Rupert ! " whispered Nance, with a light 
 touch on his arm. 
 
 He looked down at her down and beyond her, for in 
 truth he had no need of Stuart glamour till this night's busi- 
 ness was well through. "You Nance? Get back to the 
 house, and take my mother with you ; the gate will be down, 
 I tell you, and after that it will be no place for women. And, 
 Simon," he added, " bring three muskets out. Hurry, man ! " 
 
 Nance, high-spirited and new to commands of this sharp, 
 peremptory kind, went submissively enough, she knew not 
 why. And, near the porch, she found Lady Royd busy with 
 the spaniel which had run out to find her. 
 
 " Poor little man ! " Sir Jasper's wife was murmuring, as 
 she kissed the foolish, pampered brute that, under happier,
 
 278 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 auspices, would have been a dog. " He missed me, Nance, 
 and he came, getting wet feet in the snow, and you know how 
 delicate he is. He is all I have, Nance," she added, with a 
 touch of pathos, real in its futility " since since they told me 
 Sir Jasper was dying at the farm." 
 
 Nance remembered how Rupert had met the sudden call to 
 arms, and gathered something of his buoyancy. " Sir Jas- 
 per is not dying," she said sharply. " I'll not believe it. He 
 will come by and by, when he has recovered from his 
 wound " 
 
 " You think he will come ? " put in the other, helpless and 
 snatching at any straw of comfort. 
 
 " Oh, I know it ; but we must get indoors, and let Rupert 
 guide the siege." 
 
 Lady Royd had not learned the true gaiety of danger ; but 
 Nance, from the childhood shared with hard-riding brothers, 
 had gained a courage and experience that served her well 
 just now. None knew what would chance to Windy hough 
 before the dawn; and, for her part, she did not look before 
 or after, but took the present as it came. And her instinct 
 was Rupert's, as she shepherded Lady Royd into the hall 
 that here at last, thank God ! was action after long sitting by 
 the hearth. 
 
 Captain Goldstein, meanwhile, convinced that his entry into 
 Windyhough was not to be bloodless, after all, had tried his 
 strength once more against the gate of the courtyard, and, 
 finding it solid, had cast about for some way of breaking 
 through it. The moon was making greater headway now 
 through the rifted snow-clouds, and he saw the pile of tree- 
 trunks at which Simon Foster had been busy until Sir Jas- 
 per's messenger had disturbed him at the wood-chopping. 
 
 Like his troopers, Goldstein was wet and hungry and im- 
 patient, and his one thought was to rive the gate down, 
 whatever strength opposed him on the far side of it. He 
 gave a sharp order, and six of his men lifted a trunk of syca- 
 more, and poised it for a while, and rammed the gate. The
 
 THE GLAD DEFENCE 279 
 
 first thrust strained the gate against the cross-bars, and broke 
 back sharply on the men who held the ram, disordering them 
 for a moment. 
 
 The master waited, his musket ready primed. " Simon," 
 he said, " and you, Ben Shackleton, we're bidden to hold the 
 house, but gad! we'll do a little in the courtyard first." 
 
 Goldstein's men came at the gate again, struck savagely, 
 found by chance a weak spot in the wood. And this time 
 they splintered a wide opening. They drew back a little, to 
 get their breath, and through the opening Rupert saw faintly 
 in the moonlight the half of a man's body. Simon Foster, 
 watching him, saw a still, passionless light steal into his 
 eyes as he lifted the musket to his shoulder and fired with 
 brisk precision. There was a cry of anguish from without, 
 a sudden, heavy fall, and afterwards the guttural voice of Cap- 
 tain Goldstein, bidding his troopers clear the dead away and 
 ram the gate again. 
 
 Rupert, for his part, was reloading. And he was tasting 
 that exquisite, tragic glee known only to those who kill their 
 first man in righteous battle. He was drinking from a well 
 old as man's history; and its waters, while they swept com- 
 punction and all else away, gave him a strange zest for this 
 world's adventures. 
 
 The troopers were desperate now. They rammed the splin- 
 tered gate with a fury that broke the cross-bars; and Lady 
 Royd, watching it all from the porch, saw a troop of savages, 
 dusky in the moonlight let loose from hell, so it seemed 
 to her disordered fancy swarm through the opening. She 
 glanced at Rupert, saw him take careful aim again; and this 
 time there was no cry from the fallen, for he dropped dead in 
 his paces, so suddenly that the man behind tripped over him. 
 
 Simon Foster, who had preached the gospel of steadiness 
 so constantly to the young master, aimed wildly at Goldstein, 
 and missed him by a foot; but Shackleton, slow and sure by 
 temperament, picked out a hulking fellow for his mark and 
 hit him through the thigh.
 
 280 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " Get to the house ! " said Rupert, his new mastery sitting 
 firm and lightly on him. 
 
 Like the Prince in retreat, he stood aside till his men had 
 found safety, and then passed in himself. A few shots spat- 
 tered on the house-front, and one grazed his shoulder ; but the 
 enemy were huddled too close together in the courtyard, and 
 they jostled one another while talking hurried aim. Just in 
 time he leaped across the threshold, clashed the main door in 
 Goldstein's face, and shot the bolts home. 
 
 Inside, the first note that greeted him was the yapping of 
 his mother's spaniel. And his eyes sought Nance's with in- 
 stinctive humour. 
 
 " Rupert, how can you smile ? " asked Lady Royd, dis- 
 traught and fretful. 
 
 " Because needs must, mother," he answered gently. " And 
 now, by your leave, you will take Nance upstairs. There's 
 work to be done down here." 
 
 Nance touched his arm in passing. He did not know it. 
 Body, and soul, and mind, he was bent on this work of holding 
 Windyhough for his father and the Prince. He had lived 
 with loneliness and patience and denial of all enterprise; and 
 now there was a virile havoc about the house. 
 
 " Now for the good siege, Simon," he said, listening to the 
 uproar out of doors.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE BRUNT OF IT 
 
 THE master turned from the doorway to find the women- 
 servants and old Nat, the shepherd, crowded at the far end 
 of the hall. They were agape with mingled fear and curiosity, 
 and they were chattering like magpies. 
 
 " We'll be murdered outright," said the kitchen-maid, her 
 pertness gone. 
 
 " Aye," wept the housekeeper, " and me that has prayed, 
 day in and day out for fifty years, that I'd die easy and 
 snuglike i' my bed. There's something not modest in dying 
 out o' bed, I always did say." 
 
 The master flashed round on them; and, without a word 
 said, they obeyed the new air of him, and crept shamefacedly 
 along the corridor. Only Nat stood his ground Nat, who 
 was old beyond belief, whose hand shook on the long clay 
 pipe that ceased burning only when he slept. 
 
 " There's a terrible moil and clatter, master," he said, laugh- 
 ing vacantly. " There'll be an odd few wanting to get in- 
 doors, I reckon." 
 
 " Yes, Nat, yes," said the master impatiently. 
 
 "Well, ye munnot let 'em. And there'll be a fight like; 
 but, bless ye, 'twill be naught to what we saw i' the '15 Ris- 
 ing. I was out i' it wi' your father, and men were men i' 
 those days. Eh, but there were bonnie doings ! " 
 
 Nat had forgotten that the '15 had been more hapless and 
 ill-conducted than this present Rising. He was back again 
 with the young hope, the young ardour, that had taken him 
 afield ; and he was living in the dotard's sanctuary, where all 
 old deeds seem well done and only the present lacks true 
 warmth and colour. 
 
 281
 
 282 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " He tells his lie varry well, and sticks to it," laughed 
 Simon Foster. " I was out i' that Rising myself, master, as 
 you know, and if there were any bonnie doings, I never 
 chanced on them." 
 
 " Nat is not wise. Let him be," said the master, with a 
 chivalrous regard that was cradled deep in the superstitions 
 of the moor. 
 
 The men without were battering uselessly at the great, 
 nail-studded door. It had been built in times when callers 
 were apt to come knocking on no peaceful errand; and it 
 was secure against the battering-ram that had splintered the 
 weaker courtyard gate. For all that, Rupert bade Simon 
 and Ben Shackleton help him to up-end the heavy settle that 
 stood along the wall. They buttressed the door with it, and 
 were safe on this side of the house from any rough-and-ready 
 method of attack. 
 
 Then Rupert, precise in his regard for detail, led them to 
 the kitchens. The women were huddled over a roaring fire 
 of logs the fruits of Simon's industry not long ago but 
 Rupert did not heed them. The mullioned windows of the 
 house were stout and narrow, and the only inlet, now the 
 main door was safe, was by this kitchen entrance. The door 
 was not wide enough to admit more than one man at a time, 
 and its timbers could be trusted to resist attack until warn- 
 ing had been given to the garrison. 
 
 " Martha," said the master, choosing by instinct the one 
 reliable wench among these chatterboxes, " your post is at the 
 door here. You will warn us if there is trouble on this side." 
 
 " Oh, aye," she answered cheerfully. " I've clouted a 
 man's lugs before to-day, and can do it again, I reckon." 
 And she picked up her milking-stool, which was lying under 
 the sink in readiness for the morrow's milking, set it down 
 by the door, and seated herself with a deliberation that in 
 itself suggested confidence. 
 
 Then the master went upstairs, with a light step, and sta- 
 tioned himself at the window, wider and more perilous than
 
 THE BRUNT OF IT 283 
 
 any loophole, which overlooked the main door. It was the 
 post of greatest hazard, given him by his father in that make- 
 believe of defence which had preceded Sir Jasper's riding- 
 out. 
 
 Rupert glanced down at the six muskets, the powder flask, 
 the little heap of bullets that lay along the window-sill. " We 
 thought them nursery-toys, Simon ? " he said, with his whim- 
 sical, quick smile. " We even took the glass out from the 
 window, pretending that we must be ready for the sharp 
 attack." 
 
 " Drill pays," growled Simon. " Aye, keep hard at it 
 enough, and drill pays." 
 
 " Yes, faith pays it is drill, as I told you." 
 
 " Faith can bide. We're here i' the stark murk of it, mas- 
 ter, and we'll say our prayers to-morrow if it happens we're 
 alive." 
 
 Rupert took up the muskets, one by one, saw to the prim- 
 ing of them. " You'll say your prayers to-night, Simon, by 
 getting to your post," he said dryly. " Give Ben Shackleton 
 the loophole on the west side. That gives us three sides 
 guarded." 
 
 The two men went heavy-footed to their posts ; and Shackle- 
 ton turned to Simon Foster when they were out of earshot. 
 " Young master's fair uplifted," he said. " He's not fey 
 that's all I hope." 
 
 " He's not fey," said Foster, blunt and full of common 
 sense. " He's been a dreamer, and he's wakened ; and we 
 might do worse, Ben, than waken just as bright as he's 
 done." 
 
 The master stood at his post, and felt the rebound from 
 his own high spirits. He looked out at the blurred moonlight, 
 the scattered flakes of snow, that hid the over-watching hills 
 from him. The old self-doubt returned. He was pledged 
 to keep the house secure he who had been left behind be- 
 cause he was not trained to join the Rising. And he had little 
 skill, except for dreams of high endeavour.
 
 284 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 He lifted his head suddenly. From the courtyard below he 
 heard the hum of guttural voices. Goldstein and his men were 
 still gathered about the main doorway, hungry, wet to the 
 skin, irresolute as to the best plan of action. 
 
 Rupert was no dreamer now. He could see nothing in the 
 yard, through the thick snow and the moon-haze ; but he took 
 up a musket and fired at random, and picked up a second gun, 
 and a third, and snapped the trigger; and from below there 
 came a yelp of pain, a running of men's feet. And Rupert 
 was his own man again, forgetting dreams, remembering only 
 that the siege was here in earnest. 
 
 Through the smoke and the reek of gunpowder Nance De- 
 maine came into the room. 
 
 " Where is my post? " she asked, standing trim and soldierly 
 at Rupert's side. 
 
 Again she was met by the glance that looked through and 
 beyond her, as if she stood between Rupert and some settled 
 purpose. It seemed so short a while since she had sat at the 
 spinet, had seen his eyes hungry with her, as if she were all 
 his world; and now he scarcely heeded her. The riddle was 
 so easy for a man to guess, so hard for a woman ; and Nance, 
 soldier-bred as she was, was piqued by the master's grave, 
 single-minded outlook on the task in hand. 
 
 " Your post, Nance ? " he echoed. " With mother, away 
 from any chance of bullets." 
 
 " Did I shoot so badly, then those days we practised up 
 the fields?" 
 
 " No ; but this is men's work, Nance." 
 
 " You have a garrison of three." Some wayward humour, 
 some wish to hurt him, clouded all her usual kindliness. He 
 was strong and did not need her ; and she missed something 
 pleasant that had threaded the weariness of these last days. 
 " There's Simon, steady enough, but old. There is Ben 
 Shackleton. And there is yourself, Rupert, very young to 
 musketry. Are you wise to refuse your last recruit ? " 
 
 The taunt found its mark. This daughter of Squire
 
 THE BRUNT OF IT 285 
 
 Roger's had an odd power to touch the depths in him, 
 whether for pain or keen, unreasoning delight. A moment 
 since he had tasted happiness, had had no thought save one 
 that he was master here, fighting an enemy of flesh and 
 blood at last. And now the old unrest jcrept in, the vague 
 self-distrust that had clouded earlier days. 
 
 " We're few, and have no skill," he said, with an irony that 
 was stubborn and weary both; "but I was bred, Nance, to 
 put women in the background at these times." 
 
 She looked at him, as he stood in the cloudy moonlight 
 filtering through the window. She knew this tone of his so 
 well knew that her hold on him was not weakened, after 
 all. " Oh, you were bred to that superstition ? " she said 
 lightly. " As if women were ever in the background, Ru- 
 pert! Why, our business in life is to dance in front of you 
 always a little in front of you, lest you capture us. Men, 
 so Lady Royd says, are merry until until they have us 
 safe in hand." 
 
 She dropped him a curtsey; and, before he found an 
 answer, she was gone. And the master turned to the case- 
 ment, hoping for the sound of a footfall without, the chance 
 of another quick, haphazard shot. The wind had dropped to 
 a little, whining breeze; but there was no other sound about 
 this house that stood for the Stuart against odds. The snow 
 was thickening. Rupert watched the flakes settle on the win- 
 dow-sill, ever a little faster, till a three-inch ridge was raised. 
 And the old trouble returned. This had been his life here 
 the silence, the dumb abnegations, slow and cold in falling, 
 that had built a wall between himself and happiness. And 
 suddenly he brushed his hand sharply across the sill, scatter- 
 ing the snow. It was his protest against the buried yester- 
 days. Then he took up the three muskets he had fired, and 
 one by one reloaded them. And after that he waited. 
 
 An hour later Simon Foster, stiff already from standing at 
 the south window, made pretence that he must go the round 
 of the house, lest younger men were not steady at their posts.
 
 286 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 As he hobbled down the corridor that led to the north side, 
 he saw Nance Demaine, sitting ghostlike at the window. 
 And he crossed himself, because the habits of fore-elders are 
 apt to cling to a man, however dim may be the faith of his 
 later years. 
 
 Nance turned. "Ah! you, Simon?" 
 
 " Why, it's ye, Miss Nance ? God forgive me, I thought you 
 a boggart, come to warn us the old house was tumbling- 
 round our ears." 
 
 " Not yet, Simon," she said quietly. " I heard the master 
 say one side was unguarded and I knew where the muskets 
 were stored " 
 
 " But, Miss Nance, it's no playing, at shooting, this. It 
 may varry weel be a longer siege than you reckon for, and 
 we're few; and it means sitting and waiting waiting and 
 sitting till ye're sick for a wink o' sleep. Nay, nay! You 
 dunnot know what strength it needs." 
 
 " I nursed a sick child once not long ago. For three 
 days and nights, Simon, I had no sleep." 
 
 The other was silent. All the countryside knew that story 
 now knew how Squire Roger's daughter had gone on some 
 casual errand of mercy to a cottage on the Demaine lands, 
 had found a feckless mother nursing a child far gone in fever, 
 had stayed on and fought for its life with skill and hard de- 
 termination. Yet Nance spoke of it now without thought 
 of any courage she had shown; she was eager only to prove 
 that she had a right to take her place among the men in 
 guarding Windyhough. 
 
 Simon Foster looked at the girl's figure, the orderly line 
 of muskets. She seemed workmanlike ; and he approved her 
 with a sudden, vigorous nod. 
 
 " The light's dim, Miss Nance," he growled, turning to 
 hobble down the corridor, " but I reckon ye can aim." 
 
 It was so the long night began. The wind had ceased 
 altogether. From out of doors there was no sound, of man 
 or beast. The snow fell in thicker flakes, and, working
 
 THE BRUNT OF IT 287 
 
 silently as those concerned with burials do, it laid a shroud 
 about the courtyard, about the many gables of the house, 
 about the firs and leafless sycamores that guarded Windy- 
 hough from the high moors. 
 
 On the north side of the house, where the stables and the 
 huddled mass of farm-buildings stood, Goldstein's men were 
 preparing to find comfort for the night as best they could. 
 From time to time there was a sound of voices or of shuffling 
 footsteps, deadened by the snow; for the rest, a dismaying 
 stillness lay about the house. 
 
 To Rupert, to Nance, guarding the north window, to 
 Simon Foster, this silence of attack seemed heavier, more un- 
 bearable, than the do-nothing time that had preceded it. 
 There had been the brief battle-fury in the courtyard, the 
 zest of getting ready for the siege; and now there was only 
 silence and the falling snow. 
 
 And out of doors Goldstein was no less impatient. He 
 did not know that he was faced by a garrison so slender; for 
 there is a strength about a house that has shown one bold 
 front to attack, and afterwards gives no hint of the numbers 
 hidden by its walls. Already two were dead, and two badly 
 wounded, from among his company of one-and-twenty ; and 
 the rest were hungry, body-sore, and in evil temper. It was 
 no time to force an entry. Better wait till daylight, get his 
 men out of gunshot, and find food for them somewhere in 
 the well-stocked farm-steadings. 
 
 They got round to the mistals on the west side of the 
 house moving close along the walls, afraid of every window 
 that might hide a musket and found Sir Jasper's well-tended 
 cattle mooing softly to each other as they rattled their stall- 
 chains. The warm, lush smell of the byres suggested milk to 
 Goldstein, and, since stronger drink seemed out of reach, he 
 welcomed any liquor that might take the sharpest edge of 
 hunger from his men. He bade them milk the cows; and 
 into the midst of this tragic happening that had come to
 
 288 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 Windyhough there intruded a frank, diverting comedy, as the 
 way of life is. Not one of them had milked a cow before, 
 or guessed that Martha had been busy with her pail already ; 
 but each thought it a simple matter, needing no more than a 
 man's touch on the udders. They found a milking-stool aban- 
 doned long ago by Martha because one leg was unstable, and 
 one by one they tried their luck. The first who tried was 
 kicked clean off the stool ; the next man made a beginning so 
 foolish and unhandy that the roan cow looked back at him in 
 simple wonderment; and Goldstein, a better officer than his 
 men understood, welcomed the laughter and uproar that 
 greeted every misguided effort to fill the milking-pail. They 
 had not laughed once since Derby, these men who were get- 
 ting out of hand. 
 
 By and by the sport palled on them; and Goldstein, faced 
 once again by their hunger and unrest, found all his senses 
 curiously alert. From the laithe, next door to the byres, he 
 heard the bleating of sheep in-driven yesterday from the high 
 lands when the weather-wise were sure that snow was coming. 
 
 " There's food yonder, lads," he said sharply. " Drink can 
 wait." 
 
 He opened the laithe door, stood back a while from the 
 steam that greeted him the oily heat of sheep close packed 
 together. The moonlight and the snow filtered in together 
 through the big, open doors as he ran forward, caught a ewe 
 by the neck, and dragged her out. And they dispatched her 
 quickly ; for butchery came easy to their hands. 
 
 A little while after, as Rupert stood at his post by the win- 
 dow overlooking the main door waiting for something to 
 happen, as of old he heard a slow, heavy footfall down the 
 corridor. A blurred figure of a man stood in the doorway 
 for the moon's light was dim and snowy and the master 
 could only guess from the square, massive bulk who was this 
 night visitor. 
 
 " They've lit a fire on the west side o' the house, master," 
 came Shackleton's big voice. " What it means I couldn't tell
 
 THE BRUNT OF IT 289 
 
 ye, but I saw the red of it go kitty-kelpy fair across the snow." 
 
 Rupert followed him, glad already of the relief from sentry- 
 work. Across the west window emptied of its glass, like 
 all the others, in readiness for action little, pulsing shafts of 
 crimson were playing through the snow-flakes. They heard 
 men's voices, confused and jarring; and the red glow 
 deepened, though they could see nothing of what was in the 
 doing. 
 
 "We couldn't expect 'em, like, to light their fire within 
 eye-shot," said Shackleton, with his unalterable quiet; "it 
 would mean within gun-shot, as we've taught 'em. But I own 
 I'd like to know just what sort o' devilry they're planning. 
 They might varry weel be firing the house over our heads." 
 
 " No," said the master. " There are only stone walls on 
 this side, Ben five foot thick " 
 
 " Ay, true. But they're not lads, to light a fire just for 
 the sake o' seeing it blaze." 
 
 Outside, close under shelter of the house-wall, Goldstein's 
 men had carried straw from the laithe where it was stored, 
 had borrowed wood from the pile of timber left by Simon 
 Foster at the courtyard gate, and were roasting their sheep 
 as speedily as might be. And one adventurous spirit, search- 
 ing the outhouses with a patience born of thirst, had found 
 an unbroached ale-barrel. The return to good cheer loosened 
 the men's tongues; and Goldstein was content to let them 
 have their way until this better mood of theirs had ripened. 
 
 Within doors, Simon Foster had heard the master and 
 Shackleton talking at the west window, had joined them, had 
 listened till, from the babel of many voices, he heard what 
 was in the doing. 
 
 " They're cooking their supper," he said. " I should know 
 the way of it; for we went stark and wet through the '15, 
 and cooked many a fat sheep, we did, just like these un- 
 chancy wastrels." 
 
 Into their midst, none knowing how he had drifted there, 
 came Nat the shepherd, pipe in hand a figure so old, so
 
 290 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 palsied, that stronger men were moved by a pity deep as hu- 
 man courage and human suffering. 
 
 "Eh, now, I mind th' '15!" he cackled. "I rode out wi' 
 Sir Jasper he was a lad i' those days, and me a mettlesome 
 man of fifty and there were bonnie doings. It was all about 
 some business o' setting King Jamie on his throne and there 
 were bonnie doings. The gentry riding in, and the gentry 
 riding out and the bonnie ladies' een bo-peeping at them as 
 they went; and all the brave, open road ahead of us. We 
 shall see no such times again, I warrant." 
 
 His head drooped suddenly. He fumbled for his tinder- 
 box, because in his enthusiasm for days gone by he had let 
 his pipe go out. He was a figure pitiful beyond belief the 
 last, blown autumn leaf, it seemed, clinging to the wind- 
 blown tree of Stuart loyalty. And the master, in spite of the 
 hazard out of doors, halted for a word of compassion. 
 
 " You did well, Nat," he said gently. " Tell us how the 
 '15 went." 
 
 Nat was silent for a while. Across his dotage, across the 
 memories that were food and drink to him, he returned to 
 present-day affairs. He looked closely at the master, and 
 nodded sagely. 
 
 " You're varry like your father, Maister Rupert. It seems 
 a pity, like, you should be left here, to die like a ratten in a 
 trap, when you might have been crying Tally-Ho along the 
 Lunnon road." 
 
 The master winced. " They've not trapped us yet," he 
 said quietly. " Get down to the inglenook, Nat, and smoke 
 your pipe." 
 
 " Hark ! " said Shackleton, his ear turned to the window. 
 They're getting merry out yonder. Begom! they must have 
 found liquor somewhere, to go singing out o' doors on a 
 stark night like this." 
 
 A full-throated chorus was sounding now across the snow 
 and the dancing red of the fire. The words were German, but 
 the lilt of them was not to be mistaken.
 
 THE BRUNT OF IT 291 
 
 " I wish I'd known they were coming," said Simon Fos- 
 ter ruefully. " There was a barrel of ale, master, left i' the 
 shippon because I was too lazy to get it indoors yesterday. 
 And they've broached it, they have ; and it's good liquor going 
 down furrin throats. The waste o' decent stuff ! " 
 
 Rupert listened to the uproar out of doors. He had a quick 
 imagination, and he was picturing an attack by drunken 
 soldiery. These men of Goldstein's, he had gathered, were 
 not lambs when sober. He thought of Nance, of his mother 
 thought of the virile, tender love that men of his Faith give 
 their women and the soul of him caught fire. 
 
 " Shackleton," he said sharply, " keep your post. Simon, 
 get to yours. And, by the God who made me, I'll shoot you 
 if you sleep to-night ! " 
 
 He did not see Nance, nor think of her, as he went to his 
 own station overlooking the main door. But Nance heard 
 his tread, and glanced up, and found the night emptier be- 
 cause he did not know that she was near. For men and 
 women see life from opposite sides of the same hill, and 
 always will until hereafter they find themselves standing on 
 the same free, windy summit. 
 
 He went to his post, and the long night settled down. 
 And nothing happened, as of old. From sheer need of occu- 
 pation, he fell to watching the snow fall thick and thicker 
 out of doors tried to count the flakes and found the dumb, 
 unceasing crowd of them enticing him to sleep. And then 
 he sought a better remedy. He remembered the man he had 
 hit through the opening of the courtyard gate the others 
 who had fallen to his musket ; and he found the odd zest, the 
 call of future peril, which spring from action. And to Ru- 
 pert the call came with a peculiar sharpness ; for he had been 
 accounted slight, a scholar, and he was here in the thick of 
 the siege perilous, with a deed or two standing already to 
 his credit. 
 
 He was used from of old to sleeplessness, and as the night 
 wore on his spirits rose to a surprising gaiety and sense of
 
 292 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 well-being. His garrison was small; but he was master of 
 his own house, at long last, and he had powder and ball on 
 the window-sill in front of him. Whether he lived or died 
 mattered little; but it was of prime importance that he kept 
 this house of Windyhough to the last edge of his strength. 
 
 Out of doors, Captain Goldstein had given up all thoughts 
 of prosecuting the siege until the dawn. He had detached 
 six men from the ale-barrel to play sentry round the house, 
 and had got the rest into shelter of the outhouses a half-hour 
 later. They were bone-tired, all of them ; they were well fed 
 and full of ale; and the beds they made for themselves, of 
 hay and straw, seemed soft as eider-down. Only Goldstein 
 kept awake. He was as weary as any of them ; but he had a 
 single purpose, as Rupert had. The Prince was in the house 
 here ; dead or alive, he stood for thirty thousand pounds ; and 
 Goldstein kept himself awake by picturing the life he would 
 enjoy, out yonder in the Fatherland, when he had claimed 
 his share of the reward. He would squander a thousand of 
 the thirty among his men more or less, according to their 
 temper and would afterwards retire from service. For 
 Goldstein, it would seem, did not share the Catholic belief 
 that, till he dies, no man is privileged to retire from soldiery. 
 
 He kept awake; and by and by he could not rest under 
 shelter of the byre that kept him weather-tight. He went out 
 into the snowy moonlight, intent on seeing that his sentries 
 were leaving no way open for the Prince to escape; and he 
 forgot that there were windows looking out at him. 
 
 Rupert was standing at his post meanwhile, finding his high 
 dreams useful now that the call to arms had come. He was 
 serving for faith's sake, and for loyalty's; and service of 
 that sort is apt to breed an odd content. 
 
 Across his sense of well-being a gunshot sounded quick, 
 and loud, and urgent, in this house of silence. He took up 
 a musket, and peered through the snow-storm out of doors, 
 expecting an assault. And again nothing happened, for a
 
 THE BRUNT OF IT 293 
 
 little while. And then he heard a woman's step along the 
 corridor, and Nance's voice, low and piteous. 
 
 " Rupert, where are you ? I I need you." 
 
 It was then Rupert learned afresh, with a vivid pain that 
 seemed unbearable, how deep his love had gone during the 
 past, silent years. She was in trouble, and needed him. He 
 ran to her side, but could not outstrip the fears that crowded 
 round him. There was the gunshot and she was hurt; 
 Nance, whom he had longed to keep from the least touch of 
 harm, was hurt. 
 
 He put his arms about her. His eyes had grown used long 
 since to the dim moonlight of the room, and they sought with 
 feverish concern for traces of her wound. 
 
 "Where are you hurt, Nance?" he asked. 
 
 And " Here," she said, with a wan little smile " here, 
 right through my heart, Rupert. I I have killed a man, I 
 think, just now." 
 
 So then, through the confusion of his thoughts, he remem- 
 bered that the gun-shot had sounded from within doors, and 
 his heart grew lighter. " Why, then, there's one less of the 
 enemy. You should be proud, my dear." 
 
 " Proud ? " Her voice was still and hushed. " You were 
 right when you said that this was man's work. I was watch- 
 ing at the north window and the time seemed long in passing 
 and then I saw a man's thick-set body coming through the 
 snow. And I I forgot I was a woman, and took aim, and 
 he fell, Rupert, so suddenly, with his arms thrown up, and 
 lay there in the snow." 
 
 " One less," said the master, with a return to dogged cheer- 
 fulness. " We must get to our posts again." 
 
 Nance looked at him. Now that he knew her safe, he was 
 again the soldier, forgetting the way of his heart and thinking 
 only of the need for action. And her pride took fire, as she 
 went back to her window, resolute to show him that she could 
 be soldierly as he. For a while she dared not look out, re-
 
 294 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 membering what lay yonder; and then she chided herself for 
 cowardice, and peeped through the moonlight. 
 
 The huddled bulk of a man that had lain prone in the snow 
 was moving now slowly, and on hands and knees and was 
 creeping out of range. And once again Nance knew herself 
 a woman; for she was glad, with a joy instant and 
 vehement, that she had a wounded man only on her con- 
 science. 
 
 Goldstein, when the shot hit him at close range, had thought 
 the end had come. He was wearied out by long riding over 
 broken roads, by need of sleep; and the flare of the gunshot, 
 the sudden hell-fire in his left thigh, had knocked his hardi- 
 ness to bits. But by and by, when he found leisure to pick 
 his courage up, and knew that his wound went only deep 
 through the fleshy part of his thigh, he made his way back 
 to the stables, and roused one of his sleeping troopers; and, 
 between them, they staunched the bleeding, and dressed the 
 wound with odds and ends torn from the linings of their 
 coats. And then Goldstein lay back on the straw and slept 
 like a little child, and dreamed that he was home again in 
 Hanover, in the days before he sought advancement in a 
 foreign country. 
 
 At Will Underwood's house, meanwhile, the laggard gentry 
 of Lancashire were sitting over their wine, and were cursing 
 this snowfall that would not let them hunt to-morrow. And 
 they were troubled, all of them; for they knew that better 
 men were facing hardship on the London road, while they, 
 from faults of sloth or caution, were sheltered by house- 
 walls. They were men, after all, under the infirmities that 
 hindered them ; and ease, for its own sake, never yet appealed 
 for long to hearts built for weather and adventure. They 
 needed hard exercise, to blunt the edge of conscience ; and they 
 were fretful, ready to pick quarrels among themselves, be- 
 cause they knew that the morrow must be spent in idleness. 
 
 " We can always drink, gentlemen," said Underwood, push- 
 ing the bottle round. " That is one consolation."
 
 THE BRUNT OF IT 295 
 
 "Likely to be our only one," snapped his neighbour, "if 
 this cursed snow stays on the ground. And we can drink 
 half the night, Underwood but not all the day as well. You 
 can have too much of a pastime." 
 
 "What are they doing London way, I wonder?" put in 
 a smooth-faced youngster, gibing at himself and all of them. 
 " They'll have bonnie roads to travel." 
 
 Underwood remembered a day, not long ago, when he had 
 met Nance Demaine on the moor, recalled the look in her face 
 as she gave him her kerchief and bade him use it as a 
 flag of truce " when her men returned from the crowning." 
 He got to his feet and reached across the table with clenched 
 fist. " How dare you ! " he said savagely. " We're all wear- 
 ing the white feather, and you twit us with it, you young 
 fool." 
 
 They drew back from him for a moment. His pain and fury 
 were so evident, his easy-going temper so completely broken, 
 that they thought him drunk, when in reality he was vastly 
 sober so sobered that he saw himself a creature pitiful and 
 time-serving. 
 
 And the youngster, taking fire in turn, said that he would 
 be called fool by no man without asking satisfaction; and 
 swords would have been out had not Underwood's neighbour, 
 a jolly, red-faced squire who liked to drink his wine in peace, 
 taken the situation at a canter. 
 
 " For shame, Underwood ! " he said, laying a sharp hand 
 on his shoulder. " It would be no duel it would be another 
 slaughter of the innocents. To fight a boy like that " 
 
 " Not very innocent, by your leave," broke in the young- 
 ster, with such palpable affront, such pride in his budding 
 vices, that the old squire laughed outrageously. 
 
 " By gad ! not very innocent ! " he echoed, with another 
 rolling, laugh. " See the cockrel standing up to crow all red 
 about the gills, gentlemen. Let's fill our glasses and drink to 
 his growing comb." 
 
 So it ended in frank laughter as they rose and drowned
 
 296 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 the quarrel in a roaring toast. But Underwood, though he 
 joined them, carried no good look. He was still thinking of 
 Nance Demaine, of the white badge she had offered him. 
 And an uneasy silence settled on them all. 
 
 " I heard a queer tale to-day, Will," said the red-faced 
 squire presently, by way of lifting the talk into easier chan- 
 nels. " Old Luke Faweather met me on the road. He was 
 coming home from market on that fat, piebald horse of his, 
 and he pulled up. He'd ridden wide of Windyhough, it 
 seemed, and swore that he heard gunshots through the snow 
 rattle after rattle, he said, as if half the moorside were let- 
 ting off their guns." 
 
 " Oh, Luke ! " laughed Underwood, rousing himself from 
 his evil mood. " We know his market-days. He hears and 
 sees queer things at home-coming carries the bottle in his 
 head, as the saying goes." 
 
 "Aye, but he seemed his own man to-day. The horse 
 wasn't guiding him for once. His wife had been at him, 
 maybe. He said they were not firing fowling-pieces, but 
 something ' lustier in the bellows/ and I could make neither 
 head nor tail of it. Who at Windyhough would be playing 
 Guy Fawkes' foolery ? " 
 
 " Rupert, likely," growled Underwood, some old jealousy 
 aroused. " He was all for joining this precious Rising, till 
 he found they had no use for dreamers. He was left to play 
 nursery games with the women, and grew tired of it, and 
 rummaged through the house till he found the muskets stored 
 there." 
 
 "That's all very well, Underwood; but the lad would not 
 go firing into the snow just for the frolic of it." 
 
 " Wouldn't he ? I know Rupert. He could dream a whole 
 regiment of enemies into the courtyard there if his mind were 
 set that way, and go on firing at the ghosts." 
 
 " Well, he's past my understanding/' laughed the squire. 
 " Perhaps you're right." 
 
 " Oh, I can see him," Underwood went on, old antipathy
 
 THE BRUNT OF IT 297 
 
 gaining on him. " He's ambitious. He would like to be the 
 martyred Charles, and the Prince, and every cursed Stuart of 
 them all. It's laughable to think how much our scholar 
 dares in fancy." 
 
 A low growl went round the table, and Underwood knew 
 that he had gone too far. 
 
 " There'll be a duel in earnest soon," sputtered the red- 
 faced squire who loved his ease. " You were never one of 
 us, Will Underwood and you think we're birds of a feather 
 because we stayed at home with you; but I tell you plainly, 
 I'll listen to no slur on a Stuart." 
 
 " Oh, I spoke hastily." 
 
 " You did and you'll recant ! " 
 
 Underwood, tired of himself and all things, gathered some- 
 thing of his old, easy manner. He filled his glass afresh 
 and lifted it, and passed it with finished bravado over the jug 
 in front of him. " To the King across the water, gentle- 
 men ! " he said smoothly. 
 
 One of the company had gone to the window, and turned 
 now from looking out on the snow that never ceased. " All 
 this does not help us much," he grumbled. " We can talk and 
 talk, and drink pretty-boy toasts till we're under the table; 
 but what of to-morrow? There'll be nothing doing out of 
 doors." 
 
 " Wait," said Will Underwood. " When the snow's tired 
 of falling there'll be frost ; and the wild duck say, to-morrow 
 night will be coming over Priest's Tarn, up above Windy- 
 hough." 
 
 " Gad ! that is a happy notion, Will ! " assented the old 
 squire. " It's years since I had a shot at duck in the moon- 
 light and rare sport it is. Come, we've drunk to the Stuart, 
 and to every lady we could call to mind. Let's fill afresh, 
 and drink to the wild duck flying high." 
 
 Will was glad when the night's revelry ended and he found 
 himself alone in the dining-hall. He had drunk level with' 
 his friends, and the wine had left him untouched. He had
 
 298 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 diced with them, sung hunting-songs, and no spark of gaiety 
 had reached him. For, day by day since he lost Nance once 
 for all, he had been learning how deep his love had gone. 
 Looking back to-night, as he sat at the littered table, with its 
 empty bottles and its wine-stains, he could not understand how 
 he had come to be absent from the Loyal Meet. The meaner 
 side of him was hidden away. He was a man carrying a love 
 bigger than himself a love that would last him till he died; 
 and he had not known as much until these days of loss and 
 misery came. 
 
 At Windyhough the night wore slowly on. The besiegers, 
 since Goldstein crept into shelter, spent and disabled, were 
 less disposed than ever to risk attack before the daylight gave 
 them clearer knowledge of this house that seemed to have a 
 musket behind every window. The besieged listened to the 
 silence the silence of expectancy, which grows so deep and 
 burdensome that a man can almost hear it. From time to time 
 Rupert went the round of the corridor to see that his garri- 
 son was wakeful, and about the middle of the night he found 
 Ben Shackleton nodding at his post, and gripped him by the 
 shoulder. 
 
 " What's to do ? " growled the farmer, shaking his big bulk 
 like a dog whistled out of the water. " I was dreaming, mas- 
 ter, and as nigh heaven as a man ever gets i' this life. I'd 
 have swopped farming and wife and all for one more blessed 
 hour of it." 
 
 Rupert laughed. He was learning much of human to-and- 
 froing during these last days, and his first hot contempt of 
 this sleeping sentry yielded to a broader sympathy. " What 
 was your dream, Ben ? " he asked. 
 
 " Nay, naught so much only that I went to Lancashire 
 Market and had a pig to sell. She wasn't worth what I was 
 asking, not by th' half. And t'other chap he wrangled, and I 
 wrangled ; then, blamed if the fool didn't gi'e me what I asked, 
 and we were just wetting our whistles on th' bargain when 
 ye wakened me. It was a terrible good dream, master."
 
 THE BRUNT OF IT 299 
 
 "Well, stay awake to remember it, Ben. These folk out- 
 side are too quiet for my liking." 
 
 Ben's face was impassive as ever, but his glance measured 
 Rupert from heel to crown. He saw a slim-bodied man, 
 whose face was lit with a keen and happy fire; he saw, too, 
 that the anxiety which had dulled even Lady Royd's eyes 
 the toast of the county still, though the eyes were middle-aged 
 had only strengthened the light of authority and strength 
 which played about his face. Ben Shackleton was slow to 
 awake from his dream of pig-selling, but he was aware of 
 some settled gladness gladness that Sir Jasper had an heir at 
 last. 
 
 " Aye," he said, shaking himself afresh. " It's the honest 
 dog that barks the biting sort lie quiet. Well, then? 
 What's afoot, maister ? I'm here to take my orders, I reckon, 
 as Blacksmith Dan said when parson asked him if he'd have 
 Mary o' Ghyll to be his wedded wife." 
 
 The man's lazy tongue, his steadfastness, proved long ago, 
 brought an odd peace to Rupert. There were snow and a 
 bitter wind outside, and an enemy that only by convention 
 could be named civilised; but within there was a little garri- 
 son whose members, on the great, main issues, were not di- 
 vided. 
 
 " Yes. You are here to obey orders," said the other 
 sharply. " Keep awake at your post, Ben." 
 
 Shackleton saluted gravely. " I'll do it for ye, master, 
 though I had a busyish day before I rade hither-till, getting 
 ewes down from the high lands and sleep is sticking round 
 me fair like a bramble-thicket." 
 
 " Well, you've to win through the thicket, Ben," said the 
 master, and passed on. 
 
 He crossed to the north window, saw Nance standing there, 
 her trim head lifted to the moonlight as she peered over the 
 window-sill; and for a moment he forgot that they were in 
 the thick of the siege perilous. 
 
 " My dear," he said, with the tenderest simplicity,
 
 300 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 "you'd best get to bed. You have done enough for one 
 night." 
 
 She did not turn her head, and her voice was cold. " Have 
 you done enough, Rupert ? " 
 
 " Oh, I'm used to lack of sleep, and you are not." 
 
 She thought of the wakeful nights that had been torture 
 to her since Will Underwood returned. First love, built of 
 the stuff she had given him, dies hard; for it is the weak 
 things that find easy death-beds, because their grip on this 
 life and hereafter is languid and of slight account. 
 
 " I can handle a musket," she said, turning with sharp de- 
 fiance ; " and our defence is is not strong." 
 
 In the silence, across the dull moonlight of the corridor, 
 they measured each other with a long glance. And Nance, 
 in this mood of hers, was passionately at war with him. Un- 
 til to-day he had been her bond-slave, gay when she willed 
 it, foolish and out of heart when she flouted him. And now 
 her reign was ended. Rupert did not know it yet ; but Nance, 
 with the intuition that seems to do women little service, was 
 aware that she had lost for the time being a cavalier and 
 found instead a master. 
 
 " You can handle a musket," he said dryly. " Good-night, 
 Nance and remember to keep your head low above the sill. 
 The men outside can aim straight, too." 
 
 He went back to his post at the window overlooking the 
 main door. And he began to think of Nance, of the brown, 
 shapely head that had been magic to him the head that was 
 in danger of a bullet from one of Goldstein's men. Yester- 
 day he would have gone to her side, to ease the fierce pain for 
 her safety; his feet were willing, and he wondered that in- 
 stead he stood obstinately at his post, intent on musketry and 
 the welfare of his house. 
 
 Nance waited for his return. She had had him at call, until 
 peril came and the attack in front. She was sure that he 
 would come back, anxious as of old lest the world should 
 use her ill. But he did not come ; and she felt oddly desolate,
 
 THE BRUNT OF IT 301 
 
 because he was so resolute and far away from her. Then 
 she, too, turned to the moonlit window and to soldiery. 
 
 And the night crept on to dawn. From the fowl-yard at 
 the rear of the house a cock began to crow half-heartedly. 
 Nance, from her window, and the master of the house from 
 his, looked out on a grey whirl of snow, reddened by the fin- 
 gers of a frosty dawn. 
 
 And nothing happened, as the way had been these days at 
 Windyhough.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE NEED OF SLEEP 
 
 GOLDSTEIN, when he awoke the next morning to find himself 
 laid on the stable straw with a dull ache in his left thigh, re- 
 membered the business that had brought him here, and tried 
 to rise. He found himself sick and useless, and, getting to 
 his feet by sheer hardihood, fell back again with a black mist 
 about his eyes. Little by little he began to accept the situa- 
 tion as it stood, and he waited till his head was fairly clear 
 again. He did not propose, so long as he had breath, to 
 abandon his project of securing the blood-money that would 
 secure him a life of ease in the Fatherland; and his troopers, 
 when he gave his commands for the day with brisk precision, 
 liked him better, seeing his pluck, than they had done since 
 the beginning of this ill-starred errand. He reminded them, 
 moreover, of their slain, lying here and there about the court- 
 yard ; and revenge is a fire that kindles men's courage and 
 hard obstinacy. 
 
 A little while later, as Rupert peered through the dawn- 
 red snow of the courtyard, he heard a gruff voice from below. 
 It was the sergeant's who was Goldstein's deputy. 
 
 " I want to come within gunshot of your window," he said. 
 
 " Every man to his taste," laughed Rupert, glad of any 
 respite from his vigil. " If you need lead, I can entertain 
 you." 
 
 " Under truce." 
 
 " There can be no truce. I hold my house for the King, 
 and mean to keep it." 
 
 " But listen. Give us the Pretender we know as well as 
 you do that he's hiding here and the rest of you can pass 
 out in safety." 
 
 309
 
 THE NEED OF SLEEP 303 
 
 "The Prince is here you think? Why, then, we guard 
 him, sir what else is possible ? " 
 
 "You'll not give five minutes' truce? Captain Goldstein 
 is wounded " 
 
 " I'm devilish glad to hear it," said Rupert, with the gaiety 
 that would not be denied." 
 
 " He sends me to talk over this little matter of the siege." 
 
 "Then step out into the open under truce and let me 
 see your face." 
 
 Some quality of honour in Rupert's voice reached the ser- 
 geant. As he put it to himself, he knew the man for a 
 fool who kept his word. The snow had all but ceased for a 
 while, and in the keen dawnlight Goldstein's man looked up 
 and saw Rupert's grave, clean-cut face at the window over- 
 head. 
 
 " Your garrison is weak. We know it," said the sergeant. 
 
 " You lie. Our garrison is strong," Rupert answered 
 bluntly. 
 
 "How strong?" put in the other, trying clumsily to catch 
 him unawares. 
 
 " Force your way in and learn." 
 
 " But surely we can drive a bargain ? There's a price on 
 the Pretender's head a trifle of thirty thousand pounds 
 and you can share it with us, if you will." 
 
 A sudden loathing ;came to Rupert as he listened to the 
 man's thick, guttural persuasiveness. These hired soldiery 
 of the enemy seemed to have only two views of a man that 
 he could be bullied or be bought. 
 
 " Go back to Captain Goldstein," he said. " Tell him that 
 we're strong to stand a siege, and that we are gentlemen of 
 Lancashire who hold the house." 
 
 The sergeant glanced narrowly at the face above, and a sus- 
 picion took sudden hold of him. This man with the disdain- 
 ful, easy air might be the Prince himself. He remembered 
 the condition " dead or alive " attached to the blood-money, 
 lifted his carbine, and fired point blank. The ball went wide
 
 304 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 a little ; but for a moment Rupert thought that he was hit, as 
 the splintered masonry cut across his forehead. Then he 
 stooped, picked up a musket, and took flying aim at the man 
 below without avail, as he thought. It would have cheered 
 him to see the sergeant limp round the corner of the house 
 toward the stables. 
 
 " Well ? " asked Goldstein, cursing the pain that touched 
 him as he moved quickly round. " Did the young rebel come 
 to terms?" 
 
 " He came to the butt-end of a musket against his shoulder, 
 and the bullet grazed my knee. I shall limp for days to 
 come." 
 
 " Then limp, you fool ! What is a grazed knee with the 
 Pretender indoors yonder " 
 
 " I've seen the Pretender," said the other, getting out his 
 pipe and filling it. " The young rebel, as you call him the 
 man who pretends to be Sir Jasper's son is Charlie Stuart. 
 Face, and big, careless air, and belief that truce means truce 
 in wartime he's Charlie to the life, the Charlie who got as 
 far as Derby and then, with all before him, went back again." 
 
 Goldstein, with nothing to do except nurse his wound, had 
 been thinking much the same, had been reckoning up, too, 
 the chances of this enterprise. 
 
 " They're weak in numbers," he said by and by. 
 
 " I'm not so sure. They're quick enough to fire from all 
 four sides of the house." 
 
 " Yes, but the Stuart whelp would have led a sortie before 
 this if they'd been strong." 
 
 " True," growled the sergeant, old at campaigning. " How 
 long shall we give them, Captain ? " 
 
 " A day or two. See to the sentries, keep out of fire, and 
 we'll see what the waiting-time will do for them. It's a devil's 
 game, waiting for action that never comes we learned that, 
 Randolph, in the old Flanders days." 
 
 "Aye, we learned fear," said the sergeant, harking back 
 to some lonely enterprises that he had shared with Goldstein.
 
 THE NEED OF SLEEP 305 
 
 Within-doors Rupert kept his post. The brief excitement 
 of his skirmish with the sergeant was gone. His fancy, 
 always active, was racing now. He pictured, with a minute- 
 ness painful in its vividness, the shrift his women-folk would 
 meet at the hands of the enemy without. Men who could 
 not honour a truce of their own asking differed little from the 
 brutes. And he was almost single-handed here, the master 
 of a garrison so small that it was laughable. 
 
 The snow, after an hour or so, began to fall again. And 
 round about the house there was a silence that could be felt 
 Those who have played sentry, hoping constantly for the re- 
 lief of action, know the stealthy, evil fears that creep into a 
 man's mind, know the crude, imminent temptation that sleep 
 offers them, know the persuasive devil at their elbow who 
 asks them why they take this trouble for a cause lost already. 
 
 All that day there was silence and the falling snow. And 
 all night there was silence, broken only by a little wind that 
 sobbed about the house ; and Goldstein and the sergeant, nurs- 
 ing their wounds in the stable, could have told Rupert every 
 symptom of the malady from which he suffered. They had 
 gone through it years ago. 
 
 Lady Royd, for her part, showed bright against the dull 
 Canvas of the siege. She discovered, in her own haphazard 
 way, that years of communion with Sir Jasper had taught her 
 courage when the pinch of danger came. She still kept her 
 pampered spaniel under her arm ; but, in between the sleep she 
 snatched fitfully, she moved about the house as the mistress 
 and great lady. She kept up the flagging spirits of the 
 women-servants, saw that the men had food and wine to keep 
 their strength alive. And, now and then, she stole into the 
 room overlooking the main door, and stood watching her son 
 bone of her bone keep steady at his post. And after- 
 wards she would withdraw, a happiness like starshine going 
 with her because the heir, despite her weak handling of his 
 destiny, was after all a man. 
 
 The next day broke with keen frost and a red sun that
 
 306 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 forced its way through the last cloudbanks of the snow. And 
 the sergeant asked Goldstein for his orders. 
 
 " Let 'em wait," grinned Goldstein. " We know the game, 
 Randolph, eh? Let 'em wait till nightfall. Change sentries 
 every two hours. It's devilish cold, and we must humour our 
 ill-licked cubs. And, Randolph " 
 
 "Yes, Captain?" 
 
 " Remember, thirty thousand pounds are worth the waiting 
 for." 
 
 The master of Windyhough still kept his post; but, as the 
 day wore on, he knew that he was facing, disastrous odds. 
 Across his eyes sleep began to weave slim and filmy cobwebs. 
 He brushed them savagely away ; but a moment later the hid- 
 den enemy was once again at work. It was a warfare as 
 stealthy as this fight between the garrison, sheltered by stout 
 walls, and the besiegers, who could not gauge the strength 
 of those within. 
 
 For his health's sake, the master went the round of the 
 house, found Ben Shackleton frankly asleep at the west win- 
 dow, and Simon Foster nodding, half-befogged with weari- 
 ness. He roused them not gently and the struggle to stir 
 them into watchfulness cleared all the cobwebs from his 
 eyes. 
 
 He went back to his post by way of the north window; 
 and here again he found his sentry fast asleep. Nance was 
 sitting on the chair that Lady Royd had brought her, earlier 
 in the day. Her brown hair was loosened in a cloud, and her 
 face was hidden in her two capable, small hands. She had 
 been a sentry to him no more, no less, since the fiercest of 
 this siege commanded all his ruggedness and strength; but 
 he had no wish to rouse her now. 
 
 The waning light showed him the bowed figure, the tired- 
 ness that had conquered her persistent courage. He drew 
 nearer, touched her bowed head with some stifling war of 
 passion against reverence. All the muddled way of his love 
 for her the love that had not dared, because he doubted his
 
 THE NEED OF SLEEP 307 
 
 own strength to claim her was swept aside. At the heart 
 of him the big, eager heart that had found no room till now 
 he knew himself a man. With the strength of his manhood 
 he needed her, here in the midst of the siege perilous, needed 
 to tell her of his love. 
 
 He moved forward, checked himself, watched the figure 
 that was bent by a vigil too burdensome and long-protracted. 
 And the wildness left him. The faith that had grown with 
 his growing the faith that had shown signs, a little while 
 ago, of wear and tear laid a cool, persuasive hand on him. 
 Through the storm and trouble of this love for Nance he saw 
 that she was weak, and wearied-out, and needing sleep. And 
 at such times to the stalwart men a little light, reflected, may 
 be, from the Madonna's face, shows like a shrouded star 
 about all suffering women. 
 
 Rupert was finding the big love, and the lasting, here in 
 the silence that tested faith and courage more than any fury 
 of attack and open peril. He went back to his window. And 
 again sleep tried to spin her cobwebs round his eyes; but her 
 blandishments were idle. 
 
 The snow, about three of the afternoon, ceased falling, and 
 across the moors that guarded Windyhough a wild splendour 
 lit the hills. The clouds were scattered, till the last of them 
 trailed over Lone Man's Hill in smoky mist. The sun lay 
 red and fiery on the western spurs, and from the east the 
 young moon rose, her face clean-washed and radiant. Frost 
 settled keen and hard about the land, and all the white empti- 
 ness of snow grew full of sparkling life, as if some fairy had 
 gone sowing diamonds broadcast. 
 
 At Will Underwood's house, five miles away across the 
 heath, the feckless men who had shirked the Rising, took 
 heart again. The duck-shooting that Will had promised them 
 had miscarried yesterday, because the snow declined to hu- 
 mour them; but there would be sport to-night. Civil war, 
 arising suddenly, brings always strange medleys, and it seemed 
 unbelievable that these gentry could be here, quietly discuss-
 
 308 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 ing the prospects of their moonlight shooting, while the house 
 that was nearest neighbour to Underwood was standing, un- 
 known to them, a siege against long odds. For Windyhough 
 lay isolated, high up the moors that were untra veiled by 
 chance wayfarers during this rough weather; it was circled 
 by rolling hills that caught the crack of muskets, and played 
 with the uproar, passing it on from spur to spur, until it 
 reached the outer world as a dull, muffled sound that had no 
 meaning to the sharpest ears. 
 
 Rupert did not ask aid, would have resented any. And, as 
 the day wore on to seven o'clock ticked out solemnly by the 
 great clock in the hall he was fighting, with surprising gaiety 
 and patience, the battle against silence and the foe without. 
 His eyes were not misty now with sleep. His mind was clear, 
 unhurried, fixed on a single purpose ; and, when now and then 
 he made his round of the house, his body seemed light and 
 supple in the going, as if he trod on air. He was possessed, 
 indeed, by that dangerous, keen strength known to runners 
 and night-riders as second wind. 
 
 One of Goldstein's sentries, patrolling the front of the 
 house, chose this moment for a fool's display of confidence. 
 The house was so silent, the strain on the endurance of the 
 garrison so heavy, that he thought them all asleep within 
 doors, and came out into the open to reconnoitre. 
 
 Rupert saw him creep, a dark splash against the frosty 
 snow, and levelled his musket sharply. In this mood of clear 
 vision and clear purpose, he could not have missed his aim ; 
 and the sentry dropped, as a bullock does when the pole-axe 
 strikes his forehead. 
 
 And then there was a sound of hurried feet across the yard, 
 and another sentry came to see what was in the doing. And a 
 second musket-shot ran out 
 
 " What is it, Rupert ? " came a low, troubled voice from 
 the doorway. 
 
 He turned and saw Nance standing there, roused by the 
 shots, but still only half awake. Not again, perhaps, would
 
 THE NEED OF SLEEP 309 
 
 he taste the exquisite, unheeding joy, the sense of self-com- 
 mand, that held him now. 
 
 " There are two less, my dear," he said. 
 
 She had been dreaming of old days and new, during the 
 vigil at the north window that had proved too long for her; 
 and she spoke as a child does, half between sleep and wak- 
 ing. 
 
 " I thought you came to me, Rupert, and you held me close, 
 because there was danger, and you told me you were proved 
 at long last. I always trusted you to show them how big a 
 Stuart heart you had." 
 
 The master glanced at her. She was good to see, with the 
 brown, disordered hair that clouded a face soft with sleep 
 and tenderness. And yet he was impatient, as he touched 
 her hand, led her back to her seat under the north window, 
 watched her yield again to the sleep that would not be de- 
 nied. Then he went to his post; and all the new-found pas- 
 sion in him, all his zest in life, were centred on the strip of 
 snowy courtyard that lay about the great main door. He was 
 captain of this enterprise, and till the siege was raised he 
 asked no easier road of blandishment. 
 
 For the next hour there was quiet, except that Martha, 
 the dairymaid, came upstairs with heavy tread; and, when 
 the master went out to learn what was in the doing, he found 
 her setting down a steaming dish on Simon Foster's knees. 
 
 " You were always one for your victuals," she was saying 
 tenderly. 
 
 "Aye," assented Simon cheerily. "An empty sack never 
 stands up, they say ; and who am I to deny it ? You've a 
 knowledgable way of handling a man, Martha." 
 
 "Well, you're all I have, Simon." 
 
 " And that willun't be much to boast of, if this plaguy quiet 
 goes on much longer. I'm fair moiled wi' weariness, my 
 lass." 
 
 Rupert saw the man, who should have learned riper wis- 
 dom by this time, bring down Martha's head to the level of
 
 310 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 his own ; and he went back to his window, filled with a deep, 
 friendly merriment. And still he trod on air, not knowing 
 how near he lay to the sleep that would not be denied. 
 
 And by and by, as he looked out in constant hope that 
 another figure would come stealing into the moonlit open, he 
 heard his mother's spaniel barking from the far side of the 
 house. The dog had heard, though the master's duller ears 
 could not, the voices raised in sharp discussion in the stable- 
 yard. News had been brought to Goldstein that the house 
 was resolute and wide-awake, if two dead men from among 
 his lessening band were proof enough; and the pain of his 
 wound roughened his impatience; and he gave certain orders 
 that were to the liking of his troopers, chilled by harsh 
 weather and inaction. 
 
 A little later Rupert heard a woman's step again along the 
 corridor and the pampered crying of a dog. Lady Royd, all 
 in her night gear, with a wrap thrown loosely over it, came 
 into the moonlight of the room, carrying the spaniel under- 
 arm. 
 
 " Rupert, my little dog is restless." 
 
 " Yes, mother ? It's an old habit with him. You feed 
 him in season and out. No wonder he has nightmares." 
 
 " You never liked him, I know," she complained. 
 
 He was gentle with her petulance. Her face was stained 
 with weariness and fear; she needed him. On all hands he 
 was needed these last days ; and the strength of him went out, 
 buoyantly, to each new call made on him. 
 
 " I must like him for your sake, mother," he answered 
 lightly. 
 
 The spaniel slipped suddenly from Lady Royd's grasp, ran 
 barking to the window, and jumped on to the sill. All seemed 
 quiet without, but the dog barked furiously, and would not be 
 quieted. 
 
 Then from the courtyard a musket cracked. The bullet 
 missed the spaniel, went droning through the room, and
 
 THE NEED OF SLEEP 311 
 
 touched Lady Royd's cheek in passing. She did not heed, 
 but ran and clutched her dog. 
 
 " My little man ! " she murmured, with tender foolery. 
 "You're not hurt? The wicked men, to shoot at a wee 
 doggie " 
 
 " He's not hurt," said Rupert sharply ; " but you are, 
 mother." 
 
 She touched her cheek, looked at the crimson on her fin- 
 ger. And she was the great lady once again. " Rupert, a 
 wasp has stung me," she said, in her dainty, well-bred voice 
 " a rebel wasp. You will destroy the hive." 
 
 And the master laughed, seeing she was little hurt. This 
 mother of his was a Royd among them, after all. She had 
 not thought of danger as she snatched her spaniel from the 
 window, had not winced when the bullet seared her cheek. 
 In the quiet, royal way, she gave her quarrel into his hands 
 and trusted him to take it up. 
 
 "What's agate, master?" asked Simon Foster, coming in 
 to learn the meaning of the musket-shot. 
 
 " I can't tell you, Simon. All was quiet outside " 
 
 " Not if the dog heard something," said the other shrewdly. 
 " He's sharper ears than you or me." 
 
 He lifted his head cautiously above the sill and listened. 
 There was silence absolute in the courtyard, and within doors 
 only the tick-tack of the eight-day clock in the hall, the whim- 
 pering of the spaniel. Whatever Goldstein's project had 
 been, it was delayed by the dog's unexpected challenge. 
 
 Simon scented danger on this side of the house, however, 
 and would not get back to his post. And a half-hour later 
 his patience was rewarded. 
 
 " I guess what they're at," he said, turning with a slow 
 grin. " My lady meaning no disrespect you'd best keep 
 your lile dog's tongue still, or he'll spoil our sport." 
 
 Lady Royd was learning obedience these days. " Are they 
 your orders, Rupert ? " she said submissively.
 
 312 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " Yes, mother, yes. Get back to your warm room. You'll 
 take a chill out here." 
 
 She turned at the door, glanced at him with a whimsical, 
 queer air of raillery. " You men are built after the one pat- 
 tern. You need us women till there's something worth while 
 in the doing, and then why, then, my dear, you send us 
 straight to bed, like naughty children." 
 
 " We keep you out of harm's way, mother. Good-night," 
 said Rupert gravely. " What do you hear, Simon ? " he 
 asked the moment she was gone. 
 
 " Men creeping through the snow ; I can hear their feet 
 scrunching over the frozen crust; and they're dragging 
 branches after them. I was a fool not to listen to the women- 
 folk when they asked me to get in yond cartload of fuel I 
 left just outside the gate." 
 
 The master understood at last. " They'll be firing the main 
 door?" 
 
 " Just that. And there's straw in plenty, and the stack o' 
 bracken we got in last autumn, and a barrel of tar left over 
 from the spring. They've got it all ready to their hands, 
 master." 
 
 " I'm glad of it," said Rupert, with the keen, unerring fore- 
 sight bred of the vigil he had kept. 
 
 " Oh? And for why, if a plain body might ask?" 
 
 " Because another night of this would find us fast asleep, 
 Simon. I have had to wake you once or twice already, and 
 I've not slept since Tuesday." 
 
 " I can't rightly follow you," said Foster, whose wits 
 jogged slowly. 
 
 " Let them fire the door. It's our one chance. We can 
 keep awake, say, for two hours longer, and the fight will 
 help us." 
 
 So then Simon, who thought himself old to warfare, yielded 
 to a grudging admiration of this youngster who was fighting 
 his first battle. " Who taught ye this ? " he asked, with sim- 
 ple curiosity.
 
 THE NEED OF SLEEP 313 
 
 " The years behind," snapped Rupert. 
 
 They listened to the stealthy goings and comings out of 
 doors. Between the house-wall and the line of fire from 
 Rupert's window there was a clear five yards of sanctuary; 
 and along this track of safety they could hear Goldstein's men 
 scrunch to and fro, carrying fuel of all kinds to the sturdy 
 main door that had barred their progress until now. And 
 once they heard a gruff command from the sergeant who led 
 this enterprise. 
 
 " Stir yourselves, fools ! " The rough German tongue 
 sounded muffled from below. " We'll catch 'em asleep ; and 
 there's thirty thousand pounds indoors, and wine, and com- 
 fort ; stir yourselves, my lads ! " 
 
 Rupert did not understand the language of these hired sol- 
 diers, but the rough edge of a man's voice carries meaning, 
 whatever tongue he speaks. 
 
 " There's no time to waste, Simon. We must get all our 
 muskets down into the hall." 
 
 He crossed the landing, told Ben Shackleton what was in 
 the doing, and the three of them made speed with carrying 
 the muskets down. The two older men borrowed something 
 of the master's eagerness and fire, forgetting that they were 
 half dead for lack of sleep sleep, which is more vital to a 
 man than food, or drink, or happiness. 
 
 " They'll fire the door, and come through the gap," said 
 Rupert, as if he spoke of trifles. " I take this wall ; you stand 
 close against the other." 
 
 " I catch your drift, master," said Simon, with a slow grip 
 of understanding. " We shall be i' the dark, and they'll be 
 red-litten by a bonfire o' their own making. And they'll have 
 one shot apiece to fire, but we'll have six. You frame not so 
 varry ill, seeing how young you are." 
 
 The master, by the light of a solitary candle that stood in 
 a sconce overhead, saw to the priming of his muskets, laid 
 them in an orderly row along the floor, and watched his men 
 while they did the like. And then he bent an ear toward the
 
 314 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 main door. Its thickness, and the settle up-ended against it, 
 let no sound come through, save now and then a dulled oath 
 or quick command. And again there was a waiting-time, one 
 of many that had come to Windyhough. 
 
 Rupert, sure that he would not be needed for a while, ran 
 up the stairs and found Nance still sleeping like a child at 
 her post, and roused her gently. 
 
 "Are you hurt?" she asked, scarce awake from a dream 
 of onset and of fury that had pictured Rupert in the fore- 
 front of the battle. 
 
 And then he told her quickly, because this was time stolen 
 from his work downstairs that she must get Lady Royd into 
 the kitchen, must wait there with the women-servants till they 
 knew how the night's battle went. If the house were taken, 
 they were to escape by the kitchen door, find their way to the 
 disused farmstead in the hollow, and hide there till Gold- 
 stein's men had ridden off. 
 
 " But there are only three of you," said Nance, alert once 
 more. "You let me keep a window for you, Rupert are 
 you afraid I shall go to sleep again if I join your company 
 downstairs ? " 
 
 " I command here," he said briefly, " and you obey." 
 
 In the thickest tumult women have odd methods of their 
 own. " Obey ? I never liked the word. I come with you 
 where the gunshots are." 
 
 " No," said Rupert 
 
 And, " Yes," she said, an open quarrel in her glance. 
 
 So then the master, by sheer, blundering honesty, found 
 the right way with her. " Nance, you'll weaken me if you 
 come down. Nothing that can happen to me nothing can 
 hurt me as as what would chance if Goldstein's brutes got 
 through us." 
 
 In the hurry and suspense, Nance found leisure long al- 
 most as eternity to see Rupert as he was. This was his 
 courage, this was his love for her a love asking nothing, ex- 
 cept to stand between herself and danger.
 
 THE NEED OF SLEEP 315 
 
 " My dear," she said, " I think I shall obey." 
 
 And the master, greatly daring, lifted her hand, and 
 touched it with his lips. " God bless you, Nance ! " he said, 
 as if he toasted royalty. 
 
 He went down the stair, took his place at the wall, and 
 stood nursing a musket in his hands. 
 
 "They're long in getting their durned fire alight," said 
 Ben Shackleton, with a nonchalance bred of great excite- 
 ment. 
 
 Simon Foster's unrest took another form of outlet. He 
 crossed to the master's side of the hall, reached up and blew 
 the candle out. " Best take no risks," he grumbled. " You 
 were always a bit unpractical, master, though I say it to your 
 face." 
 
 Two hours or so before, Will Underwood had led his com- 
 pany of good livers and poor loyalists across the frozen snow 
 to the roomy stretch of water that was known as Priest's 
 Tarn. It was a white and austere land they crossed league 
 after league of shrouded, rolling heath that stretched to the 
 still, frozen skies. The moon, hard and clear-cut, seemed 
 only to increase the savage desolation by interpreting its 
 nakedness. 
 
 The company were not burdened by the awe and stillness 
 of the night. They had dined well; there was prospect of 
 good sport; the going underfoot was crisp and pleasant. It 
 was only when they reached the Tarn, and Will Underwood 
 looked down at the gables of Windyhough, snowy in the 
 moonlight a quarter of a mile below, that some keenness of 
 regret took hold of him. Nance was under the roof yonder; 
 and he loved her with a passion that had been strengthened, 
 cleansed of much dross, since she put shame on him ; and yet 
 he was forbidden to go down and ask how she was faring. 
 Even his hardihood could not face a second time the con- 
 tempt that had given him a kerchief, because he might need 
 a flag of truce. 
 
 " Here's Will all in a dream, with his eyes on Windyhough/'
 
 S16 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 laughed the jolly, red-faced squire. " Well, well ! We all 
 know Nance Demaine is a bonnie lass." 
 
 Underwood turned sharply, too sick at heart to care how 
 openly he showed his feelings. " We'll not discuss Miss De- 
 maine, sir ; our record is not clean enough." 
 
 The squire was ruffled by the taunt, because he, too, was 
 uneasy touching this stay-at-home policy that once had 
 seemed so prudent. " The man's in love," he said, with bois- 
 terous raillery. " Here's Lancashire packed thick with pretty 
 women, and he thinks there's only one swan in the county. 
 Will, you must let me laugh. To be young and sick with 
 love it's a fine, silly business. And little Nance has 
 frowned, has she, when we thought you the prime favour- 
 ite?" 
 
 " If you want a duel," said Underwood suddenly, " you 
 can have it. The moon's light is good enough." 
 
 " We have no swords." 
 
 " No, but we have our fowling-pieces say, at twenty paces. 
 The light is good enough, I tell you." 
 
 There were seven in the party, and five of them at least 
 were not disposed to miss their duck-shooting because two of 
 their number chose to pick a quarrel. And, somehow, by 
 ridicule, persuasion, threats of interference, they staved off 
 the duel. And Will Underwood turned his back on Windy- 
 hough, regained a little of his old, easy self, and settled to 
 the night's business. 
 
 They put on the linen coats they had brought with them, 
 each laughing as he watched his neighbour struggle with 
 sleeves too narrow to go easily over their thick wearing-gear, 
 and took their stations round the Tarn. They stood there 
 silently, and waited ; and they were white against white snow, 
 so that even the keen-eyed duck could see nothing in this 
 waste of silence except the glinting gun-barrels. 
 
 They waited for it might be half an hour, till the cold be- 
 gan to nip them. The black waters of the Tarn showed in 
 eerie contrast to the never-ending white that hemmed its bor-
 
 THE NEED OF SLEEP SI? 
 
 ders. And then the wild-duck began to come, some flying 
 low, some swinging high against the moon and starry sky. 
 And one and all of the seven ghostly sportsmen forgot they 
 were due with Prince Charles Edward on the road of hon- 
 our; for there is a wild, absorbing glee about this moortop 
 sport that cancels men's regrets and shame. 
 
 Will Underwood shot well to-night. He picked the highest 
 birds, from sheer zest in his marksmanship; and he saw the 
 feathers, time after time, fluff up against the moonlight, 
 watched his bird come down with that quick, slanting drop 
 which is the curve of beauty. 
 
 Then there was another waiting-time. It was easy to 
 gather their birds, for they showed plain against the snow, 
 and the green feathers of the drakes glanced in the moon- 
 light with a strange, other-worldly sheen. 
 
 " A night worth living for, Will," said the red-faced squire, 
 as he went again to his station. 
 
 The duck were long in coming, and while they waited two 
 musket-shots rang out from the dingle that sheltered Windy- 
 hough below. The uproar was so loud on the still air, so 
 unexpected, that the men forgot the need of silence, and 
 drew together, and asked each other sharply what it meant. 
 
 " Rupert the cavalier aiming at the moon," snapped Un- 
 derwood. " He always did. He will wake his lady mother's 
 spaniel." 
 
 No other shot sounded from below, and they returned at 
 last to their waiting for the duck to come over. But Will 
 Underwood kept his eyes steadily on the house below, and 
 wondered, with an unrest that gained strength every moment, 
 if all were well with Nance. He was roused by a sharp call 
 from the squire. 
 
 " Your bird, Will ! " 
 
 Will glanced up by instinct, saw a drake winging big and 
 high overhead, and brought him down. Then he looked 
 across at Windyhough again, and saw a flicker of crimson 
 shoot up against the leafless tree that guarded it The flicker
 
 SI 8 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 grew to a ruddy, pulsing shaft of flame till the roof-snow 
 took on a rose-colour. 
 
 Underwood, ruffler, stay-at-home, and man of prudence, 
 felt thanksgiving stir about his heart. There was danger 
 threatening Windyhough; and Nance was there, and his sin- 
 gle thought was for her safety. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, with a quiet gravity, " the duck 
 must wait We're needed there at Windyhough."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE PLEASANT FURY 
 
 AT Windyhough there was an end of watching. Sleep had 
 been the one traitor within-doors, and Goldstein's men, by fir- 
 ing the main door, had killed their comrade in the garrison. 
 Rupert, fingering one of his six muskets, was tasting the 
 keenest happiness that had come to him as yet. Ben Shackle- 
 ton, as he watched the timbers of the doorway flame and glow, 
 forgot that he had a farm, a wife, and twenty head of cattle 
 needing him. And Simon Foster, for his part, remembered 
 the '15, the slow years afterwards, and knew that it was good 
 to be alive at last. 
 
 They watched the fire eat at the woodwork, watched the 
 shifting play of colour; and, apart from the roar of the 
 flames, the cracking of strained timbers, there was silence on 
 each side of the crumbling barricades. Then suddenly the 
 whole middle of the door fell inward, and in the pulsing light 
 outside Rupert saw a press of men. 
 
 And the battle at the main door here was guided with wise 
 generalship, as it had been at the outer gate some days ago. 
 
 " Fire ! " said the master sharply. 
 
 His own musket was the first to answer the command, then 
 Shackleton's, and afterwards Simon Foster's. In the red 
 light, and at such close quarters, they could not miss their 
 aim, and three of Goldstein's company dropped headlong into 
 the flaming gap, hindering those behind them. 
 
 " Fire ! " said the master again, with quick precision. 
 
 And then the attacking company withdrew a while, after 
 sending a hurried, useless volley through the hall. They had 
 been prepared for a fight within-doors against a garrison of 
 
 319
 
 320 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 unknown strength, but not for this welcome on the threshold. 
 
 The sergeant, hard-bitten and old to campaigning, was dis- 
 mayed for a moment as he looked at his lessened company. 
 When they came first to Windyhough this band of Gold- 
 stein's had numbered one-and-twenty. Now, at the end of 
 two days, he could count only ten; the rest were either killed 
 or laid aside beyond present hope of action. It was no pleas- 
 ant beginning for an assault upon the darkness that lay in- 
 side the burning woodwork of the door. 
 
 Then he got himself in hand again. Whatever the un- 
 known odds against them, their one chance was to go for- 
 ward, now the door was down. 
 
 " We've tasted hell before," he growled. " Steady, you 
 fools! You're not frightened of the dark." 
 
 He sprang forward, and at the moment the last timbers of 
 the doorway fell and flamed on the threshold, lighting up the 
 whole width of the hall. He saw Simon Foster standing by 
 the wall and levelling his musket, and fired sharply and hit 
 him through the ribs. And after that was Bedlam, confused 
 and maniacal and full of oaths ; but to Rupert the glamour of 
 his life had dawned in earnest. 
 
 He fired into the incoming company, and so did Ben 
 Shackleton; and then they retreated to the stairfoot, carry- 
 ing a musket apiece. 
 
 There were eight left now of Goldstein's men, and they 
 rushed in with such fury that they jostled one another, hin- 
 dering their aim. Eight shots spat viciously at the garrison 
 of two, and Shackleton's right arm was hit by a bullet that 
 glanced wide from the masonry behind him. He clubbed his 
 musket with the left hand and brought it down on the head 
 of the man nearest to him, and then he was borne down by 
 numbers. 
 
 Rupert, not for the first time in his life, was alone against 
 long odds. But to-night he was master of his house, mas- 
 ter of the clean, eager soul that had waited for this battle. 
 From the kitchen, where he had bidden his women- folk take
 
 THE PLEASANT FURY 321 
 
 shelter, he heard Lady Royd's spaniel yapping furiously; and 
 he smiled, because old memories were stirred. 
 
 He went up five steps of the stairway, singled out the ser- 
 geant, because he was the bulkiest of the seven left, and fired 
 point-blank at him. After that there was no leisure for any 
 one of them to reload; it was simply Rupert on the narrow 
 stairway, swinging his musket lightly, against six maddened 
 troopers who could only come up one by one. 
 
 It was Nance who intervened disastrously. She did not 
 know how could she that the master, at the end of a dis- 
 maying, harassed vigil, was stronger than the six who met 
 him. They were dulled to the glory of assault, but he was 
 gathering up the dreams of the long, unproven years, was 
 fighting his first battle, was armoured by a faith more keen 
 and vivid than this world's weaknesses could touch. 
 
 Nance, sick to know how it was faring with the master, 
 weary of the yapping spaniel and the old housekeeper's com- ' 
 plaint that she wished to die decently in her bed, out of eye- 
 shot of rude men Nance crept up the back stair, and took a 
 musket from the ledge of the north window she had guarded. 
 Then she went down again, crossed the passage that led to 
 the main hall, halted a moment as she saw Rupert on the stair, 
 the six men below all lit by the unearthly, crimson flare of 
 burning woodwork and lifted her musket with trim pre- 
 cision. 
 
 She had lessened the odds by one; but Rupert, glancing 
 down to see who had fired so unexpectedly, saw Nance stand- 
 ing at the rear of this battle which was his. And his weak- 
 ness took him unawares. He had been dominant and gay, 
 because he carried his life lightly ; but now there was Nance's 
 honour. One of the five left came up at him, and Rupert's 
 aim was true with the butt-end of his musket; but he was 
 not fighting now with a single purpose, and he knew it. And 
 sleep, kept at bay through every minute of every hour that 
 had struck since Goldstein's men came first, began to claim its 
 toll.
 
 322 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 He could not hold the stair, sleep whispered at his ear. 
 And he rallied bravely, afraid for the first time because of 
 Nance. If he should fail to keep the stair? A sharp, un- 
 reasoning anger seized him. Why was she here? Women 
 were good to send men into battle, to bind their wounds up 
 afterwards, but in the hot, keen thick of it they had no place. 
 Do as he would, his glance kept seeking the little figure that 
 stood on the edge of the fire-glow, and the men pressing up 
 were quick to see the change in him. 
 
 With a last, hard effort he shut down all thought of Nance. 
 The troopers he had stunned lay sprawling down the stair, 
 hindering the men behind. For a moment there was respite, 
 and in that moment sleep thickened round the master's eye- 
 lids. The confidence, the sense of treading air, borrowed at 
 usury from his strength, were fast deserting him. He had 
 victory full in sight on this narrow stair, and, like his Prince, 
 he felt it slip past him out of reach, for no cause that seemed 
 logical. 
 
 Nance did not guess the share she had had in this. She 
 saw only that Rupert stooped suddenly, as if in mortal sick- 
 ness, then squared his shoulders saw that one of the men at 
 the stairfoot was reloading his musket with deft haste, and 
 shut her eyes. For she, too, was weak from lack of sleep. 
 
 Will Underwood, meanwhile, was running down the moor, 
 the red-faced squire and the other sporting recusants behind 
 him. There was no doubt now that Windyhough was in ur- 
 gent peril. They could see the flaming doorway, could smell 
 the scudding reek of smoke that came up-wind. 
 
 " You're up to the neck in love," protested the squire, try- 
 ing to keep pace with Will. " There's naught else gives such 
 wind to a man's feet." 
 
 A sharp noise of musketry answered him from below, and 
 Will ran ever a little faster. The squire's gibe did not trou- 
 ble him. The whole past life of him the squalor of his 
 youth, the sterile abnegation of the Sabbaths spent at Rig-
 
 THE PLEASANT FURY 323 
 
 stones Chapel, the gradual change to ease and popularity 
 among big-hearted gentry passed by him like a fast-moving 
 company of ghosts. And then another phantom stole, with 
 faltering steps and shrouded head, across this vision he was 
 borrowing from another world. He saw his cowardice, lean, 
 shrivelled, stooping the cowardice that had been born of 
 ease and frank self-seeking. He had pledged faith that he 
 would follow the Stuart when need asked ; and he had broken 
 troth, because he yearned to keep his house and lands, be- 
 cause he had planned to give a ball at Christmas that should 
 set all Lancashire talking of its pomp. 
 
 God was very kind to-night to Wild Will. The run was 
 short and swift to Windyhough, as time is reckoned ; but dur- 
 ing the scamper over broken ground he found that leisure of 
 the soul which is cradled in eternity. He won free of his 
 past. He knew only that the squire had spoken a true word 
 in jest. 
 
 He was deep in love. All the ache and trouble of his need 
 for Nance were wiped clean away. She was in danger, and 
 he was running to her aid; and he understood, with a clean 
 and happy sense of well-being, the way of his Catholic friends 
 when they loved a woman. Until now it had been a riddle to 
 him, the quality of this regard. He had seen them love as 
 full-blooded men do with storm and jealousy and passion- 
 ate unrest, but always with a subtle reserve, a princely defer- 
 ence, shining dimly through it all. And to-night, his vision 
 singularly clear, he knew that their faith was more than lip 
 speech, knew that the Madonna had come once, and once for 
 all, to show the path of chivalry. 
 
 If Rupert had found happiness during this siege that had 
 tested his manhood, so, too, had Will Underwood. With a 
 single purpose, with desire only to serve Nance, asking no 
 thanks or recompense, he raced over the last strip of broken 
 ground and through the courtyard gate. 
 
 " Be gad ! they've been busy here ! " growled the red-faced
 
 324 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 squire, seeing the bodies lying black against the snow and 
 hearing the wounded crying in their anguish. But Will did 
 not see the littered yard, the white, keen moonlight that 
 spared no ugly detail. His eyes were fixed on the burning 
 threshold Nance was behind it, and she needed him. 
 
 The fallen doorway, the blazing remnants of the settle, had 
 set fire by now to the woodwork of the hall. Will ran 
 through the heat and smoke of it, saw Rupert swaying dizzily 
 half up the stair, and below him four Hessian troopers, one of 
 whom was lifting a musket to his shoulder. He had his 
 fowling-piece in hand, half-cocked by instinct when he left 
 the duck-shooting for this scamper down the moor. He 
 cocked it, and at the moment the trooper who was taking aim 
 at Rupert turned sharply, hearing the din of feet behind, saw 
 a press of men, white from head to foot, pouring through the 
 doorway, and fired heedlessly at Underwood. And Will's 
 fowling-piece barked at the same moment; at six paces the 
 charge of shot was compact and solid as a bullet, but the 
 wound it made was larger, and not clean at all. 
 
 The three troopers left faced round on the incoming com- 
 pany. They saw seven men, white in the linen coats they had 
 not found thought or leisure to throw off, and sudden panic 
 seized them. Through the stark waiting-time of their siege, 
 with the moors and the sobbing winds to foster superstition, 
 they had learned belief in ghosts, and thought they saw them 
 now. They ran blindly for the doorway. Rupert leaped 
 from the stair, and they were taken front and rear. 
 
 When all was done, Rupert steadied himself, stood straight 
 and soldierly, scanned the faces of his rescuers, and knew 
 them all for friends. 
 
 " My thanks, gentlemen," he said, with tired courtesy. 
 " You came in a good hour." 
 
 He leaned a hand on the Red Squire's shoulder, wiped a 
 trickle of blood from some chance wound that had touched 
 his forehead, glanced round at them with dim, unseeing eyes. 
 
 "Have I kept the house? Have I finished?"
 
 THE PLEASANT FURY 325 
 
 " The house is in our keeping now. You've done well, my 
 lad," said the red-faced squire, with gruff tenderness. 
 
 " Then I'll get to sleep, I think." 
 
 And he would have fallen, but the squire held him up and, 
 putting two rough arms about him, carried him upstairs. 
 
 "A well-plucked one," he said, returning quickly. "And 
 now, gentlemen, the house will be on fire, by your leave, if 
 we don't turn our hands to the pump." 
 
 Nance, watching from the shadows, was bewildered by the 
 speed and fury of it all bewildered more by the business- 
 like, quiet way in which these linen-coated gentry went in and 
 out of hall, carrying buckets and quenching the last smoul- 
 dering flames with water from the stable yard. This was 
 war war, with its horror, its gallantry, its comedy; but it 
 was not the warfare she had pictured when she sang heroic 
 ballads at the spinet. 
 
 And then the night's uproar and its madness passed by her. 
 She thought only of the master who had all but died just now 
 to save the house to save her honour. She could not face 
 the busy hall, the man sprawling on the stair, head down- 
 ward, where Rupert's blow had left him. Instead, she went 
 back along the corridor and up by the servants' stairway, and 
 found Rupert lying in a dead sleep in his own chamber, a 
 lighted candle at his elbow, just as the red- faced squire had 
 left him. 
 
 " My dear," she said, knowing he pould not hear, " my 
 dear " her voice broke in a deep, quiet laugh that had no 
 meaning to her as yet " they said you were the scholar. 
 And I think they lied." 
 
 She lifted her head by and by, hearing the squire's voice 
 below in the hall. 
 
 "Where's Will Underwood?" he was asking noisily. 
 " We've got the fire under, and we can see each other's faces 
 now we've lit the candles. Where, by the Mass, is Under- 
 wood?" 
 
 Nance shivered. Through her weariness, through the
 
 326 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 panic of this sharp attack, she recalled the shame of her first 
 love, recalled her meeting with Will Underwood on the high 
 moors, when he had talked of loyalty as a thing of barter. 
 
 She stooped to touch Rupert as he slept. Here was a man, 
 spent and weak; but here, proved through and through, was 
 a cleanly gentleman who, against odds, had kept his obliga- 
 tions. Old affection stirred in her, and new pride in his con- 
 duct of the siege. 
 
 " Where's Underwood ? " pame the squire's voice again. 
 " Is this some prank of his, to hide away ? " 
 
 " With Nance Demaine, sir," answered some pert young- 
 ster of the company. "Where else should he be? He was 
 never one to waste time." 
 
 "You've guessed the riddle, youngster." The squire's 
 laugh was boisterous. " It's odd to think of Underwood 
 lovesick as a lad in his teens especially just now, with all 
 this litter in the hall." 
 
 Outside the doorway Will Underwood was lying in the 
 moonlight. He had been hit in the groin by Goldstein's 
 trooper, just as he answered with a charge of shot at six 
 paces; and because the hills had bred him, he needed to get 
 out into the open, taking his sickness with him. 
 
 He lay in the snow and looked up at the sky. He had 
 never seen a whiter moon, a clearer light, at time of mid- 
 winter. Land and sky were glittering with frost, and over- 
 head he saw the seven starry lamps of Charlie's Wain. He 
 was in bitter anguish, and knew that his hurt was mortal ; he 
 had no regret for that, because he knew, too, that Windyhough 
 and Nance were saved. His bitterness was of the soul. 
 Strain as he would, he could not shut out the picture clear 
 as the frosty sky above him of Nance's face when she met 
 him on the moor years ago, it seemed and he thought he 
 was his own ghost, come to warn her of his death. 
 
 He lived through that scene again in detail, heard Nance's 
 voice sweep all his prudent self-esteem aside. And her scorn 
 bit deeper now, because he knew at last the strength of his
 
 THE PLEASANT FURY S27 
 
 fine regard for her. Passion was gone. Prudence was gone, 
 because men near to death remember that they came naked 
 into the world. He had lost the trickeries that had earned 
 him the name of Wild Will, and was glad to let them go. 
 He was aware only that he lay between here and hereafter, 
 in pain of body and soul, and that he might take this last 
 fence gladly, as on a hunting-morn, if he could wipe away the 
 remembrance of one day gone by. 
 
 Many things grew clear to him as he lay and watched the 
 moon. The wrath and pitiless hell-fire of Rigstones Chapel 
 yielded to a wider outlook on the forgiveness of a Being 
 greater than himself in charity. He found it easy to forgive 
 his enemies, to forget his jealousy of Rupert, whom he had 
 saved just now. But, warring against the peace he sought, 
 and keeping the life quick in his tortured body, was remem- 
 brance of that day on the high moors. His work, good or ill, 
 was done, and he longed to die, and could not. 
 
 Into the littered hall at Windyhough, while the squire paced 
 up and down asking noisily for Will Underwood, old Nat the 
 shepherd sauntered, pipe in hand. He was old, and a 
 dreamer, and the gunshots and the fury had not disturbed 
 him greatly. 
 
 Nat glanced round at the fallen men and the standing, at 
 the doorway through whose blackened lintels the keen moon- 
 light stole to drown the candle-flames. And he laughed, a 
 gentle, pitying laugh. " It's naught so much to brag about," 
 he said. " There were bonnier doings i' the '15 Rising. Men 
 were men i' those days." 
 
 Nance wearied of it all as she stood by the master's bed 
 and listened to the talk downstairs. The house seemed full 
 of men, and insolent coupling of her name with Will Under- 
 wood's, and the sickly, pungent smell of blood and smoke. 
 She was tired of gallantry and war, tired of her own wean- 
 ness ; and she went down the stair, stepping lightly over Ru- 
 pert's enemy, and came among them into hall. 
 
 "Your servant, Miss Nance," said the red-faced squire,
 
 328 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 not guessing what a figure of comedy he cut, bowing under 
 the folds of a white linen coat. 
 
 " I thank you, gentlemen," said Nance unsteadily. " From 
 my heart I thank you. You you have done us service. 
 And now, by your leave, I need to get out of doors. I I 
 have been in prison here." 
 
 They made a lane of honour for her. They had been lag- 
 gards in the Prince's service; they were recusants, come at 
 the last hour to prove themselves ; but they felt, seeing Nance 
 step down between them, her face stained with weariness and 
 long vigil, that a royal lady had come into their midst. 
 
 Nance went through the charred doorway, and halted a 
 moment as the pleasant frost-wind met her. The moonlight 
 and the clean face of the sky gave her a sense of ease and 
 liberty, after the cramped days indoors. The siege's uproar, 
 its stealthy quiet, were lost in this big silence of the frosty 
 spaces overhead. 
 
 From the silence, from the snowy courtyard at her feet, a 
 groan brought her back sharply to realities. She looked 
 down, and saw Will Underwood lying face upwards to the 
 stars. He, too, was linen-sheeted, as the squire had been; 
 but there was no touch of comedy in his apparel. It seemed 
 to Nance that he was shrouded for his bier. 
 
 They looked into each other's eyes for a while, and some 
 kindness in the girl's glance, some regret to see him lying 
 helpless with the fire of torment in his eyes, fired his courage. 
 
 " You ? " she said gently. " You came to save the house ? " 
 
 " No, Nance ; I came to save you. That was my only 
 thought." 
 
 "They are asking for you indoors. I do not understand 
 you are wounded " 
 
 " In your service yes. They were right, after all they 
 always said I'd more luck than I deserved." 
 
 She was free now of the bewilderment of this night at- 
 tack, the sharp battle in the hall, quick and confused in the 
 doing. The moonlight showed her the face of a man in ob-
 
 THE PLEASANT FURY 339 
 
 vious pain, a man fighting for every word that crossed his 
 lips ; and yet he was smiling, and the soul of him was gay. 
 
 " I'll bring help," she said, turning toward the house. 
 
 " No; you've brought help. Nance, I'll not keep you long. 
 There was a day a day when we met up the moor, and I 
 was your liar, Nance from heel to crown I was your liar 
 and God knows the shame you put on me." 
 
 Nance, scarce heeding what she did, took a kerchief, 
 stained with gunpowder, from the pocket of the riding-coat 
 she had worn, day in, day out, since the siege began. 
 
 " I keep my promise, Will." 
 
 Even yet, though Nance was kneeling in the snow beside 
 him and he heard the pity in her voice, Will could not free 
 himself from some remembrance of that bygone meeting. 
 "As a flag of truce?" he asked sharply. 
 
 " As a badge of honour. You are free to wear it." 
 
 He reached out for her hand, and put it to his lips with the 
 reverence learned since he came down from duck-shooting to 
 find a mortal hurt. " As God sees me," he said, a pleasant 
 note of triumph in his voice " as God sees me, I die happy." 
 
 And then he turned on his side. And the pert youngster 
 who had coupled Nance's name with Will's, coming out in 
 search of the missing leader, saw the girl kneeling in the 
 snow and heard her sobs. And he crept back into the hall, 
 ashamed in some queer way. 
 
 " Why, lad, have you seen a ghost out yonder? " asked the 
 red-faced squire. 
 
 " No, sir," the boy answered gravely. " It is as I said 
 Will is with Nance Demaine, and and I think we'd better 
 leave them to it."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE RIDING OUT 
 
 SIR JASPER, out at Ben Shackleton's farm, had been no easy 
 guest to entertain since he sought refuge there from the pur- 
 suit of Goldstein's men. He slept for twelve hours, after 
 they had laid him on the lang-settle and stopped the bleeding 
 from his wound; and then, for an hour, he had lain between 
 sleep and waking; and, after that, he was keen to be up and 
 doing. 
 
 Shackleton's wife, dismayed because her goodman had not 
 returned long since from carrying his message to Windy- 
 hough, was sharp of tongue, and lacking in deference a lit- 
 tle, as the way of the sturdy farm-folk is when they are trou- 
 bled. 
 
 " As you wish, Sir Jasper," she said tartly. " Just get up 
 and stand on your two feet, and see how it feels, like." 
 
 He got stubbornly to his feet, and moved a pace or two 
 across the floor; and then he grew weak and dizzy, and was 
 glad to find his way again to the lang-settle. 
 
 " Ay, so ! " said Shackleton's wife. " It's good for men- 
 folk to learn, just time and time, how they can go weak as a 
 little babby." 
 
 " My wife needs me yonder." 
 
 " Ay, and I need my goodman here. Exchange is no rob- 
 bery, Sir Jasper." 
 
 " She is in danger," he snapped, with a sick man's petu- 
 lance. 
 
 " Well, so's my man, I reckon they've kept him yonder, or 
 he'd have been home lang-syne." 
 
 Then weariness conquered Sir Jasper; and he slept again 
 till that day passed, and the next night, and half through the 
 
 330
 
 THE RIDING OUT 331 
 
 morning. It was his respite from remembrance of the re- 
 treat from Derby, from the wound that kept him out of ac- 
 tion. 
 
 " You'll do nicely now," said Shackleton's wife, glancing 
 round from ironing a shirt of her husband's. "You've got 
 the look of your old self about you, Sir Jasper." 
 
 The wound itself was of less account than the bleeding that 
 had followed it; and by nightfall he was waiting impatiently 
 until the shepherd saddled his mare and brought her to the 
 door. 
 
 The farm-wife looked him up and down, with the frank 
 glance that had only friendliness and extreme solicitude be- 
 hind it. " Eh, but you look sick and wambly," she said. 
 " Can you sit a horse, Sir Jasper? " 
 
 " I am hale and well," he answered fretfully, because he 
 felt his weakness and because he was fearing for his wife. 
 
 He got to saddle, and the mare and he went slushing up 
 and down the mile of bridle-track that separated them from 
 home. He was no longer conscious of pain or weakness ; his 
 heart was on fire to see his wife again, to know her safe. At 
 the turn of the hill, just beyond the gallows-tree that stood 
 naked against the sky, he saw Windyhough lying below him, 
 the moonlight keen on snowy chimney-stacks and gables. 
 
 " Thank God ! " he said, seeing how peaceful the old house 
 lay. 
 
 A little later he came to the splintered gateway, and his 
 heart misgave him. The mare fidgeted and would not go 
 forward ; and, looking down, he saw a dead man lying in the 
 moonlight the trooper at whom Rupert had fired his maiden 
 battle-shot. 
 
 He got from saddle, left the mare to her own devices, and 
 ran across the courtyard. Here, too, were bodies lying in 
 the snow. The main door was gone, save for a charred 
 framework through which the moon showed him a disordered 
 hall. 
 
 Without thought of his own safety here, with a single, sav-
 
 332 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 age purpose to find his wife dead or worse he crossed the 
 hall; and at the stairway foot he met the red-faced squire, 
 coming down with a brisk tread surprising in a man of his 
 bulk and goutiness. 
 
 " By gad ! we're too busy with flesh and blood to care for 
 ghosts," said the squire, halting suddenly. His laugh was 
 boisterous, but it covered a superstition lively and afraid. 
 
 " A truce to nonsense," snapped Sir Jasper. " Where is 
 Lady Royd?" 
 
 " Asleep and her toy spaniel, too." The squire had come 
 down and touched Sir Jasper to make sure that he was of 
 this world. " I should poison that dog if it were mine, Royd. 
 It yapped at every wounded man we carried in." 
 
 " My wife is asleep and safe?" asked the other, as if he 
 feared the answer. 
 
 " We're all safe except poor Will Underwood ; and all 
 busy, thanks to that game pup of yours. For a scholar, he 
 shaped well." 
 
 " Rupert kept the house ? " Through all his trouble and un- 
 rest Sir Jasper tried to grasp the meaning of the charred 
 doorway, the groans of wounded men above. " It did not 
 seem so when I came indoors." 
 
 So then the Squire told him, all in clipped, hurried speech, 
 the way of it. And Sir Jasper forgot his wife, forgot his 
 wound, and all the misery that had dogged his steps since 
 Derby. He had an heir at last. Rupert, the well-beloved, 
 had proved himself. 
 
 " Where is he ? " he asked huskily. 
 
 " Asleep, too, by your leave. No, we'll not wake him. 
 He's had three days of gunpowder and wakefulness, Royd. 
 Let him sleep the clock round." 
 
 The squire, seeing how weak Sir Jasper was, took him by 
 the arm into the dining-chamber, filled him a measure of 
 brandy, and pushed him gently into a chair. 
 
 " I came late to the wedding, Royd," he said dryly, " but 
 I'm in command here, till you find your strength."
 
 THE RIDING OUT 333 
 
 Sir Jasper, for the first time since Derby, was content. 
 His wife was safe, and his heir was a man at last. And the 
 red- faced squire, whom he had always liked, was no recusant, 
 after all. 
 
 "You talked of carrying wounded men in?" he asked by 
 and by. " I can hear them crying out for thirst." 
 
 ; ' That's where they have us, Royd, these flea-bitten men 
 of George's," said the squire, with another boisterous laugh. 
 " They were crying like stuck pigs out in the cold and we 
 had to take them in. Windyhough is a hospital, I tell you, 
 owing to the queer Catholic training that weakens us. 
 They'd not have done as much for us." 
 
 " That is their loss and, as for training, I think Rupert 
 has proved it fairly right." 
 
 " Well, yes. But I hate wounds, Royd, and all the sick- 
 room messiness. It's an ill business, tending men you'd 
 rather see lying snugly in their graves." 
 
 Sir Jasper laughed, not boisterously at all, but with the 
 tranquil gaiety that comes of sadness. " There was a worse 
 business, friend, at Derby. I went through it; and, I tell 
 you, nothing matters very much nothing will ever matter 
 again, unless the Prince finds his battle up in Scotland." 
 
 And by and by they fell to talking of ways and means. 
 Sir Jasper was pledged to rejoin the Prince, and would not 
 break his word. Neither would he leave his son at Windy- 
 hough a second time, among the women and old men. And 
 yet there was his wife, who needed him. 
 
 The red-faced squire, blunt and full of cheery common 
 sense, resolved his difficulties. " Cannot you trust us, Royd ? 
 There'll be six men of us seven, counting Simon Foster, 
 who is getting better of his hurt and only wounded prisoners 
 to guard." 
 
 " What if another company of roving blackguards rides 
 this way? " 
 
 " Not likely. By your own showing, the hunt goes wide 
 of this. Besides, we shall get a new doorway up. Rupert
 
 334 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 held the house with two to help him seven of us could do 
 the like." 
 
 Sir Jasper began to pace restlessly up and down. "You 
 forget," he said sharply, " it will be my wife you're guarding 
 my wife and she means so much to me, old friend." 
 
 " We know, we know. D'ye think we'd let hurt come to 
 her? Listen, Royd. When these jackanapes who groan in 
 German are fit to look after themselves, we'll leave them to 
 it, and take all your women with us to my house at Ravens- 
 cliff. And word shall go round that Lady Royd the toast 
 of the county to this day needs gentlemen about her. She'll 
 not lack friends, I tell you." 
 
 The squire's glance fell as it met Sir Jasper's. His con- 
 science was uneasy still, and he fancied a rebuke that was 
 far from Royd's thoughts. So had the Prince been the 
 county's toast until the Prince asked instant service. 
 
 " I can trust you," said Sir Jasper, with sudden decision. 
 " Guard her as God sees us, she is is very dear to me." 
 
 Then, after a restless silence, Sir Jasper's doubts, bred of 
 bodily weakness, ran into a new channel. 
 
 " There's yourself to think of in all this your own wife, 
 and your house. The Hanover men will not be gentle if we 
 lose the battle up in Scotland." 
 
 " Royd," said the red-faced squire, not fearing now to meet 
 his glance, " we've come badly out of this, we fools who 
 stayed at home. There's been no flavour in our wine; we've 
 been poor fox-hunters, not caring whether we were in at the 
 death or no you'll not grudge us our one chance to play the 
 man?" 
 
 Sir Jasper understood at last that recusants can have their 
 evil moments, can find worse cheer than he had met at Derby. 
 
 " I warn you, Ned, there's small chance of our winning 
 now. For old friendship's sake, I'll not let you go blindly 
 into this." 
 
 " What's the ballad Nance Demaine sings so nattily ? 
 'Life's losing and land's losing, and what were they to gi'e?
 
 THE RIDING OUT 335 
 
 Oh, it's all true, Royd. We have our chance at last and, 
 gad ! we mean to take it." 
 
 " It bites deep, Ned," said the other, with grave concern. 
 " It bites deep, this wife losing and land losing." 
 
 " Not as deep as shame," snapped the red-faced squire. 
 " I'm a free man of my hands again. And now, by the look 
 of you, you'd best get to bed. Honest man to honest man, 
 Royd, you're dead-beat?" 
 
 " Yes if the house is safe," said Sir Jasper, with unalter- 
 able simplicity. 
 
 "Oh, trust me, Royd! I'm in command here and, I tell 
 you, all is safe." 
 
 He went upstairs, and into his wife's room. There was a 
 candle burning on the table at her elbow, and he forgot his 
 own need of sleep in watching hers. The strain of the past 
 days was gone. She lay like a child at peace with God and 
 man, and the peevish, day-time wrinkles were smoothed away ; 
 and she was dreaming, had her husband known it, of the 
 days when she had come, as a bride, to Windyhough. 
 
 A gusty tenderness, a reverence beyond belief, came to Sir 
 Jasper. He forgot all hardships Derby way. The simple 
 heart of him was content with the day's journey, so long as it 
 brought him this his wife secure, with happiness asleep 
 about her face. 
 
 He stooped to touch her, and the spaniel sleeping at her 
 side stood up and barked at him, rousing the mistress. 
 
 " Be quiet ! " she said sleepily. " I was dreaming that 
 my lord came home again, forgiving all my foolishness." 
 
 The spaniel only barked the more. And Sir Jasper, who 
 was by way of being rough just now with all intruders, big 
 or little, pitched him out on to the landing. 
 
 His wife was awake now, and she looked at him with wide 
 eyes of misery. " You have kept tryst, my dear. You prom- 
 ised when you rode out that, if you died, you would come 
 to tell me of it. And I God help me! was dreaming that 
 we were young again together."
 
 336 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 "We're very young again together, Agnes," said Sir Jas- 
 per, with a quiet laugh. " Do I look so ghostly that you all 
 mistake me for a wraith?" 
 
 She touched him, as the squire had done gently at first, 
 and then with gaining confidence. " You look as I have 
 never seen you, husband ; you are as grey of face as Rupert, 
 when his work was done and they carried him upstairs. Your 
 wound Jasper, it is not mortal?" 
 
 " It is healing fast. There, wife, you are only half awake, 
 and I'm dishevelled. I had no time to put myself in order. 
 I was too eager just just to see my wife again." 
 
 And Lady Royd was wide awake now. Not only the hus- 
 band, but the lover, had returned. " I shall have to take 
 care of you, Jasper," she said, with the woman's need to be 
 protective when she is happy. " You'll need nursing, 
 and " 
 
 " I need sleep," growled Sir Jasper " just a few hours' 
 sleep, Agnes, and and forgetfulness of Derby." 
 
 " Ah, sleep ! That has been our need, too. We we none 
 of us went out with you, Jasper but we kept the house. 
 And we learned what sleep means more than food or drink, 
 more than any gift that we can ask." 
 
 It is in the hurried, perilous moments that men ome to 
 understanding. Sir Jasper, by the little said and the much 
 left unsaid, knew that his wife, according to her strength, 
 had taken a brave part in this enterprise. 
 
 " You talk of what old campaigners know," he said. 
 
 And there was a little, pleasant silence; and after that 
 Lady Royd looked into her husband's face. 
 
 " You are home again to stay until your wound is 
 healed ? " she asked. 
 
 " No, my dear. I take the road to-morrow. The Prince 
 needs me."' 
 
 She turned her face to the wall. And temptation played 
 like a windy night about Sir Jasper, taking him at the ebb 
 of his strength, as all cowards do. He was more weak of
 
 THE RIDING OUT 337 
 
 6ody than she guessed; he had given really of himself, and 
 surely he had earned a little ease, a sitting by the hearth 
 while he told his wife, this once again, what was in his heart 
 for her. 
 
 And his wife turned suddenly. Her eyes were radiant 
 with the faith that siege had taught her siege, and the reek 
 of gunpowder, and the way men carried themselves in the 
 face of the bright comrade, danger. 
 
 " Go, Jasper and good luck to your riding," she said 
 quietly. 
 
 At two of the next afternoon Sir Jasper and Rupert got 
 to saddle ; and the father, knowing the way of his son's 
 heart, rode on ahead down the long, sloping bridle-track, 
 leaving him to say good-bye to Nance Demaine. 
 
 Nance had been used to courage, as she was used to wind 
 on the hills; but all her world was slipping from her now. 
 She had given her kerchief to Will Underwood, from pity 
 for a love that was dead and hidden out of sight; she had 
 gone through stress and turmoil ; and at the end of all Rupert, 
 her one friend here, was riding out with his eyes on the hills, 
 though she stood at his stirrup and sought his glance. 
 
 " God speed, Rupert ! " she said. 
 
 He stooped to kiss her hand, but his thoughts were far 
 away. " It seemed all past praying for, Nance and it has 
 come." 
 
 " What has come ? " she asked peevishly, because she 
 was tired and very lonely. " Fire, and sleeplessness, and the 
 cries of wounded men what else has come to Windyhough ? " 
 
 " Not Stuart songs," he answered gravely. " Stuart deeds 
 are coming my way, Nance, at long last." 
 
 " So you are glad to go, Rupert ? " 
 
 He looked down at her and for a moment he forgot the 
 road ahead. He saw only Nance Nance, whom he had loved 
 from boyhood Nance, with the wholesome, bonnie face that 
 discerning men, who could see the soul behind it, named beau- 
 tiful. All his keen young love for her was needing outlet
 
 338 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 on the sudden. She was so near, so friendly; and about her 
 was a clear, eager starshine, such as lovers see. 
 
 The siege, and killing of a man here and there, stepped in 
 and conquered this old weakness that was hindering him. 
 " Nance, my dear," he said, " I shall come back when I'm 
 your proven man." 
 
 It was so he went quietly out into the sunlight that had 
 struggled free awhile of the grey, wintry clouds. And again 
 Nance was chilled, as she had been when the Loyal Meet rode 
 out years ago, it seemed without sound of drum or any 
 show of pageantry. She had not learned even yet that men 
 with a single purpose go about their business quietly, not heed- 
 ing bugle-calls of this world's sounding. 
 
 She watched him go, old pity and old liking stirred. And 
 she longed to call him back, but pride forbade her. 
 
 Simon Foster came grumbling through the charred court- 
 yard gate. He had stood at the hilltop, watching the old 
 master and the young go out along the track he was too in- 
 firm to follow; and there was a deep, abiding bitterness in 
 his heart. 
 
 "They shouldn't have gi'en me a taste o' fight, Miss 
 Nance," he said. " I call it fair shameful just to whet a 
 body's appetite, and then give him naught solid to follow. 
 Oh, I tell ye, it's ill work staying at home, tied up wi' rheu- 
 matiz." 
 
 Nance was glad of the respite from her own muddled 
 thoughts, from the sense of loss that Rupert had left her as 
 a parting gift. " It is time you settled down," she said, with 
 a touch of the humour that was never far from her. " And 
 you have Martha to make up for all you're losing." 
 
 " Ay, true," grumbled Simon, his eyes far away ; " but 
 Martha could have bided till I'd had my fill, like. She's pa- 
 tient it's in the build of her but, I never was." 
 
 "Patience?" said Nance. "It is in no woman's build, 
 Simon. We have to learn it, while our men are enjoying the 
 free weather."
 
 THE RIDING OUT 339 
 
 Rupert had overtaken his father on the winding, downhill 
 track, and they rode in silence together for a mile or so, each 
 thinking of the other and of the work ahead. It was a 
 pleasant, deep communion for them both; and the son re- 
 membered, for the last time, how Sir Jasper had lied to him 
 in giving him the house of Windyhough to keep. From the 
 soldiery learnt there, from the peril waiting for them ahead, 
 Rupert had won the priceless gift, forgiveness a herb trouble- 
 some and hard to find. 
 
 " You're silent, lad," said Sir Jasper, as they came to the 
 stretch of level track that took them right-handed into the 
 Langton road. 
 
 " I was thinking that dreams come true, sir, as I said to 
 Nance just now." 
 
 Clouds were hurrying up against the sun yellow, evil 
 clouds, packed thick with snow and a bitter wind was ris- 
 ing. The going underfoot was vile. Their errand was to 
 join an army in retreat, with likelihood that they would dine 
 and breakfast on disaster. And yet because God made them 
 so they found tranquillity. Sir Jasper had dreamed of this, 
 since his first gladness that he had an heir, his first sorrow 
 when he admitted to himself, grudgingly, that the boy was not 
 as strong as he had wished. And Rupert, while his shoulders 
 found their scholarly droop in reading old books at Windy- 
 hough, had shared the same dream that one day, by a mir- 
 acle, he might ride out with his father on the Stuart's busi- 
 ness. 
 
 And they were here together. And nothing mattered, 
 somehow, as the way of men is when their souls have taken 
 the open, friendly road. 
 
 They rode hard in pursuit of the Prince's army, nursing 
 their horses' strength as far as eagerness would let them; 
 and, at long last, they overtook their friends on the windy 
 summit of Shap Fell, where the Stuart army was bivouacked 
 for the night. 
 
 Sir Jasper asked audience of the Prince, and found him
 
 340 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 sitting in his tent, eating a stew of sheep's kidneys the one 
 luxury royalty could command at the moment. And the 
 Prince rose, forgetting his quality, in frank welcome of this 
 man who had shared the evil Derby days with him. 
 
 " I thought you dead, sir ; and I'm very glad to see you 
 alive, but thinner than you were." 
 
 No detail ever escaped the Prince's eye, when he was 
 concerned about the welfare of his friends; and the solici- 
 tude, the affection of this greeting atoned for many hard- 
 ships. 
 
 " I was wounded, your Highness, or should have been with 
 you long since." 
 
 " So much I knew. No other hindrance would have kept 
 you," said the Prince, with flattering trust. 
 
 " I bring a volunteer with me." 
 
 "He must be staunch indeed! A volunteer to join us in 
 these days of havoc? Has he been jilted by one of your 
 Lancashire witches, that he's eager to trudge through this 
 evil weather ? " 
 
 " No. He has just won through a siege on your behalf the 
 siege of my own house and could not rest till he had seen 
 you." 
 
 The Prince had been in a black mood of despair not long 
 ago. He was alone in his tent, with none to need him for 
 the moment, none to know if he were sick at heart. Like 
 all men, great or small, he was at once the victim and the cap- 
 tain of the temperament given him at birth ; and none but 
 the Stuarts knew how dearly they purchased through lonely 
 hours of misery, self-doubt, denial of all hope the charm, 
 the gay, unyielding courage that touched the dullest wayfarers 
 with some fine hint of betterment. 
 
 Sir Jasper's coming had cleared the Prince's outlook. 
 In the man's simplicity, in the obvious love he held 
 for this unknown volunteer, the Stuart read a request un- 
 spoke. 
 
 " Present him," he said, with the smile that had tempted
 
 THE RIDING OUT 341 
 
 men and women alike to follow him for love. " Hell for- 
 give me if I finish this stew of kidneys? For I own I'm 
 devilish hungry." 
 
 Through the toilsome ride from Windyhough to Shap, 
 Rupert had talked of the Prince, and only of the Prince; and 
 Sir Jasper went now to find his heir, proud as simple men 
 are of the transparent diplomacy that had secured Rupert 
 his heart's desire so promptly. He did not find him at once 
 among the busy camp; and when they were admitted to the 
 royal tent, his Highness had finished his meal, and was smok- 
 ing the disreputable pipe that had been his friend through- 
 out this weary, meaningless retreat. 
 
 " My son, your Highness," said Sir Jasper. 
 
 Rupert, coming out of the stark night outside, blinked as 
 he met the flickering light of the rush-candles within the 
 tent. Then his eyes cleared, and some trouble took him by 
 the throat. He was young, and in the Presence; and his 
 dreams had been greatly daring, sweeping up to the stars of 
 Stuart loyalty. 
 
 " I commend you, sir," said the Prince, looking the lad 
 through and through, as his way was, to learn what shape he 
 had. " There are apt to be volunteers when a cause is gain- 
 ing, but few when it's escaping to the hills." 
 
 The heart of a man, kept bridled for five-and-twenty years, 
 knows no reticence when it meets at last the comrade of its 
 long desire. 
 
 "Your Highness," said Rupert, with a simplicity larger 
 than his father's, because less wayworn, " I begin to live. I 
 asked to serve you, and and the prayer is granted." 
 
 " You join us in retreat?" said the Prince, touched by the 
 pity of this hero-worship. 
 
 " I join you either way. I've found why, happiness, I 
 
 think." 
 
 The Prince was a few months younger than himself; but 
 he touched him now on the shoulder, as a father might. 
 "Good luck to your honour lad!" he said. "Clean the
 
 S42 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 world's mud off from it whenever you find leisure, as you 
 polish a sword-blade. That's the soldier's gospel." 
 
 The next day they were on the march again. The 
 weather was not gentle on the top of Shap Fell, and the red 
 sun, rising into a clear and frosty sky, showed them a lonely 
 and a naked land hills reaching out to farther hills, desolate, 
 snow-white, and dumb. Not a bird called. The Highland- 
 ers, with their steady, swinging strides, the horsemen moving 
 at a sober pace, were ringed about with silence. Before 
 nightfall, however, they reached Clifton village, and here at 
 last they found diversion from the day's austerity. 
 
 The Prince, with the greater part of his cavalry, had pushed 
 forward to Penrith; but Lord Elcho, who, with Sir Jasper's 
 horsemen, had charge of the rear, gave a sharp sigh of 
 thanksgiving when a messenger brought news that the Duke 
 of Cumberland, with his own regiment and Kingston's light 
 horse, were close at his heels after ten hours' hard pursuit 
 Elcho was glad even of the long odds against him, knowing 
 that his Highlanders were wearying for battle, and made his 
 > dispositions with a cheery sense that the Duke had done them 
 a good turn in overtaking them. 
 
 Taking full advantage of the cover afforded by the coun- 
 try, Elcho placed his men behind the hedges and stone walls, 
 and as the first of the dusk came down the Duke's soldiery 
 delivered their attack. It was a sharp, bewildering skirmish, 
 ended speedily by nightfall; but to Rupert, fighting in the 
 open after the stifled days at Windyhough, it was easy to show 
 a gallantry that roused the applause of men grown old and 
 hard to combat. And ever he thought less of Nance, and 
 more of this new comrade, danger, whose face was bright, 
 alluring. 
 
 They left the Duke with his dead; and, because they were 
 hopelessly outnumbered if the daylight found them still in 
 possession of Clifton, they went through the black night to 
 Penrith, bringing news to the Prince of their little victory. 
 And after that it was forward to Carlisle.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE FORLORN HOPE 
 
 IT can be bitter cold in Carlisle, when the wind raves down 
 from the Border country and the rain will not be quiet; but 
 never had the grey town shown more cheerless than it did to 
 the Prince's eyes when, six days before Christmas, he rode 
 in with his retreating army. The brief, sudden warmth of 
 the victory at Clifton was forgotten. They had travelled all 
 night, over distressing roads, fetlock deep in mud. They 
 were strained to breaking-point, after incessant marches, day 
 after day seeing the footmen cover their twenty miles with 
 bleeding feet. They were disillusioned, hopeless, sport for 
 any man to laugh at whose faith went no farther than this 
 world's limits. 
 
 For the Prince, when he got inside the Castle, and gave 
 audience to Mr. Hamilton, the governor, there was worse 
 trouble brewing. Hamilton, caring only for the Stuart's 
 safety, was resolute to hold Carlisle against the pursuing 
 Hanoverians, encamped at Hesket, within an easy day's 
 march of the city. He pointed out, with a clear reasoning 
 beyond dispute, that the Castle was strong to stand a siege, 
 that the Duke of Cumberland would halt to capture it, know- 
 ing it the key of the Border country, that a small garrison 
 could ensure the Stuart army a respite from pursuit until they 
 joined their friends in Scotland. 
 
 " I decline, Mr. Hamilton," said the Prince sharply. " You 
 can hold out for how long? " 
 
 "For a week at least, your Highness ten days, may be. 
 They say the Duke has no artillery with him yet." 
 
 " But the end the end will be the same, soon or late." 
 
 "A pleasant end, if it secures your safety. Oh, think, 
 
 343
 
 344 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 your Highness! You've five thousand men with you, and we 
 are less than a hundred, all told. I tell you, I have thought 
 out all this. The garrison has thought it out, and and we 
 are bent on it." 
 
 " My men would not buy safety at the price. How could 
 they? No, no, Mr. Hamilton. Your garrison shall take 
 their chance in the open with us." 
 
 Yet that night the Prince could only sleep by snatches. 
 Throughout this swift campaign, opposed to all the prudences 
 of warfare, his thought that had been constantly for the welfare 
 of his soldiery, so far as he could compass it. And Hamil- 
 ton had planned a gallant chance of safety for them. Un- 
 doubtedly, the plan was good. 
 
 To and fro his thoughts went, and they gained clearness as 
 the night went on. For himself, he had no care either way. 
 He had left hope behind at Derby, for his part. His heart 
 was not broken yet, but it was breaking; and, if he had 
 found leisure during this wakeful night for one private, 
 selfish prayer, it would have been that he might die at dawn, 
 facing the Duke's motley army of pursuit. For the Prince 
 was not himself only, fighting his battle against circumstance 
 with a single hand; he was bone of the Stuart fathers who 
 had gone before, and death had always seemed as good a 
 friend as life, so long as it found him with straight shoulders 
 and head up to the skies. 
 
 There was the garrison here, resolved to die with gallan- 
 try. There was his army, horsemen saddle-sore and footmen 
 going with bleeding feet for. Stuart love. And one or other 
 must be sacrificed. It was no easy riddle for any man to 
 solve least of all for a Prince whose soul knew deeper sick- 
 ness than usual men's, whose body was racked by long riding 
 through wet roads. He had an aching tooth, moreover, 
 that moved him to get up at last, and light his black clay 
 pipe, and pace up and down the room allotted to him in the 
 castle. 
 
 He was no figure to entice the ladies who had danced with
 
 THE FORLORN HOPE 345 
 
 him, some months ago, at Holyrood. It was the man's busi- 
 ness that claimed him now, and he fought out the battle of 
 Stuart pity against the bigger, urgent need. 
 
 At dawn he went down, and met the Governor coming up 
 the stair. "Your garrison can have their wish, Mr. Hamil- 
 ton," he said quietly. "It seems the better of two evil 
 ways." 
 
 " Can you spare twenty of your men, your Highness ? 
 Some few of us have fallen sick since you marched south, and 
 we need strengthening." 
 
 And the Prince laughed, because pity and heart-sickness 
 compelled it. " I can spare anything just now," he said, 
 " even to the half of my kingdom the kingdom that Lord 
 Murray hopes to win for me in Scotland." 
 
 " There are better days coming believe me " 
 
 " To-day is enough for you and me, Mr. Hamilton. My 
 faith, thank God, teaches me so much, in spite of a raging 
 tooth." 
 
 He went out, and in the courtyard encountered a friend 
 grown dear to him during a forward march and a retreat 
 that had given men opportunities enough to prove each 
 other. It was Colonel Towneley, whose name even before 
 the Rising had stood for all that Catholic Lancashire had 
 found likeable Towneley, who had joined the southward 
 march with the loyal company known as the Manchester Regi- 
 ment; Towneley, who was resolute and ardent both, two 
 qualities that do not always run together. " Mr. Hamilton is 
 insistent to hold the Castle," said the Prince, with the sharp- 
 ness that was always a sign of trouble on other folk's behalf. 
 
 " Yes, your Highness. I learned yesterday that he's of my 
 own mind. If a hundred men can save five thousand, why, 
 the issue's plain." 
 
 "He needs twenty volunteers to strengthen the garrison." 
 
 A sudden light came into Towneley's face a light not to 
 be feigned, or lit by any random spark of daring that dates 
 no farther back than yesterday. "By your leave," he said
 
 346 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 quietly, " he needs nineteen only. I am privileged to be the 
 first." 
 
 The Prince laid a hand on his shoulder. " Towneley, I 
 cannot spare you! Let younger men step in. There's 
 Lochiel, and you, and Sir Jasper Royd, men I've grown to 
 love I cannot spare one of you." 
 
 Towneley met the other's glance and smiled. " I had a 
 dream last night," he said. 
 
 " But, friend, it is reality to-day." 
 
 " Let me be, your Highness. Perhaps dreams and reality 
 are nearer than we think. I dreamed that I knelt with my 
 head on the block, and heard the axe whistle and then I 
 woke in Paradise." 
 
 " Towneley, you're overstrained with all this devilish re- 
 treat " 
 
 " Your pardon, but I speak of what I know. I woke in 
 Paradise, your Highness, and found leisure to think of my 
 sins. It was a long thinking. But there was one comfort 
 stayed by me my Stuart loyalty. Look at it how I would, 
 there had been no flaw in it. The dream " again the light- 
 ening of the face " the dream contents me." 
 
 A little later they went out into Carlisle street. Wet and 
 chilly as the dawn was, both soldiery and townsfolk were 
 astir; and the Prince and Towneley, who had talked together 
 of things beyond this day's needs, faced the buzz and clatter 
 of the town with momentary dismay. 
 
 The Prince was losing a friend, tried and dear ; but he had 
 lost more at Derby, and dogged hardihood returned to him. 
 He looked at the way-worn men who faced him, eager to obey 
 the Stuart whom they idolised, wherever he bade them go. 
 
 " We march north to-day, leaving the garrison here," he 
 said, a straight, kingly figure of surprising charm charm 
 paid for in advance and royally. " There are twenty needed 
 to volunteer for certain death, my friends. I have no lies 
 for you; and I tell you it is certain death." 
 
 " Nineteen, your Highness," corrected Towneley.
 
 THE FORLORN HOPE 347 
 
 Nineteen are needed. I forgot that Colonel Towne- 
 
 ley- 
 
 He got no farther for a while. Wherever a man of Lan- 
 cashire stood, in among the crowd, a great cheer went up. 
 And Towneley, because he was human, was glad that these 
 folk, who knew his record, loved him quite so well. 
 
 What followed was all simple, human, soon over, as great 
 happenings are apt to be. There was Carlisle street, with its 
 gaping townsfolk, chattering foolishly and asking each other 
 how these restless Highlanders would affect the profits of 
 good shopkeepers; there was the Castle, set in a frame of 
 murky rain, and, in front of it, Prince Charles Edward, ask- 
 ing for nineteen volunteers to follow Colonel Towneley's 
 lead. 
 
 Even the townsfolk ceased balancing their ledgers. They 
 saw only one face in this crowded street the Prince's, as 
 he stood divided between high purpose and sorrow for the toll 
 of human sacrifice that is asked of all fine enterprises. They 
 saw him as he was no squire of dames, good at parlour 
 tricks, no pretty fool for ballad-mongers, but a Christian 
 gentleman, with sorrow in his eyes and a hard look of purpose 
 round about his mouth and chin. 
 
 " Colonel Towneley," the Prince was saying gravely, " your 
 gallantry has left me no choice in this. God knows how will- 
 ingly I'd take your place " And then, because a full heart 
 returns to old simplicities, his voice broke and he stretched 
 out a hand. " Towneley," he went on, in lowered tones, 
 " we're in the thick of trouble, you and I, and yours is the 
 easier death, I think. I covet it and Towneley, journeys 
 end you know the daft old proverb." 
 
 There was a moment's pause. The rain dripped cease- 
 lessly. The wind struck sharp and cruel from the east, as 
 it can strike nowhere surely as in Carlisle and grey Edin- 
 burgh. Yet no man heeded, for they knew that they had 
 royalty among them here. And Colonel Towneley, for his 
 part, began to sob the tears coursing down his rugged,
 
 348 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 weather-beaten face, not because he had to die within a week 
 or two, but because he was compelled to say goodbye to one 
 who, in conduct and in faith, seemed nearer to the stars than 
 he. 
 
 " Towneley " the Prince's voice was raised again, for he 
 cared not who knew his old, deep-seated love of Lancashire 
 " Towneley, I was taught as a lad to like your country. 
 Your men are loyal your women ask it of you but I warn 
 volunteers again that they go to certain death." 
 
 " Just to another life, your Highness. I have no doubts ; 
 believe me, I have none. In one place or another why, we 
 shall see the Stuart crowned again. Sir, I thank God for 
 this privilege; it goes far beyond my own deserts." 
 
 So then there was no more to be said. A great gentleman 
 had spoken, content to take death's hand as he would take a 
 comrade's; and when such speak, the lies and subterfuges 
 of common life drift down the wind like thistledown. The 
 townsfolk of Carlisle began to ask themselves if, after all, 
 they had balanced up their ledgers rightly. These gentry, 
 in the east wind and the rain, seemed to pass to and fro a 
 coinage, not of metal but of the heart. And the coinage 
 rang true. 
 
 Again there was a silence. And then the Prince asked 
 gravely who would volunteer for death. There was a noisy 
 press of claimants for the honour; but first among them was 
 Rupert, putting bulkier men aside as he forced his way for- 
 ward to the Prince. 
 
 " I, your Highness," he said quietly. " I was bred in 
 Lancashire, like Colonel Towneley, and I claim second 
 place." 
 
 "And why?" asked two or three behind him jealously. 
 
 Rupert turned, with a grave, disarming smile. Past weak- 
 nesses, past dreams of heroism, the slow, long siege of Windy- 
 hough, went by him as things remembered, but of little con- 
 sequence. He felt master of himself, master of them all, 
 and with a touch of pleasant irony he recalled past days.
 
 THE FORLORN HOPE 349 
 
 "Because, gentlemen, I am God's fool, and I know not 
 how to live, but I know how to die. That is the one trade 
 I've learned." 
 
 There was no answer. There could be no answer. This 
 man with the lean body and the purpose in his face was in- 
 nocent of guile, and fearless, and strangely dominant. And 
 then at last the Prince smiled the fugitive, rare smile that 
 few had captured since Derby and retreat. 
 
 "I believe you, sir," he said. "To know how to die- 
 there is no better trade to learn." 
 
 Then Maurice pushed forward, eager for the forlorn hope, 
 and moved, too, by the old, abiding instinct to stand by and 
 protect his elder brother. And Sir Jasper, unswerving until 
 now, was moved by sharp self-pity. He had been glad that 
 Rupert should prove himself at heavy cost ; glad that he him- 
 self could surrender the dearest thing he had to the Prince's 
 need; but all his fatherhood came round him, like a mist of 
 sorrow. 
 
 " One son is enough to give your Highness," he said, with 
 direct and passionate appeal to the Prince. " I'm not too old 
 to help garrison Carlisle, and my wife will need a young arm 
 to protect her later on; let me take Maurice's place." 
 
 It was then the Prince found his full stature. In retreat, 
 in sickness of heart, under temptation to deny his faith in 
 God and man, the Stuart weighed Sir Jasper's needs, found 
 heart to understand his mood, and smiled gravely. " There 
 are so many claimants, sir, that I shall not permit more than 
 one man from any house to share the privilege. As for 
 Maurice, I shall have need of him at my side and of you 
 I cannot spare you." 
 
 The tradesmen of Carlisle looked on and wondered. This 
 was no shopkeeping. From the sleet and the tempest that 
 had bred them, it was plain that these gentry had learned 
 knighthood. Jack Bownas, the bow-legged tailor, who had 
 held stoutly that kings and gentry were much like other men, 
 save for the shape of their breeks, was bewildered by this
 
 350 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 scene in Carlisle's ugly street. He was aware that men are 
 not equals, after all, that some few gently or lowly born 
 are framed to claim leadership by steadfastness of soul and 
 outlook. " I'd like to tailor for yond Prince," he growled to 
 his neighbour. 
 
 " So you've turned Charlie's man ? " the other answered, 
 dour and hard a man who had yielded to north-country 
 weather, instead of conquering it. " For me, he's a plain- 
 looking chiel enough, as wet and muddied-o'er as you and 
 me, Jack." 
 
 " He's a man, or somewhere near thereby, and I build few 
 suits these days for men. I spend my days in cutting cloth 
 for lile, thin-bodied folk like ye." 
 
 " I'm a good customer o' yours, and there are more tailors 
 in Carlisle than one." 
 
 Jack Bownas, prudent by habit, was loath to lose custom. 
 He pondered the matter for a moment. "Awa wi' ye," he 
 said at last. " I've seen the Prince. You may gang ower 
 to Willie Saunderson's, if you wull. He makes breeks for 
 little-bodied men." 
 
 It was the tailor's one and only gift to the Stuart, this sur- 
 render of a customer; but, measured by his limitations, it 
 was a handsome and a selfless tribute to the Cause. Born to 
 another calling, he might, with no greater sacrifice, have set 
 his head upon the block. 
 
 And through all this to-and-froing of the townsfolk, 
 through the rain and the bitter wind and the evil luck, the 
 forlorn hope twenty of them halted at the gateway of the 
 Castle before going in. 
 
 Rupert turned round to grip his father's hand. " Good- 
 bye, sir," he said gravely. 
 
 " Goodbye, my lad." 
 
 And that was all their farewell. No more was needed, for 
 all the rough-and-ready training of their lives at Windy- 
 hough had been a preparation for some such gallant death 
 as this.
 
 THE FORLORN HOPE 351 
 
 Colonel Towneley marshalled his volunteers in front of the 
 gateway, and the bitter wind drove through them. 
 
 The Prince, with his shoulders square to the wind, took 
 the salute of men soon to die. And then he drooped a little, 
 as all his race did when they were thinking of the needs of 
 lesser men. " Friends," he said, lifting his head buoyantly 
 again, " there's no death and by and by I shall be privileged 
 to meet you." 
 
 Throughout this march to Derby, and back again to wet 
 Carlisle, there had been no pageantry to tempt men's fancy. 
 There were none now. A score of soldiers, drenched to the 
 skin, went in at the Castle gateway, and the rain came down 
 in grey, relentless sheets. Prince Charles Edward, as he 
 moved slowly north at the head of his five thousand men, was 
 still fighting the raging toothache that the hardships of the 
 march had brought him. And toothache sounds a wild, dis- 
 heartening pibroch of its own. 
 
 The night passed quietly in Carlisle, and the garrison was 
 grave and businesslike, as men are when they stand in face 
 of certain death and begin to reckon up their debts to God. 
 
 Colonel Towneley had persuaded Hamilton to get to bed 
 and take his fill of sleep, and had assumed command; and 
 about three of the morning, as he went his round, he came on 
 Rupert, standing at his post. Towneley had the soldier's 
 eye for detail, and he glanced shrewdly at the younger man. 
 
 " You were the first to volunteer with me?" he asked, tap- 
 ping him lightly on the shoulder. " I remember your tired, 
 hard-bitten face." 
 
 " It was my luck, sir and I've had little until now." 
 
 "You should not be sentrying here. We've had no easy 
 march to-day. You had earned a night's rest." 
 
 " I did not need it. I asked to take my place here." 
 
 Towneley looked him up and down, then tapped him lightly 
 on the shoulder. " By gad ! you've suffered, one time or an- 
 other," he said unexpectedly. " You're young to have earned 
 that steady voice. Good-night, my lad."
 
 352 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 The next day was quiet in Carlisle, and the only news that 
 came into the Castle was that the Duke of Cumberland still 
 lay at Hesket, awaiting the implements of siege that were 
 slow in reaching him; but the day after he brought his men 
 into the city, and invested the town as closely as his lack of 
 artillery allowed. It was a mistaken move on his part, as 
 'the shrewdest of his advisers pointed out to him; but the 
 Duke had answered all wiser counsels with the blunt assur- 
 ance that he had time to stay and butcher a few rebels here 
 in Carlisle by way of whetting his appetite for the pleasant 
 shambles to come afterwards in Scotland. And those few 
 who were English among his following were aghast at the li- 
 cence Cumberland allowed himself in speaking of enemies, 
 misguided to their view, but brave and honourable men, con- 
 tent to face long odds. 
 
 And again there was quiet within the Castle. Two days 
 passed, and still the Duke was waiting for the artillery that 
 was forcing its way painfully through roads ankle-deep in 
 mud. 
 
 Rupert, for his part, was entirely at home with the work 
 asked of him. He was defending walls besieged, and nothing 
 in the world was happening, as at Windyhough; but his task 
 was easier here, because he had men to share the hardship 
 with him, because he did not need, day by day, to fight single- 
 handed against the sleep that had kept him company in Lan- 
 cashire. 
 
 Hamilton, the Governor, and Colonel Towneley seasoned 
 men both were astonished by the toughness and knowledge 
 of defence shown by this lean-bodied lad whose energy seemed 
 tireless. And then they learned from one of the Lanca- 
 shire volunteers how he had kept Windyhough for the King, 
 and they told each other that it was hard on the lad to have 
 to face a second siege so soon. 
 
 " There's one who should ride far," said Towneley to the 
 Governor once, after Rupert had got up from dining with 
 them to take his post.
 
 THE FORLORN HOPE 353 
 
 " Yes," said Hamilton, with tired mockery of the faith he 
 held " as far as the stars, Towneley on a winged horse 
 like the Prince, God bless him ! like Oliphant of Muirhouse 
 like all the dreamers who think this world well lost for loy- 
 alty." 
 
 "Well, we're fools of the same breed," put in the other 
 dryly. " No need to laugh at your own regiment." 
 
 "Oh, I don't laugh! I'm tired just tired, Towneley. I 
 tell you, this business of holding Carlisle, while you others 
 were facing the stark brunt of it, has made me peevish. I 
 shall be an old woman if Cumberland's artillery does not 
 reach him soon." 
 
 Towneley filled his glass afresh, held it up to the light, 
 glanced across at the Governor with clear, unhurried comrade- 
 ship. " I know, Hamilton I know. I've felt the same since 
 Derby. The Prince has felt it. The Highlanders have felt 
 it." 
 
 " You were in the open," growled Hamilton. 
 
 " In retreat, and asking battle all the while battle that did 
 not come. And we were saddle-sore and wet, with an east 
 wind blowing through us. You were snug in Carlisle here, 
 Hamilton. I tell you so." 
 
 And they came near to quarrel, as men do when their hearts 
 grow cramped from lack of action. And then Towneley 
 laughed, remembering his whole, round faith in this life and 
 the next. 
 
 "We're grown men," he said, "and very near to death. 
 We'd best not quarrel, like children in the nursery." 
 
 The next day the garrison looked out on a gentle fall of 
 sleet that half hid the Duke's investing army. It was the 
 day of Christmas, and those without might do as they 
 liked; but the Governor and Colonel Towneley were aware 
 that catholic souls must keep the feast of great thanks- 
 giving. 
 
 They made their rounds with no less zeal, but with greater 
 precision, maybe, knowing that the sword-hilt is fashioned like
 
 354 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 the Cross. And about seven of the evening they sat down 
 Rupert with them, and all the gentry of the garrison who 
 could be spared at the well-spread supper-board. 
 
 They were simple at heart, these revellers who had known 
 more fast than feast days lately. They had gone to Mass 
 that morning with thoughts of the Madonna, who had 
 changed the world's face, giving men a leal and happy rever- 
 ence for their women-folk. They had remembered these 
 women-folk with a pang of tenderness and longing knowing 
 they would not see another Christmas dawn. But now they 
 sat down to supper with appetites entirely of this world and 
 a resolve to wear gay hearts on their sleeves. 
 
 It was an hour later that Hamilton, the Governor, rose 
 and passed his wine across a great jug of water that stood in 
 front of him. " To the King, gentlemen ! " he said. 
 
 And, from the acclamation, it would have seemed they 
 toasted one who was firmly on the throne, with gifts to offer 
 loyalty. Instead, their King was an exile on French shores, 
 and the only gift he had for them was this grace they had 
 found to die selflessly and with serenity for the Stuart whom 
 they served. 
 
 For a doomed garrison, they had supped well; and when 
 Towneley got to his feet by and by and sang a Lancashire 
 hunting-song, all in the broad, racy tongue of the good county, 
 they called for another, and yet another. Discipline of a 
 drastic sort was waiting for them. Meanwhile, they were 
 resolved to take their ease. 
 
 And suddenly there was a knocking on the door, and then 
 a rattling of the latch, and the sound of stumbling feet out- 
 side. And then the door opened, and into the middle of the 
 uproar and the laughter came a figure so ludicrous, so di- 
 shevelled, that their merriment was roused afresh. 
 
 The man was dripping from head to foot not with clean 
 rain, but with muddy water that streaked his face, his hands, 
 his clothes. And he stumbled foolishly as he moved to the 
 table, and, without a by-your-leave, poured himself a measure
 
 THE FORLORN HOPE 355 
 
 of wine and gulped it down. Then he tried to straighten 
 himself, and looked round at the company. 
 
 " I carry dispatches, and and I'm nearly done," he said. 
 
 There was no laughter now, for his weakness and his er- 
 rand dwarfed all comedy. It was Rupert, remembering long 
 years of hero-worship, who first saw through the dishevelment 
 and mud that disguised this comer to the feast. He crossed 
 to the messenger's side, and poured out another measure for 
 him. 
 
 " You're Oliphant of Muirhouse," he said, " and you 
 steadied me in the old days at Windyhough." 
 
 Oliphant had the gift of remembering the few who were 
 conspicuously leal, instead of the many whose weakness did 
 not count in the strong game of life. " So you've found 
 your way, as I promised you ? " he said, with a sudden smile. 
 "And it tastes sweet, Rupert? Gad! I remember my first 
 taste of the Road." 
 
 And then Oliphant, feeling his strength ebb, crossed to the 
 Governor and laid his dispatches on the table. He explained, 
 in the briefest way, that he had ridden across country from 
 Northumberland, changing horses by the way, had found Car- 
 lisle invested, had been compelled, lacking the password, to 
 run a sentry through and afterwards to swim the moat. 
 
 With the singular clearness that, in sickness or in health, 
 goes with men who carry a single purpose, he gave one dis- 
 patch into the Governor's hand. " That is for you, sir. This 
 other must be carried forward to the Prince must be car- 
 ried instantly. Its contents may alter the movements of the 
 whole army. The safety of his Highness is concerned." 
 
 He paused a moment, daunted by a weakness extreme and 
 pitiful. " I had hoped to carry the message on myself, after 
 an hour's sleep or two," he went on; "but I'm as you see 
 me there are times when a man can do no more." 
 
 The Governor was moved by Oliphant's childlike, unques- 
 tioning devotion. The man stood there, drenched and mud- 
 died, after a ride that would have broken most folk's wish to
 
 356 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 carry any message on. He had passed through besieging 
 troops, and cooled his ardour in a moat whose waters were 
 nipped by a north-east wind. And yet he seemed to ask for- 
 bearance, because he was not strong enough to ride out again 
 at dawn on the Stuart's business. 
 
 "Be easy, Mr. Oliphant," said Hamilton. "I shall find 
 you a hard-riding messenger." 
 
 Oliphant's mind was clear as ever for the detail that every 
 man must watch whose heart is set on high adventure. He 
 looked round the board, and the face that claimed his glance 
 was Rupert's. Sharp and clear, old scenes at Windyhough 
 recurred to him the pretty, pampered mother, the weakling 
 heir who longed to prove himself, the memories of his own 
 unhappy boyhood that Rupert had stirred at every meeting. 
 
 " By your leave, Mr. Hamilton," he said, "I shall choose 
 my own messenger." 
 
 The Governor nodded gravely. " It is your due, sir much 
 more than that is your due, if I could give it you." 
 
 " Sir Jasper Royd is my friend and he will be glad to 
 know that his son is trusted with dispatches." 
 
 Rupert took fire from the torch that this harassed messen- 
 ger had carried into Carlisle Castle. Not long ago he had 
 been a stay-at-home, fenced round with women and old men; 
 and now, by some miracle, he was chosen to ride hard through 
 open country. 
 
 Across his eagerness, across the free and windy gladness 
 that had come to him, there struck a chillier air; and he 
 stayed for a thought of comrades left in the rearguard of 
 the action. It was the old, abiding instinct that ran with the 
 simple Stuart loyalty. 
 
 " Mr. Oliphant," he said quietly, " we are waiting here for 
 certain death. I choose to stay." 
 
 " You choose to stay ? " echoed Oliphant. 
 
 " Because I volunteered because you must take these dis- 
 patches north yourself. I tell you, sir, you must get free of 
 Carlisle. It is death to stay."
 
 THE FORLORN HOPE 357 
 
 Oliphant's failing strength rallied for a moment. He no 
 longer saw the strained, eager face of this youngster who 
 had given him hero-worship, who was pleading with him for 
 his own safety. Instead, he saw a mountain-burn, high up 
 on the braes of Glenmoriston, and a summer's day lang syne 
 gone by, and one who walked with him. They had talked 
 together, he and she, and she had been kind and winsome, 
 but no more; and with that dream, high as the stars, yet 
 vastly human, had ended his foolish quest for happiness. 
 
 He saw her now with the young eyes that had sought 
 answering fire from hers and had not found response. He 
 saw the whaups wheeling and crying over their heads, heard 
 the tinkling hurry of the burn, the lilt of the breeze through 
 the heather. 
 
 " Death ? " he said turning at last to Rupert. " My lad, 
 there are worse friends." 
 
 When they came to see him, after he had fallen into a 
 chair, his arms thrown forward on the table, they 'found a 
 gash across his ribs, of which he had not spoken. He had 
 earned it during the encounter with the sentry, before he 
 swam the moat. 
 
 "Hard-bitten!" muttered the Governor, with frank 
 pleasure in the man. "Hard-bitten! The Prince is happy 
 in his servants." 
 
 After they had carried the messenger to bed, the Governor 
 drew Rupert apart. " See here, boy," he said sharply, " your 
 sense of honour is devilish nice, but it needs roughening just 
 now. You volunteered for death ? Well, the order is counter- 
 mandedor, maybe, death's waiting for you close outside. 
 Anyway, you go out to-night at once." 
 
 " I would rather see my duty that way, sir, if I could." 
 
 " Oh, to the deuce with your scruples ! You're young, and 
 think it a fine, happy business to die for the Prince. It's 
 a braver thing to live for him through the stark murk of it, 
 lad. Here are your dispatches." 
 
 The Governor, at the heart of him, was glad to feel that
 
 358 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 this promising youngster, who had shown patience and gal- 
 lantry in siege, should have his chance of a run for liberty. 
 He hurried him out of the Castle and down to the edge of 
 the moat. The night was thick with sleet and wind, friendly 
 for the enterprise because it stifled sound. 
 
 " You can swim ? " said the Governor. 
 
 " Passably, sir." 
 
 " Then slip in, and play about like a water-rat until you find 
 your chance to land between the sentries. Make your way 
 into the town and hire a horse at the first tavern. They do 
 not know you in Carlisle." 
 
 " And you, Mr. Hamilton ? " asked Rupert, with the old 
 simplicity. 
 
 " I ? I shall take care of my own troubles, lad. Mean- 
 while, you've enough of your own to keep you busy." 
 
 The passage of the moat was cold enough to keep Rupert 
 intent on present business. The need afterwards to pick his 
 way between the sentries, who were cursing northern 
 weather, left him no time for thought of those he left behind 
 in Carlisle. And then he had to keep a steady head, a quiet, 
 impassive face, as he bargained with the host of the Three 
 Angels Tavern touching the hire of a horse to carry him on 
 an errand of gallantry to Gretna Green. He played his part 
 well, this heir of Sir Jasper's, for the song of the open hazard 
 was lilting at his ears. 
 
 He left the town behind him, and got out into the desolate, 
 wild country that lay between Carlisle and the Border. Be- 
 cause he had no thought whether his horsemanship were good 
 or bad, so long as it helped him along the track of a single 
 purpose, he rode easily and well. After the quiet of Windy- 
 hough, after the surprising journey to Carlisle, the second 
 siege there, with nothing happening, there was a keen, un- 
 heeding freedom about this northward ride. He knew the 
 Prince's route, had only to spur forward on the Annan road 
 to overtake him, soon or late. He was wet to the skin, and
 
 THE FORLORN HOPE 359 
 
 not strong of body; but his soul, like a steady, hidden lamp, 
 warmed all this enterprise for him. His one trouble was that 
 his borrowed nag was carrying a clinking shoe. 
 
 As he crossed the bridge at Gretna he heard two horses 
 splashing through the sleety track in front, and wondered 
 idly who were keeping him company on such an ill-found, 
 lonely road. When he got to the forge, intent on having his 
 horse re-shod, he saw the rough figure of the smith standing 
 swart against the glow from the open smithy door, fronting 
 a man good to look at and a woman whose face was shrouded 
 by a blue-grey hood. 
 
 " It's lucky I was late with my work, and hammering half 
 into the night," the smith was saying. " The fees are double, 
 sir, after it strikes midnight," he added, with true Scots cau- 
 tion. 
 
 " Treble, if it pleases you. Marry us, blacksmith, and 
 don't haggle. We've no time to waste." 
 
 When they turned, man and wife, to get to saddle again, 
 they saw Rupert waiting, his arm slipped through his horse's 
 bridle. 
 
 " Good luck to you both ! " he said, with the easiness that 
 sat well on him these days. " My need is to have a loose 
 shoe set right and I, too, have no time to waste." 
 
 The bride lifted her blue-grey hood and glanced at him, 
 aware of some romance deeper than her own that sounded 
 in the voice of this slim, weather-beaten stranger. " Dear, 
 will you ask a favour of this gentleman?" she said, touching 
 her bridegroom's arm. " He wishes us luck, and he has a 
 loose horseshoe to give us. He comes in a good hour, I 
 think." 
 
 Rupert stooped. The shoe came easily away into his hand, 
 and the bride, as she took it from him, looked up at him as if 
 she had known him long and found him trusty. " You carry 
 the luck-giver's air," she said. " I have seen it once or twice, 
 and it cannot be mistaken."
 
 360 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " Likely," said Rupert, with a touch of the old bitterness. 
 " I have found little of my own till lately." 
 
 " Well, as for luck," put in the blacksmith dryly, " I fancy 
 you've all three got more than the poor fools who came this 
 way five days ago. Five thousand o' them, so it was said 
 five thousand faces that looked as if they were watching their 
 own burial and the pipes just sobbing like bairns left out i' 
 the cold, and the Pretender with his bonnie face set as grim 
 as a Lochaber blade " 
 
 " The Prince have you later news of him ? " asked Ru- 
 pert indifferently, as if he talked of the weather. 
 
 " Whisht, now ! We have to call him the Pretender, what- 
 ever a body may think privately. Yes, I've news of him 
 news comes north and south to Gretna, for it's a busy road. 
 They tell me he's in Glasgow, and minded to bide there for 
 a good while." 
 
 The bridegroom laughed the low, possessive laugh of 
 pride that is the gift of newly-wedded males. " Princes come 
 and go, but a good wife comes only once. Good-night to you, 
 for we're pursued." 
 
 The bride gave Rupert a long, friendly look as she turned 
 to get to saddle. " I thank you for your luck, sir," she said. 
 
 It was so they parted, not to meet again; but Rupert, as 
 he waited restlessly until his horse was shod, was aware that 
 this lady of the grey-blue hood had loosened his grim hold of 
 life a little, because some note in her voice, some turn of the 
 pretty head, had reminded him of Nance Demaine Nance, 
 half- forgotten, pushed into the background of this ride peril- 
 ous that was to give him manhood at long last. And a sud- 
 den, foolish longing came to him to be at Windyhough again, 
 seeing Nance come into a dull room, to make it, by some 
 magic of her own, a place full of charm and melody. 
 
 " They say the Duke of Cumberland is staying to take 
 Carlisle, sir," said the blacksmith, putting the finishing touches 
 to his work. 
 
 " Yes. So they told me when I rode through to-day."
 
 THE FORLORN HOPE 361 
 
 " Well, it gives these other chiels a chance, and I'm no 
 saying I'm sorry." 
 
 " Nor I," said Rupert as he got to saddle, and pressed a 
 crown-piece into the blacksmith's hand. 
 
 As he rode forward through the sleet, and was half-way to 
 Annan in the Border country, a horseman, better mounted 
 than himself, overtook him and drew rein sharply. There 
 was a ragged sort of moonlight stealing through the dark- 
 ness of the night, and he saw the face of a man, elderly and 
 hard and in evil temper, peering at him through the gloom. 
 
 " I'm seeking my daughter, sir," said the stranger, without 
 preamble of any kind. " She was married at Gretna just now 
 I was too late to stop that but I trust to make her a 
 widow before the night is out. Have they passed you on the 
 road?" 
 
 " Was she wearing a grey-blue hood, sir?" 
 
 "How should I know? Have they passed you, I say?" 
 
 " No, but I watched them married at Gretna not long ago, 
 and they rode out ahead of me." 
 
 "On which road?" 
 
 "They spoke" even a white lie came unreadily to Ru- 
 pert's tongue " they spoke of turning righthanded towards 
 Newcastle, I think." 
 
 So then the stranger turned his horse sharply round, swore 
 roundly at his informant, and was gone without a good-night 
 or a word of thanks. And Rupert laughed as he trotted for- 
 ward. He had faced many things during his odd, disastrous 
 five-and-twenty years loneliness hard to bear, good-hu- 
 moured liking that was half-contempt from the men who 
 counted him a scholar, distrust and loathing of himself. But 
 now he felt strength come into his right hand, as a sword- 
 hilt does. His feet were set on the free, windy road. He 
 had gone a little way to prove himself, and the zest of it was 
 like rare wine, that warms the fancy but leaves both head 
 and heart in a nice poise of sanity. 
 
 He thought of the lady in the grey-blue hood, and laughed
 
 362 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 again. He knew now why he had lied to the pursuer. They 
 were night-riders, like himself, she and her groom ; they had 
 chosen the honest open, with peril riding hard behind them. 
 And, till he died, his sympathy would ever go out now, to 
 those who took the dangerous tracks.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE GLORY OF IT 
 
 THE Prince stayed in Glasgow with his army until the New 
 Year was two days in. And this was fortunate for Rupert, 
 because it enabled him to bring in his dispatches after many 
 a change of horses by the way in time to share the pleasant 
 victory of Falkirk later on. 
 
 And Falkirk Battle, like Prestonpans at the beginning of 
 this wild campaign, showed the Prince quick in strategy be- 
 forehand, hot when the fight was dinning round his ears. 
 By sheer speed of generalship he got his army to the rising 
 ground which gave him the advantage, outwitting General 
 Hawley, who led the Hanoverian army. And then news was 
 brought by Rupert, as it chanced that Hawley could not 
 get his cannon up within firing distance, because the bogland 
 was so sodden that the wheels were axle-deep in mire. And 
 so then the Prince, against Lord Murray's text-book warnings 
 and advice, ordered a sharp attack. They had the advantage 
 of the hill ; but the Prince, knowing the temper of his High- 
 landers, chose to abandon that for the gain of instant action. 
 He was justified. His men were like dogs kept too long upon 
 the chain, savage for assault; and, when he led them down 
 the hill, straight on to the astonished enemy busy still with 
 the foundered gun-carriages the roar and speed of the at- 
 tack swept all before it. 
 
 The fight was quick and bloody, till gloaming ended it. 
 The odds were three to two against the Prince ; yet when the 
 day's business was accomplished, there were six hundred 
 killed of Hawley's army, and many wounded asking for the 
 succour which the Stuart gave by habit, and much artillery 
 and ammunition captured. 
 
 363
 
 564 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 It was in these days that Rupert found recompense for the 
 way for once, had faced the opposing odds with the practi- 
 cal, quiet courage, the eager hope, that are seldom blended to 
 a nicety in a man's soul. 
 
 And while they rested after the battle, news came in that 
 General Hawley's army had been increased by three thou- 
 sand troops sent by forced marches from Northumberland. 
 Lord Murray's arithmetic again took panic; the Prince's 
 zeal caught fire; and once more, in this bloodless battle of 
 the council-chamber, it was the Scots prudence that won the 
 day. 
 
 The Prince's army moved north, in retreat when advance 
 was their master-card to play. And again the Highland 
 pipers played sorrow round the hills, as if a mist came down. 
 And Rupert found his strength come supple to him, like a 
 well-tried sword, because in the years behind he, too, had 
 known retreat. 
 
 They went north, and farther north, up into the beauti- 
 ful, wild glens that now were harsh with winter, though 
 the hill-bred men liked the naked pastures, the naked, comely 
 trees, a little better than when the warmth of summer clothed 
 them. 
 
 It was not a battle, but a rout. The Prince had had his 
 years behind. Whenever a hazardous journey was planned, 
 needing one resolute man to follow it alone, the choice fell 
 on him. He had joined the honourable company of Night- 
 Riders those messengers who were seldom in the forefront 
 of public applause, but whose service to the Cause was beyond 
 all praise or recompense. There were some twenty of them, 
 scattered up and down the two countries. Oliphant of Muir- 
 house, Rupert each one of them was of the same build and 
 habit lean, untiring men who had earned their optimism by 
 the discipline the slow-working mills of God had taught them 
 men who feared sloth, self-pity, prudence; men with their 
 eyes ever on the hills, where strength and the royal courage 
 thrive.
 
 THE GLORY OF IT 365 
 
 Rupert had waited for his manhood; and now it grew to 
 flower with amazing speed and certainty. The muddled years 
 behind, the scholarly aloofness from life's warfare and its 
 seeming disillusions, grew faint and shadowy. He went 
 about the Prince's business, a man carrying men's lives, and 
 the joy of it was as if the pipes called him up and down the 
 broken country to swift and pleasant battle. 
 
 He learned much these days, as men do who ride with the 
 lone hand on the bridle-rein learned to keep his body hard, 
 and his soul clean, because he was adventuring, not his own 
 safety, but that of comrades who trusted him. Trust? As 
 he rode through the lonely glens, seeing past days and fu- 
 ture spread out before him like a clear-drawn map, he grew 
 more and more aware that there is no stronger stirrup-cup for 
 a rider-out to drink than the waters of deep trust. A man's 
 faith in himself grows weak, or arrogant, or hardened; but 
 the high trust given him by others, who look to him and can- 
 not see him fail, is like a fixed star shining far ahead. 
 
 It was no easy life, as ease is counted. The year was get- 
 ting on to spring, as they reckon seasons London way; but 
 here among the mountains winter was tarrying, a guest who 
 knew his welcome long outstayed, and whose spite was 
 kindled. Night by night, as Rupert went by the lonely 
 tracks, the wind blew keen and bitter from the east; and 
 snow fell often; and rheumatism, sharp and unromantic, was 
 racking his wet body. Yet still his knees were firm about 
 the saddle, his handling of the reins secure ; for he was learn- 
 ing horsemanship these days. 
 
 And sometimes, at unlikeliest moments, there came a brief, 
 bewildering summer to his soul. He knew that Nance was 
 thinking of him was trusting him, as all these others did. 
 He would see the moors and the denes that had bred him 
 would hear the pleasant folk-speech of Lancashire, as he 
 passed greeting with farmers on the road would remember 
 the way of his heart, as it leaped out to Nance in the old, 
 unproven days. These were his intervals of rest; for God
 
 S66 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 lets no man's zeal consume him altogether, until his time is 
 ripe to go. And then he would put dreams from him, as if 
 they were a crime, and would touch his pocket to learn if the 
 dispatches were secure, and would ride forward, carrying his 
 life through the winding passes, through the Scottish caution 
 of lairds who were doubtful whether it were worth while to 
 join a Prince in hot retreat. 
 
 It was so he came to Culloden Moor wet, rheumatic, and 
 untiring on the Fifteenth of April, and had audience of the 
 Prince. He had come from the north side of the River Spey, 
 and was ignorant that the enemy, under the Duke of Cumber- 
 land's command, was encamped not far away, ready to give 
 battle on the morrow. 
 
 The Prince acknowledged Rupert's coming with a quick, 
 friendly smile. "Ah, you, sir! You're the pick of my gen- 
 tlemen since Oliphant of Muirhouse died." 
 
 And Rupert, forgetting that he had ridden far, carrying 
 urgent news, was aghast that one who had fed his boyish 
 dreams one who had brightened the hard face of endeavour 
 for him should have gone out of reach of human touch and 
 speech. " He's dead, your Highness ? I I loved him," he 
 said brokenly. 
 
 " Then be glad," said the Prince, as if he talked gently to 
 a younger brother. " He died in Carlisle Castle, after a cruel 
 ride .on my behalf. But he was not taken, sir, as all the others 
 were. There was Colonel Towneley there a comrade I had 
 proved and they tell me he's on his way south to Tower Hill. 
 I would rather die as Oliphant God rest him ! died." 
 
 Rupert, blind and heart-sick, fumbled for his dispatches 
 dispatches that, twice to-day, had all but cost him his life 
 and handed them to the Prince, who turned them over care- 
 lessly and put them down. 
 
 " By your leave," said the Prince, with a quiet laugh, " these 
 can wait a little. There's battle on the moor to-morrow." 
 
 Then Rupert learned what was in the doing; and his first 
 grief for Oliphant grew dulled, because the chance of open
 
 THE GLORY OF IT 367 
 
 fight had come, after incessant riding through the nights that 
 had brought him little company. 
 
 "There, you'll need rest!" said the Prince, with a kindly 
 touch on his arm. 
 
 And again Rupert smiled, with disarming frankness. " I've 
 had five-and-twenty years of rest, your Highness. It is bet- 
 ter to be up Culloden braes to-morrow." 
 
 " Gad, sir ! you're Oliphant just Oliphant, come :o life 
 again, with all his obstinate, queer zeal. Make your peace, 
 lad, and sleep a while we come into our kingdom either way 
 to-morrow." 
 
 Through that night, in between the slumber that was forced 
 on him by sheer weight of tiredness, Rupert held fast the last 
 words of the Prince. It was their strength the Stuart's 
 strength and his, that, either way, they came into their king- 
 dom. The Georgian troops, sleeping or waking till the dawn's 
 "bugle notes rang out, had only one way of victory ; they must 
 conquer, or lose all, in this world's battle ; it was a sealed rid- 
 dle to them that a man may find true gain in loss. 
 
 The dawn came red and lonely over Culloden Moor, and the 
 austere hills, as they cleared their eyes of mist-grey sleep, 
 looked down on a fury in the making, on preparations for a 
 battle whose tragedy is sobbing to this day. 
 
 Rupert, his heart on fire as he went through that day's 
 eagerness the Prince, who found recompense in action for 
 the indignities of Derby the Highlanders, who were fighting 
 with the zest of children dancing round a village Maypole 
 could never afterwards reconstruct the sharp and shifting is- 
 sues of the battle, could not guess how it came that all their 
 gallantry, their simple hope, were broken by the stolid foreign 
 soldiery. 
 
 Even at the bridge, where they came on with shield and 
 dirk and claymore against the Duke's three lines of musketry 
 the first line kneeling, the second stooping, the third stand- 
 ing to full height when they lay in tangled, writhing heaps, 
 shot down at twenty paces, those of the Highlanders whose
 
 368 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 eyes were clear above disasters of the body were surprised 
 that love of their Prince had not disarmed the musketry; and 
 they tried to get up again, and died in the simple faith that had 
 taught them how to fight and how to die. 
 
 The Prince galloped up to the company of MacDonalds, 
 who had stood sullenly aloof because, at the beginning of the 
 fight, they had not been given the first post of danger. 
 
 " MacDonalds ! " he said. " Who conies with me to the 
 bridge?" 
 
 They forgot their sulkiness, forgot allegiance to their chief- 
 tain. There was the Stuart here, his face crimsoned by a 
 glancing musket-shot, his voice alive and dominant. From 
 frank disaster, from toothache and the miry roads, from this 
 day's battle, which had found him skilled in fight, he had 
 learned his kingship. 
 
 The MacDonald turned sharply round, putting himself be- 
 tween his clansmen and the Prince. " We stay," he said, with 
 peremptory and harsh command. " They would not give us 
 the right wing of the battle we'll take no other." 
 
 The Prince saw them halt in the midst of their eager rush 
 to serve him saw them look at each other, waver, and stand 
 still. A call stronger than his own had come to them the 
 call that is in each man's blood, blowing willy-nilly like the 
 wind and bidding him obey the teaching of dead forefathers. 
 Their hearts were toward the Prince they hungered for this 
 onset at the bridge but they held back, just as at Derby, be- 
 cause old allegiance was demanded by their chieftain. 
 
 " Macdonalds ! " cried the Prince again, with desperate 
 eagerness. "Who's for the bridge?" 
 
 And then, before he guessed their purpose, some of his gen- 
 tlemen rode close about him, clutched his reins, compelled 
 him to desert the field. 
 
 " All's lost, your Highness except your safety," said one. 
 
 He struggled to get free of them. " My pleasure," he said 
 hotly, " is to die as poorer friends are doing." 
 
 They would not listen. Their love of him whether it took
 
 THE GLORY OF IT 369 
 
 a misguided form or no compelled them to use force, to dis- 
 regard commands, entreaties. His vision, maybe, was clearer 
 than their own. They were concerned with his immediate 
 welfare, could not look into the years ahead that were to be a 
 lingering, heart-broken death, instead of the pleasant end he 
 craved. 
 
 They got him to a place of safety, and he glanced at them 
 with a reproof so sad and desolate that for the first time they 
 doubted their own wisdom. 
 
 " Gentlemen, it was not well done," he said, " but one day, 
 if God wills, I shall forgive you." 
 
 Below them, the Duke of Cumberland had his way with the 
 broken Highlanders. Across the moor, and back again, his 
 troopers swept, till the field was like a shambles. The High- 
 landers disdained to ask for quarter ; the others were too drunk 
 with lust of slaughter to think of it; and the roll-call of the 
 dead that day among the clans was a tribute to the Stuart and 
 their honour. There were near a quarter wounded ; but these 
 were outnumbered by the dead. 
 
 And yet the Duke had not supped well enough. In his 
 face, as he rode up and down the field, was a light not good 
 for any man to see the light that had touched it dimly when 
 he laid siege to Carlisle and talked of whetting his appetite 
 by slaughter of its garrison. 
 
 He was unsatisfied, though the wind came down from the 
 moor and sobbed across the desolation he had made. He 
 checked his horse, pointed to the wounded. 
 
 " Dispatch these rebels, gentlemen," he said to the officers 
 about him. 
 
 And then, as at Carlisle, the English among his following 
 withdrew from the uncleanness of the man. " We are officers, 
 your Highness," said one. 
 
 " Aye, and gentlemen. I know your ladylike speech. For 
 my part, I'm a soldier " 
 
 " A butcher, by your leave," snapped the other. 
 
 The Duke turned savagely on him; but the English closed
 
 370 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 round their comrade, and their meaning was plain enough to 
 be read. 
 
 " Must I do the work myself?" he snarled. 
 
 " It would seem so, if it must be done." 
 
 And afterwards the gloaming, sad and restless, crept down 
 from the grey hills, shrouding the dead and wounded. It 
 found Cumberland master of the field; but he was surfeited, 
 and the true luck of the battle was with those who had died 
 in faith, or with those others of the Prince's army who were 
 seeking cover among the northern hills. For it is not gain 
 or loss that matters, but the cleanly heart men bring to accept- 
 ance of the day's fortune. 
 
 Among the fugitives were some of the men of Lancashire 
 who had ridden out to join the Prince at Langton ; and these 
 foregathered, by some clan instinct of their own, in a little 
 wood five miles away from the trouble of Culloden Moor. 
 Sir Jasper was there, and Rupert, and Maurice, all carrying 
 wounds of one sort or another. Demaine's bailiff was there, 
 untouched and full of grumbles as of old. But Squire De- 
 maine himself was missing, and young Hunter of Hunters- 
 cliff ; and Maurice told how he had seen them die, close beside 
 him, at the ditch that lay fifty paces from Culloden Bridge. 
 
 " God rest them ! " said Sir Jasper, not halting for the sor- 
 row that would come by and by. " They've done with trou- 
 ble, friends, but we have not." 
 
 Half that night they rested in the sodden wood, with a chill 
 wind for blanket ; but they were afoot again long before dawn, 
 and overtook the Prince's company at Ruthven. A council 
 was held just after their arrival, and the Prince who, before 
 ever Culloden battle found him in the thick of it, had not slept 
 for eight-and-forty hours was still solicitous touching the 
 welfare of his friends. He bade the native-born make for 
 their own homes, the English choose the likeliest road to safety 
 that offered ; for himself, he would keep a few friends about 
 him, and would take his chance among the hills. And when
 
 THE GLORY OF IT 371 
 
 his gentlemen demurred, wishing to remain, he faced them 
 with the pleasant humour that no adversary could kill. 
 
 " I was not permitted to command when we were in ad- 
 vance," he said ; " but, gentlemen, we're in retreat and surely 
 I may claim the privilege ? " 
 
 When they had gone their separate ways in little companies 
 reluctantly, and looked backward at the Stuart, who was 
 meat, and wine, and song to them the Prince himself was 
 left with ten gentlemen about him. Nine of them were Scots- 
 men, but the tenth was Rupert, who had a surprising gift these 
 days for claiming the post of direst hazard. 
 
 And through that sick retreat the scattered companies were 
 aware of the qualities that disaster brings out more clearly 
 than any victory can do. Oliphant of Muirhouse, dead for 
 the Cause and happy in the end he craved, had asked Sir Jas- 
 per long ago at Windyhough if Will Underwood, brave in the 
 open hunt, were strong enough to stand a siege; and these 
 fugitives, going east and west and north hopeless and spurred 
 forward only by the pursuit behind, the homesickness ahead 
 were aware, each one of the them, what Oliphant had meant. 
 
 The Highlanders, trudging over hill-tracks to their shiel- 
 ings, were buried in a mist of sorrow, that only battle could 
 disperse. Lord Murray, riding for his own country, was re- 
 flective, soured, and peevish, because his cold arithmetic of 
 war was disproven by results. Yet, through the disillusion 
 and weariness of this wild scamper for the hills, the strong 
 souls of the Rising proved their mettle. The Prince, Lochiel, 
 the good and debonair, Sir Jasper and his hunting men of 
 Lancashire those who had lost most, because their hope had 
 been most keen, were the strong men in retreat. 
 
 And Rupert, sharing the Prince's dangers and his confi- 
 dence more closely every day, rode up and down among the 
 hills like a man possessed by some good angel that would not 
 let him fear, or rest, or feel the aches that wet roads by day, 
 wet beds by night entailed on him. Whenever a messenger
 
 372 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 was needed to go into dangerous country and fear nothing, 
 he claimed first privilege ; and it was granted him, for he had 
 learned a strange persuasiveness. 
 
 He was at Benbicula with the Prince, where they and the 
 crew of a small boat that had landed them met a storm of 
 rain that was to last for fourteen hours ; where they found an 
 empty cottage, with a store of firelogs; where the Prince 
 bought a cow for thirty shillings, and proved himself the best 
 cook of them all. They had food that night, and a bottle of 
 brandy among the six who still kept company together; and 
 these unwonted luxuries brought the best gift of all sleep, 
 that is dear to buy when men have kept weariness at bay too 
 long. 
 
 Rupert was at Corradale, too, where for three weeks they 
 found safety among the islanders of Uist. The royal bag- 
 gage was no heavier than a couple of shirts, and the Prince 
 was housed in a byre so weather-rotted that he had to sleep o' 
 nights under a tent made of branches and cow-hides, to keep 
 the rain from him. Yet his cheerfulness was unfeigned, for 
 he was tired of prudence and spent his whole days hunting 
 deer on the hills or fishing in the bay. The Uist folk knew 
 him, and the price upon his head; the neighboring isles were 
 thick with soldiery in pursuit, and gunboats were busy among 
 the inland seas ; and yet he moved abroad as if he were some 
 big-hearted country gentleman, intent only on following his 
 favourite sports in time of peace. 
 
 " You wear a charmed life, your Highness," said Rupert, 
 as they came down one day from shooting deer. It was near 
 the end of their three weeks' sojourn on the island, and the 
 danger set so close about the Prince had harassed him, as no 
 perils of his own could do. 
 
 " I believe you, sir," said the other, turning suddenly. " I 
 bear a charmed life. So does any man for whom God finds a 
 need. We die, I think, when our work is done, but not an 
 hour before." And with that he laughed, and got out his 
 clay pipe. " We shall sup on venison to-night, my friend,
 
 THE GLORY OF IT 373 
 
 and I am hungry. You should not tempt me with matters of 
 theology." 
 
 And so it was afterwards, when they left Uist to go through 
 constant perils, by land and sea. The Prince brought to it 
 all discomfort, pursuit outwitted by a hair's breadth time 
 after time the same unyielding outlook. Fools and cowards 
 might fold their hands, reconstructing yesterday and bewail- 
 ing all the misadventures that might have been avoided had 
 they done this, done that ; but the Stuart took life up from each 
 day's beginning, and went forward, praying in entire sim- 
 plicity that his shoulders might be broadened to the coming 
 burden. 
 
 When at last, near the end of June, they came near the Skye 
 country, a new, surprising page was turned of the story of 
 these hunted folk. Until now they had been among men, 
 fighting the enemy at Culloden, eluding him during the in- 
 cessant, long retreat. But now a woman stepped into their 
 lives again ; and, because faith and old habit had trained them 
 that way, they were glad that a thread of gold had come to 
 bind the rough wounds of life together. 
 
 Not till he died would Rupert forget those days in the West- 
 ern Isles. Their grace passed into abiding folksong before 
 the year was out ; and he was privileged to watch, step by step, 
 the growth of a high regard such as the world seldom sees. 
 
 He saw Flora MacDonald's first coming to the Prince at 
 Rossinish, in Uist saw the long, startled glance they ex- 
 changed, as if each had been looking for the other since time's 
 beginning. And then he saw her curtsey low, saw him lift 
 her* with tender haste. 
 
 " I should kneel to you instead, Miss MacDonald," he said. 
 " You've volunteered to be my guide through dangerous seas, 
 they tell me, and I fear for your safety, and yet I ever liked 
 brave women." 
 
 Rupert had changed his trade of messenger for that of boat- 
 man, and was one of the six rowers who rested on their oars 
 in the roomy fishing-coble that was waiting to carry the Prince
 
 374 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 to Skye. There was a wild gale blowing, but the June night 
 was clear with a sort of tempered daylight, and Rupert 
 watched these two, standing on the strip of sandy shore, with 
 a queer sense of intuition. The discipline of night-riding, its 
 loneliness and urgency, teaches a man to look on at any hap- 
 pening with eyes keen for the true, sharp detail of it ; and the 
 two figures, as he saw them now, seemed transfigured, secure 
 for the moment in some dream of a past life they had shared 
 together. 
 
 There was the Prince, his head lifted buoyantly, his lips 
 smiling as if Culloden had never been. There was Miss Mac- 
 Donald four-and-twenty, keen for loyalty and sacrifice with 
 something more than loyalty making a happy light about her 
 face. She had none of the fripperies that set men's wits 
 astray and poison their clean hold on life ; but, from her buck- 
 led shoes to her brown, shapely head, she was trim, and debo- 
 nair, and bonnie, made to keep pace with men along the road 
 of high endeavour. 
 
 Rupert, resting on his oar, felt a touch of loneliness and 
 heartache. This lass of MacDonald's recalled the Lancashire 
 hills to him because she was so like Nance Demaine, for whose 
 sake he was proving himself along the troubled ways. And 
 then he had no time for heartache ; for the Prince was hand- 
 ing Miss MacDonald into the boat, and the rowers were bid- 
 den to make for the first unguarded landing-place in Skye 
 which they could find. 
 
 They had an evil passage. The wind never ceased to wail 
 and scream across the foamy breakers, but the storm was not 
 dark enough to hide them, and in the half-light their boat 
 showed clear against the grey-blue of the heaving seas. 
 Gunboats were out, searching for the fugitive, who was known 
 to be somewhere in among the isles; and once a hail of shot 
 passed over them from a man-of-war that set sail in pursuit, 
 but could not take them because the wind was contrary. 
 
 For eight hours the rowers strove with the long passage 
 overseas from Uist, their arms unwearying at the oars. And
 
 THE GLORY OF IT 375 
 
 the Prince would take more than his share of the toil, telling 
 them that he was the cause of this night voyage and should 
 lend a willing hand on that account. They came to Skye at 
 long last, and tried to put in at Waternish on the west coast, 
 but found a company of soldiery encamped about a roaring 
 fire, and had to put back again into the teeth of the wind. 
 And, as if wind and seas were not enough, the men on shore 
 pursued them with a rousing volley. One bullet struck the 
 boat's side, and a score others hit the water close about them, 
 and rebounded, and went out across the waves with a 
 sharp, mournful wail, shrill as the pipes when they are sor- 
 rowful. 
 
 No one on board was hit ; but the Prince, seeing Miss Mac- 
 Donald shrink, put out a hand and touched her, as a devout 
 lover might. And the two took hurried counsel. It seemed 
 best to cross Snizort Loch, and so reach Monkstadt, where a 
 kinsman of her own would give them shelter unless there, 
 too, the soldiery were quartered. 
 
 The Prince wished once again to take an oar, though his 
 hands were raw and bleeding; but no man would give up the 
 rowing that, for sake of him they carried, was pleasant to 
 them; and so, lest he should be idle altogether, he sang old, 
 loyal songs to them, and jested, and made their burden lighter 
 a gift of his. And then Miss MacDonald, whose pluck was 
 not to be denied, broke down for a little while, because she 
 was spent with endeavour and the wild tumult of the Stuart's 
 coming. And Rupert, tugging at his oar, watched the Prince 
 persuade her to lie down in the bottom of the coble, saw him 
 take off his plaid and cover her with practical and quiet so- 
 licitude, as if he had the right to guard her. 
 
 And through the rest of that night-crossing the Prince kept 
 stubborn guard about his rescuer, who was sleeping now like 
 a child, lest any of the rowers should touch her with his foot 
 in moving up and down to ease his limbs. And Rupert, 
 though his wits were muddled with incessant toil by land and 
 sea, felt something stir at the soul of him, as he saw the way
 
 S76 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 of the Prince's regard for this daughter of the MacDonalds. 
 Again it seemed to him that these two had known each other 
 long ago, before the world grew old, and tired, and prone to 
 gossip. And again he remembered Nance Demaine, who had 
 touched his boyhood with the fire that does not die. 
 
 They came to Monkstadt in safety, but learned that the 
 enemy was in possession of the house. And afterwards it was 
 to and fro on foot across the good isle of Skye, for many days, 
 until they came to the house of Kingsborough, where Flora's 
 home was with her mother and stepfather. 
 
 It was a queer . incoming, touched with laughter and the 
 needs of every day, as all big enterprises are until we view 
 them in the retrospect. There was Kingsborough the big- 
 gest of the big MacDonalds going in before to prepare his 
 wife for the intrusion. And he was manifestly afraid, as the 
 big, open-air men are when they are dwarfed by house-walls 
 and the indoor cleanliness. 
 
 Kingsborough, after bowing the Prince into the square, tidy 
 hall, asked leave to go up and tell his wife the news. And 
 presently, from above stairs while Flora and the Stuart 
 waited in the hall the laird's wife broke into practical and 
 shrill complaint. 
 
 " There's the danger, Kingsborough ; and, fore-bye, there's 
 so little in the house. Collops, and eggs, and a dish of oat- 
 meal how should I face the Prince, God bless him, with eggs 
 and collops ? " 
 
 The Prince laughed suddenly. And Miss MacDonald, 
 standing apart with the unrest and trouble of her deepening 
 regard for the Stuart she had rescued, glanced across at him, 
 wondering that he could be gay; and then she laughed with 
 him, for the tart good-humour of her mother's voice was prac- 
 tical, and far removed from the glamour the two fugitives had 
 shared. 
 
 " You may face me, Mrs. MacDonald," he said, going to 
 the stairfoot. " Collops and eggs are dainties to me these 
 days ; and, indeed, I am very hungry."
 
 THE GLORY OF IT 377 
 
 So there was a hurried toilet made, and the mistress of the 
 house came down, half of her the laird's wife, instinct with the 
 dignity that knows its station, the other half a picture of curi- 
 osity, surprise, bewildered curtseys, because the Stuart claimed 
 her hospitality. 
 
 They supped that night as if they dined in state. To any 
 meal, to any company, the Prince brought that grace which is 
 not lightly won the grace to touch common things with po- 
 etry, and to make a dish of collops as proud as if it were a 
 boar's head brought in to table by stately lackeys. 
 
 Rupert, supping with them, noted less the Prince's great air 
 of ease he was accustomed to it long ago than the punctil- 
 ious and minute regard he showed to Miss MacDonald. 
 Whenever she moved to leave the room intent on seeing to 
 the dishes in the kitchen he rose and bowed her out. When 
 she returned, he rose, and would not be seated till she had 
 taken her place again. 
 
 " You'll turn poor Flora's head, your Highness," said Mrs. 
 MacDonald once, after Flora had gone out, some shrewd ma- 
 ternal instinct warring with her loyalty. 
 
 " The head that guided me from Uist to Skye, and to your 
 hospitality, would not be lightly turned. I choose to honour 
 your daughter, Mrs. MacDonald, by your leave." 
 
 " But, your Highness, she's only a daft slip of a girl. I 
 weaned and reared her, and should know." 
 
 "You did not cross with us from Uist. And afterwards 
 there were the days and nights in Skye, the rains, and the pa- 
 tient watching; madam, as God sees us, Miss Flora carries 
 the bravest soul in Scotland. I .cannot do her too much hon- 
 our." 
 
 Kingsborough, big and simple-hearted his wife, thrifty 
 and not prone to sentiment looked at their guest with frank 
 astonishment. He had been so gay, so debonair, until a 
 chance word had touched the depths in him. How could they 
 understand him? They had not been through the glamour 
 and wild seas, as he had been since Miss MacDonald came to
 
 378 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 serve him. They did not know the clean, quick love that had 
 lain here in wait for him among the western isles. 
 
 Flora came in again, carrying a dish of hot scones. She 
 was aware of some new gravity that had settled on the com- 
 pany, and her glance sought the Prince's with instinctive ques- 
 tion. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I was praising Miss MacDonald in her 
 absence. You must forgive me." 
 
 Late that night, when he and Rupert were alone with their 
 host, the Prince fell into a mood of reckless gaiety. For a 
 while his journeyings were ended. He had supped royally; 
 he was to enjoy the luxury of a mattress and clean sheets, 
 after many nights spent in the heather or in wave-swept 
 boats; and the sheer physical comfort of it was strangely 
 pleasant. 
 
 He was a good companion, with a story here, a jest there, 
 that set big Kingsborough laughing till he feared to wake the 
 goodwife up above. He taught the laird the true way of mix- 
 ing whisky-punch. He would not be cajoled to bed, because 
 the respite of this sitting beside a warm hearth, with friends 
 beside him and Miss MacDonald somewhere in the house, was 
 more than food and drink to him. 
 
 " We must make an early start, to-morrow," said Kings- 
 borough, when at last his guest rose. " It is imperative, your 
 Highness." 
 
 " No, friend," said the other, with pleasant unconcern. 
 " To-night I sleep I tell you, I must sleep. The most will- 
 ing horse, Mr. MacDonald, has need of the stable in between- 
 whiles." 
 
 He knew himself and his needs ; and, with a purpose as set- 
 tled as his zeal at other times to undergo wakefulness and un- 
 remitting hardship, he slept that night so deep that only armed 
 intrusion would have roused him. 
 
 Kingsborough and Rupert, pacing up and down below 
 stairs the next morning, were consumed with dread for the 
 Stuart's safety. The laird's wife feared every moment that
 
 THE GLORY OF IT 379 
 
 the enemy would come battering at her door. Only Miss 
 MacDonald was cool and practical. 
 
 "His Highness has the gift of knowing when to keep 
 awake," she said, a little undernote of pride and tenderness in 
 her voice" the gift of knowing when to sleep." 
 
 And her faith was justified. The Prince came down two 
 hours beyond the time that Kingsborough had planned came 
 down with a light step, and a face from which sleep had wiped 
 away a year of sorrow. He bade farewell to the laird's wife, 
 who was crying like a child to see him so pleasantly in love 
 with danger, and was turning from the door, when he began 
 to bleed at the nose. Kingsborough's wife handed him a ker- 
 chief, bewailing the ill omen. 
 
 " No," said the Prince, with unconquerable twisting of 
 crooked issues to a clean, straight shape. " The omen's good. 
 Blood has been shed for me, and I'm paying a few of my 
 debts, Mrs. MacDonald. I should not like it to be said that I 
 left your Highland country a defaulter." 
 
 The three of them set out the Prince, and Flora, and Ru- 
 pert and Kingsborough turned suddenly from watching the 
 Stuart out of sight. " By God, wife," he said suddenly, 
 " we've given houseroom to a man ! " 
 
 " He's for death, Hugh," the goodwife answered, her thrifty 
 mind returning to calculation of the odds against the fugitive. 
 
 Kingsborough took a wide look at the hills, where sun and 
 mist and shadows chased each other across the striding rises. 
 " Death ? " he snapped. " It comes soon or late but the soul 
 of a man outrides it." 
 
 It was on their way to Portree that the three fugitives 
 learned how clearly Miss MacDonald's faith in her Prince had 
 been justified. They met a shepherd Donald MacDonald by 
 name who told them that, two hours before, " the foreign- 
 ers " had been up and down between Portree and Kingsbor- 
 ough, searching for the Prince. They had left the island a 
 half-hour ago, he added, following some new rumour that his 
 Highness was still hiding in South Uist.
 
 380 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " If I'd not slept so late, we should all three of us have been 
 taken, Miss MacDonald," said the Prince, as they went for- 
 ward. 
 
 " I trusted you," sh answered. And the quietness of her 
 voice rang like a bugle-call. 
 
 And Rupert, with that fine sixth sense that a man learns 
 from hazard and night-riding, knew that these two were talk- 
 ing with the freemasonry of souls that have learned kinship 
 and proved it through long, disastrous roads. 
 
 They went to Portree, and found an eight-oared boat there, 
 with seven rowers in it. Rupert went on board, took his place 
 at the eighth oar. And again, as far away in Uist and years 
 ago, it seemed he watched the Prince and Miss MacDonald 
 foregathered on the shore. In Uist they had met, these two, 
 under a driving wind that blew across the tempered radiance 
 of the June night hours. Here they were standing in hot day- 
 light, with never a breeze to ruffle the happy face of land and 
 sea. And yet they had been glad in Uist, with the storm 
 about them; and here in Skye they stood, and looked at one 
 another, and were empty of all hope. 
 
 They had spent few days together, as time is reckoned, the 
 Prince and Miss MacDonald of the isles. But the days they 
 shared had been packed full of hardship, danger of pursuing 
 soldiery, peril of their warm, human liking for each other the 
 human liking that gains depth and strength from trouble. 
 The Prince had gone through a Scotland set thick with women 
 who asked a love-lock, a glance, and all that follows. He had 
 kept troth instead with the stubborn march of men who fol- 
 lowed the open road with him. Women came before and 
 after strife that had been his gospel, until he met Miss Mac- 
 Donald, good to look at, and brave to rescue him. 
 
 And now they stood together on the shore of Portree Bay. 
 They were Prince and loyal subject, and yet they were chil- 
 dren crying in the dark, needing each other, heartsick at part- 
 ing, ready, if their faith had been a little weaker, to catch at
 
 THE GLORY OF IT 881 
 
 the coward's proverb that the world is well lost for a love for- 
 bidden. 
 
 To these two, parting on the edge of Portree Bay, there 
 came a sudden intuition of the soul. They saw almost as if 
 it stood between them a sword, keen-edged, and clean, and 
 silvery the sword that had guarded them safely through 
 worse dangers than gunboats and the stormy seas. They saw 
 the days behind the few days granted them for comradeship 
 the years stretching out and out ahead, empty and steep and 
 wind-swept as the lone hill-tracks of Skye. 
 
 The rowers waited, impatient to be off, because each mo- 
 ment lost was packed with danger. But these two would 
 never again fear any sort of hazard; they had gained too 
 much, were losing too much. 
 
 Their glances met. One was taking the high road trod by 
 the bleeding feet of royalty; the other was taking the low 
 road, that led to the house of Kingsborough, its maddening, 
 quiet routine of housewifery mending of the laird's stock- 
 ings, seeing that Mrs. MacDonald's fowls were tended, going, 
 day by day, and year by year, through the sick, meaningless 
 routine of housework. 
 
 And one knew that, wherever his feet were planted, his 
 heart would return constantly to the misty isle that had taught 
 him the strong love and the lasting. And the other knew that 
 she would never cease to look out from Kingsborough 's win- 
 dows, when leisure served, and trick herself into the belief 
 that her man was returning crowned or uncrowned, she 
 cared not which was returning, with the wind in his feet and 
 the glad look in his face, to tell her all the things unspoken 
 during these last days of trial. 
 
 The sun beat hot on the rowers' backs, and this parting 
 seemed long to them. To Miss MacDonald and the Prince it 
 seemed brief, because the coming separation showed endless 
 as eternity. 
 
 And then at last the Prince stooped to her hand, and kissed
 
 382 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 it. " Your servant, Miss MacDonald," he said " your serv- 
 ant till I die, God knows." 
 
 Rupert watched it all with eyes trained to understanding. 
 And, when the fugitives were aboard and they were straining 
 at their oars, he was sure that the Prince would give one long, 
 backward glance at Miss MacDonald. But the Stuart was 
 older to life's teaching, and would not look behind when he 
 had chosen the plain road ahead. His eyes were set forward 
 forward, over the dappled, summer seas, to the days of 
 hiding and unrest waiting for him. And through his bitter- 
 ness and lonely need for Miss MacDonald he found a keen, 
 high courage, as the man's way is. And Flora MacDonald, as 
 the woman's way is, watched the boat grow less and less until 
 it was a dark speck dancing on a sea of violet, and green, and 
 amethyst, and fought for the resignation that brings peace, but 
 never the trumpet-note of gladness that had kept her company 
 on the dangerous seas.
 
 CHAPTER: xxi 
 
 LOVE IN EXILE 
 
 THE Skye boatmen took their Prince safely to the mainland, 
 and were not ashamed because they wept at parting from him. 
 And then the Stuart and Sir Jasper's heir set out again along 
 the lone tracks that taught them understanding of each other 
 understanding of the world that does not show its face 
 among the crowded haunts where men lie and slander and 
 drive hard bargains one against the other. Their bodies were 
 hard, for wind and weather had toughened them till they were 
 lean and rugged as upland trees that have grown strong with 
 storm. Their courage was steady, because all except life was 
 lost. And at their hearts there was a quick, insistent music, 
 as if the pipes were playing. They were fighting against long 
 odds, and they were northern born; and the world, in some 
 queer way, went not amiss with them. 
 
 Rupert, in between the journeys and the vigils shared with 
 the Prince, was often abroad on the errands that had grown 
 dear to him since coming into Scotland. He would ride here, 
 ride there, with night and danger for companions, gathering 
 news of the enemies, the friends, who could be counted on. 
 And he found constantly the stirring knowledge that, though 
 he had not been keen to ride to hounds in Lancashire, he was 
 hot to take his fences now. 
 
 On one of these days he rode in, tired and spent, bringing 
 news from the braes of Glenmoriston, and found the Stuart 
 smoking his pipe, while he skinned a deer that he had shot. 
 
 "You are killing yourself for loyalty," said the Prince, 
 glancing at him with a sudden, friendly smile. 
 
 " By your leave, sir," said Rupert, as if he talked of Mur- 
 ray's plain arithmetic, " I am alive at last." 
 
 383
 
 384 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " You're made of the martyr's stuff," said the other. 
 
 " Your Highness, they called me the scholar there in Lan- 
 cashire, and I knew what that meant. I am trying to outride 
 the shame." 
 
 Rupert was tired out The Prince was tired at heart, be- 
 cause of Culloden, because of Miss MacDonald, whom he was 
 not to see again, and all the dreams that had tumbled from 
 the high skies to sordid earth. Neither of them had tasted 
 food for six-and-thirty hours. And at these times men are 
 apt to find a still, surprising companionship, such as the 
 tramps know who foot it penniless along the roads. 
 
 " We have found our kingdom, you and I," said the Prince, 
 with sudden intuition " here on the upland tracks, where a 
 man learns something of the God who made him." 
 
 Rupert looked out across the mountains, blue-purple in the 
 gloaming, and caught the other's mood, and spoke as a friend 
 does to a friend, when the heart needs a confidant. " It is all 
 a riddle," he said slowly. " I thought all lost, after Culloden 
 and yet I've tasted happiness, tasted it for the first time in my 
 life. To carry your life on the saddle with me, to keep open 
 eyes when I'm sick for sleep, to know that the Stuart trusts 
 me I tell you, I have tasted glory." 
 
 The Prince turned his head aside. This was the loyalty 
 known to him since he first set foot in Scotland, the service he 
 claimed, he knew not why, from gentle and simple of his well- 
 wishers. And he was remembering how many of these eager 
 folk had died on his behalf, was forgetting that he, too, had 
 gone sleepless through peril and disaster because he carried at 
 his saddle-bow, not one life only, but a kingdom's fate. 
 
 "Your news from Glenmoriston, sir?" he asked sharply. 
 
 " Pleasant news. A man has died for you, with gallantry." 
 
 " You call it pleasant news ? " 
 
 " Listen, your Highness ! It was one Roderick MacKenzie 
 he was a merchant in Edinburgh, and left the town to follow 
 you ; and he found his way, after Culloden, to the hills about 
 Glenmoriston. He was alone, and a company of the enemy
 
 LOVE IN EXILE 385 
 
 surprised him ; and he faced them, and killed two before they 
 overcame him ; and he died in anguish, but found strength to 
 lift himself just before the end. He knew that he was like 
 you, in height and face, and cried, ' God forgive you, you have 
 killed your Prince ! ' ' 
 
 " It was brave ; it was well meant. But, sir, it is not pleas- 
 ant news." 
 
 " He bought your safety. They are carrying his head to 
 London to claim the ransom. And the troops have left the 
 hills, your Highness they believe you dead." 
 
 " I wish their faith were justified," said the other, with the 
 bitterness that always tortured him when he heard that men 
 had died on his behalf. " Your pardon," he added by and by. 
 " I should thank you for the news and yet I cannot." 
 
 The next day they climbed the brae and went down the long, 
 heathery slope that took them to Glenmoriston ; and nowhere 
 was there ambush or pursuit, as Rupert had foretold only 
 crying of the birds on hilly pastures, and warmth of the July 
 sun as it ripened the ling to full bloom, and humming of the 
 bees among the early bell-heather. 
 
 They came to the glen at last, and ahead of them, a half-mile 
 away, there was blue smoke rising from the chimney of a 
 low, ill-thatched farmstead. And the Prince touched Rupert's 
 arm as they moved forward. 
 
 " Lord, how hunger drums at a man's ribs ! " he said, with a 
 tired laugh. "If there were all the Duke's army lying in wait 
 for us yonder, we should still go on, I think. There may be 
 collops there, and eggs all the good cheer that Mrs. Mac- 
 Donald thought scanty when we came to the laird's house at 
 Kingsborough." 
 
 "By your leave," said Rupert gravely, "it does not bear 
 speaking of. I begin to understand how Esau felt when he 
 sold his birthright for a mess of pottage." 
 
 They reached the house, and they found there six outlaws 
 of the hills, ready with the welcome Rupert had made secure 
 before he led the Prince here. They had entrenched them-
 
 S86 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 selves in this wild glen, had ridden abroad, robbing with dis- 
 cretion, but never hurting a man who was too poor to pay 
 tribute. Their name was a byword for cattle-lifting, and they 
 lived for plunder. Yet, somehow, when the Stuart came 
 among them, with thirty thousand pounds easy in the gaining, 
 they disdained blood-money. 
 
 For all that, another hope of the Prince's crumbled and 
 went by him, after he had greeted his new hosts. There were 
 neither eggs nor collops in the house only a dish of oatmeal, 
 without milk to ease its roughness. The Glenmoriston men 
 explained that Cumberland's soldiery had been about the glen, 
 had raided their cattle and sheep, had laid bare the country- 
 side. 
 
 " For all that," said the Prince, unconquerable in disaster, 
 " I thank you for your oatmeal. As God sees me, you have 
 stilled a little of the ache I had." 
 
 And the Glenmoriston men liked the way of him. And 
 when, next day, he and Rupert went up the hills and stalked a 
 deer, and brought it home for the cooking, their loyalty was 
 doubled. 
 
 Through the days that followed the outlaws found leisure to 
 prove the guests they harboured. In the hill countries a man's 
 reputation stands, not on station or fair words, but on the 
 knowledgable, quiet outlook his neighbours bring to bear on 
 him. And ever a little more the outlaws liked these two, who 
 were lean and hard and weather-bitten as themselves. 
 
 The Prince would not claim shelter in the house, because 
 long use had taught him to prefer a bed among the heather. 
 And Rupert, lying near by o' nights, learned more of the Stu- 
 art than all these last disastrous days had taught him. When 
 a man sleeps in the open, forgetting there may be a listener, 
 he is apt to lose his hold on the need for reticence that house 
 walls bring. 
 
 The Prince, half between sleep and waking, would lift him- 
 self on an elbow, would murmur that men had died for him 
 men better than himself, who had followed him for loyalty
 
 LOVE IN EXILE 387 
 
 and not for hire, men whom he should have shepherded to 
 better purpose. And then he would snatch an hour or two of 
 sleep, and would wake again with a question, sharp and hur- 
 ried and unquiet. 
 
 "Where's Miss MacDonald? She's in danger. The seas 
 are riding high they're riding high, I say ! and there's only 
 my poor plaid to cover her." 
 
 And so it was always when the Prince rambled in his sleep. 
 There was never a complaint on his own behalf, never a wild 
 lament that he was skulking, a broken man, among the moun- 
 tains after coming near to London and high victory. He had 
 two griefs only, in the night hours that probe to the heart of 
 a man passionate regret for the slain, passionate regard for 
 Miss MacDonald's safety. 
 
 And once the Prince, though he lay in a dead sleep, began 
 to speak of Miss MacDonald with such praise, such settled 
 and devout regard, that Rupert got up from the heather and 
 went out into the still summer night, lest he pried too curiously 
 into sacred things. And as he went up and down the glen, 
 scenting the subtle odours that steal out at night-time, his 
 thoughts ran back to Lancashire. It seemed long since he had 
 roamed the moors in bygone summers, with just these keen, 
 warm scents about him, counting himself the scholar, aching 
 for Nance Demaine, dreaming high, foolish dreams of a day 
 that should come which would prove him fit to wear her fa- 
 vour. 
 
 And he was here, leaner and harder than of old, with a deed 
 or two to his credit. And he had learned a week ago, while 
 riding on the Prince's business, that Lady Royd and Nance had 
 come to Edinburgh, intent on sharing the work of brave 
 women there who were aiding fugitives, by means fair or 
 crafty, to reach the shores of France. He knew that his 
 father and Maurice were safely over-seas ; and a sudden hope 
 flashed across the hard, unremitting purpose that had kept his 
 knees close about the saddle these last days. When the Prince 
 was secure, when these hazards were over the hazards that
 
 388 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 had grown strangely pleasant there might be leisure to return 
 to earlier dreams, to wake and find them all come true. 
 
 For an hour Rupert paced the glen, with gentler thoughts 
 for company than he had known since he first killed a man 
 at the siege of Windyhough. Then, with a shrug of the 
 shoulders, he remembered to-morrow and its needs, and went 
 back and settled himself to sleep ; but he did not lie so near to 
 the Prince as before, lest he overhear him talk again of Miss 
 MacDonald. 
 
 The next day news came that the soldiery were out among 
 the hills again. The gallant head of Roderick MacKenzie, 
 who had earned a long respite for his Prince, had been taken 
 to London, and men who knew the Stuart had sworn that it 
 bore little likeness to him ; and news had been sped north, by 
 riders killing a horse at every journey's end, that the Prince 
 was still at large among the Highlands. 
 
 The Glenmoriston men were unmoved by this new trouble. 
 They explained, with careless humour, that their glen was 
 already so stripped of food as to be scarce worth living in; 
 and they went out with their guests into the unknown perils 
 waiting for them as if they went to revelry. And the Prince 
 learned afresh that a man, when his back is to the wall, had 
 best not seek friends among the sleek and prosperous, who 
 have cherished toys to love, but among the outlaws and the 
 driven folk who know the open road of life. 
 
 It was by aid of the Glenmoriston men, their knowledge 
 of the passes, that the fugitives came safe to Lochiel's country 
 of Lochaber, that, after dangers so close-set as to be almost 
 laughable so long the odds against them were they reached 
 the shore of Loch Moidart and found a French privateer beat- 
 ing about the coast. Those on board the ship were keeping an 
 anxious look-out toward both land and sea ; they had been 
 advised that the Prince, with luck, might reach Moidart about 
 noon, and they knew, from sharp experience during their 
 voyage to the bay, that the enemy's gunboats were thick as 
 flies about the western isles.
 
 LOVE IN EXILE 389 
 
 It was an odd company that gathered on the strand while 
 the ship beat inshore with the half of a light, uncertain wind. 
 The Prince was there, Lochiel and Rupert, and a small band 
 of loyal gentry who had been in hiding round about their 
 homes. Yet a beggar in his rags and tatters might have joined 
 them and claimed free passage to the French coast, so far as 
 outward seeming went. Their clothes were made up of odds 
 and ends, begged or borrowed during the long retreat. All 
 were itching from the attacks of the big, lusty fleas that 
 abound along the loyal isles. The one sign that proved them 
 the Stuart's gentlemen was a certain temperate ease of car- 
 riage, a large disdain of circumstance, a security, gay and dom- 
 inant, in the faith that preferred beggarman's rags to fine rai- 
 ment bought by treachery. They did not fear, did not regret, 
 though they were leaving all that meant home and the cosy 
 hearth. 
 
 The Prince, while the French ships were beating inshore, 
 took Lochiel aside. Through the wild campaign they had been 
 like twin brothers, these two, showing the same keen faith, 
 the like courage under hardship. 
 
 " Lochiel, you know the country better than I. You're bred 
 to your good land, while I was only born to it. You will tell 
 me where the Isle of Skye lies from here." 
 
 " Yonder," said the other, pointing across the grey-blue haze 
 of summer seas. 
 
 And the Prince stood silent, thinking of the victory there 
 in Skye the victory that had left him wearier than Culloden's 
 sick defeat had done. And Lochiel, who had had his own 
 affairs to attend to lately, and had been aloof from gossip, 
 wondered as he saw the trouble in the other's face. 
 
 The Prince turned at last. " Lochiel," he said, with a tired 
 smile, "how does the Usurper's proclamation run? Thirty 
 thousand pounds on my head dead or alive ! Well, alive or 
 dead, I wish this tattered body of mine were still in Skye in 
 Skye, Lochiel, where I left the soul of me." 
 
 " You are sad, your Highness "
 
 390 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " Sad ? Nay, I've waded deeper than mere sadness, like 
 the Skye mists out yonder. Well, we stand where we stand, 
 friend," he added, with sharp return from dreams, " and the 
 ship is bringing to." 
 
 There was still a little while before the boats were lowered 
 from the shore, and the Prince, pacing up and down the strand, 
 encountered Rupert. " A fine ending ! " he said, with temper- 
 ate bitterness. " I landed in Lochaber from France with seven 
 gentlemen. I go back with a few more. This is the fruit of 
 your toil, Mr. Royd and of mine." 
 
 And, " No, by your leave," said Rupert. " Your Highness 
 has lit a fire that will never die a fire of sheer devotion " 
 
 " Ah ! the courtier speaks." 
 
 Rupert's voice broke, harshly and without any warning. He 
 saw his Prince in evil case, when he should have been a con- 
 queror. He remembered the night rides, the faith, that had 
 had the crowning of the Stuart as their goal. "A broken 
 heart speaks a heart broken in your service, sir," he said. 
 
 The man's strength, his candid, deep simplicity, struck home 
 to the Prince, bringing a foolish mist about his eyes. " Your 
 love goes deep as that ? " he said. 
 
 " It goes deeper than my love of life, your Highness." 
 
 So then, after a silence, the other laid a strong kindly hand 
 on his shoulder. " You'll go far and well for me, sir but 
 put away that superstition of the broken heart. Believe me, 
 for I know " he glanced across the misty stretch of sea that 
 divided him from Skye " there are broken hopes, and broken 
 dreams, and disaster sobbing at one's ears, but a man a man, 
 sir, does not permit his heart to break. You and I I think 
 we have our pride." 
 
 When the boats grounded on the beach, the Prince waited 
 till his gentlemen got first aboard, and at last there were only 
 himself and Rupert left standing on the shore. 
 
 " You will precede me, Mr. Royd. It is my privilege just 
 now to follow, not to lead," said the Prince. 
 
 " Your Highness, I stay, by your leave."
 
 LOVE IN EXILE 391 
 
 The mist had been creeping down from the tops for the past 
 hour, and now the light, outer fringe of it had reached the 
 water-line. The waiting boat lay in a haze of mystery; the 
 privateer beyond showed big and wraithlike, though a shrouded 
 sunlight still played on the crests of mimic waves. And the 
 Stuart and Rupert stood regarding each other gravely at this 
 last meeting for many weeks to come. 
 
 " You stay ? " echoed the Prince. " Sir, you have done so 
 much for me and I looked to have your company during the 
 crossing; and, indeed, you must be ill of your exertions to 
 decline safety now." 
 
 Rupert glanced at the ship, then at the Stuart's face. There 
 was temptation in the longing to be near his Prince until 
 France was reached, but none in the thought of personal 
 safety. " I lay awake last night," he said slowly, " and it grew 
 clear, somehow, that I was needed here in Scotland. There's 
 the country round Edinburgh, your Highness packed thick 
 with loyal men who are waiting their chance to find a ship 
 across to France and I hold so many threads that Oliphant of 
 Muirhouse would have handled better, if he had lived." 
 
 " Why, then," said the Prince, yielding to impulse after these 
 months of abnegation, " we'll let our friends set sail without 
 us. These gentry did me service. You shall teach me to re- 
 turn it." 
 
 " Your Highness, it would ruin all ! I can ride where you 
 cannot, because I'm of slight account " 
 
 " So you, too, have your mathematics, like the rest," put in 
 the other wearily " and all your sums add up to the one 
 total that I must be denied the open hazard. I tell you, Mr. 
 Royd, it is no luxury to take ship across to France and leave 
 my friends in danger." 
 
 The mist was thickening, and Lochiel, growing anxious on 
 account of the delay, leaped ashore and came to where the 
 two were standing. And the Prince, returning to the prose of 
 things, knew that he must follow the road of tired retreat 
 mapped out for him since Derby.
 
 392 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 " Lochiel," he said grimly, " I was planning an escape 
 from safety. And your eyes accuse me, because my heart is 
 with this gentleman who chooses to stay in Scotland." 
 
 And then he told what Rupert had in mind ; and Lochiel, for 
 all the urgency, halted a moment to appraise this lean, tranquil 
 man who met the call of destiny as if it were an invitation to 
 some pleasant supper-party. 
 
 " It was so Oliphant carried himself, Mr. Royd," he said 
 gravely. " God knows I wish you well." 
 
 They parted. And Rupert watched their boat reach the pri- 
 vateer, watched the ship's bulk glide huge and ghostly into the 
 mists. He was hard and zealous, had chosen his road deliber- 
 ately ; but he was human, too, and a sense of utter loneliness 
 crept over him. The Cause was lost. Many of his friends 
 would not tread French or Scottish ground again, because the 
 soil lay over them. He had not tasted food that day, and 
 the mist seemed to be soaking into the bones of him. And 
 loyalty, that had brought him to this pass, showed like a dim, 
 receding star which mocked him as a will-o'-the-wisp might 
 do. 
 
 For all that, he was born and bred a Royd, and the discipline 
 of many months was on his side. And, little by little, he re- 
 gained that steadiness of soul ^not to be counterfeited or re- 
 placed by any other joy which comes to the man whose back 
 is to the wall, with a mob of dangers assaulting him in front. 
 
 The Glenmoriston men had been offered their chance of a 
 passage to France with the Prince, but had declined it, prefer- 
 ring their own country and the dangerous life that had grown 
 second nature to them. And Rupert, knowing the glen to 
 which they had ridden after speeding the Stuart forward, 
 waited till the mists had lifted a little and found his way to 
 them. 
 
 They crossed themselves when he appeared among them as 
 they sat on the slope of the brae, cooking the midday meal; 
 but when he proved himself no ghost and explained the reason 
 of his coming, and his need to be set on the way to Edinburgh,
 
 LOVE IN EXILE 393 
 
 they warmed afresh to his view of that difficult business named 
 life. He shared their meal, and afterwards one of their num- 
 ber, Hector, by name, led him out along the first stage of his 
 journey south. 
 
 The mists had cleared by this time, leaving the braesides rus- 
 set where the sun swept the autumn brackens, but the mood 
 they bring to Highlandmen was strong on Rupert's guide. 
 Hector could find no joy in life, no talk to ease the going. In- 
 stead, he fell into a low, mournful chant ; and the words of it 
 were not calculated to raise drooping spirits : 
 
 " But I have seen a dreary dream 
 
 Beyond the Isle o' Skye, 
 I saw a dead man won the fight. 
 And I think that man was I." 
 
 A little chill crossed Rupert's courage, as if a touch of east 
 wind had come from the heart of the warm skies. He had 
 seen many dreary dreams of late; had fared beyond the Isle 
 o' Skye ; what if Hector were " seeing far," and this dirge 
 were an omen of the coming days ? And then he laughed, be- 
 cause in the dangerous tracks men make their own omens or 
 disdain them altogether. 
 
 " You're near the truth, Hector," he broke in ; " but it's 
 only a half-dead man. There's life yet in him." 
 
 And Hector glowered at him ; for the Highland folk, when 
 they are hugging sadness close, cherish it as a mother does 
 her firstborn babe. For all that, he brought Rupert safely, 
 after three days' marching, to the next post of his journey, and 
 passed him on to certain outlaws whose country lay farther 
 south; and by this sort of help, after good and evil weather 
 and some mischances by the way, Rupert came at last to 
 Edinburgh and reached the house where he knew that Lady 
 Royd and Nance were lodging. 
 
 The house lay very near to Holyrood ; and as he went down 
 the street Rupert halted for a while, forgetful of his errand. 
 The tenderest moon that ever lit a troubled world looked down
 
 394 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 on this palace of departed glories. The grey pile was mel- 
 lowed, transfigured by some light o' dreams. It was as if the 
 night knew all about the Stuarts who would haunt Holyrood 
 so long as its walls stood ; knew their haplessness, their charm, 
 their steadfast hold on the fine, unthrifty faith they held ; knew 
 the answer that some of them, who had gone before, had 
 found in the hereafter that does not weigh with the shop- 
 keepers' scales. 
 
 There is a soul in such walls as Holyrood's, and Rupert 
 stood as if he held communion with a friend whose sympa- 
 thies ran step by step with his. Here Mary Stuart had stood 
 alone, a queen in name, facing the barbarous, lewd nobles 
 who were, by title of mere courtesy, her gentlemen. Here 
 she had seen Rizzio hurried down the twisting stair, had 
 supped with her fool-husband, Darnley. From here she had 
 gone out, the queen of hearts and tragedy, to that long exile 
 which was to end at Fotheringay. 
 
 Here, too, the Prince had kept high state, a year ago, and 
 all Edinburgh had flocked to dance a Stuart measure. He 
 came fresh from his first battle, crowned with victory and 
 charm of person; and the clans were rising fast; and hope 
 shone bright toward London and the crown. 
 
 Rupert looked at the grey pile and felt all this, as one 
 listens to the silence of a friend who does not need to speak. 
 And then a drift of cloud came across the moon, and Holyrood 
 lay wan and grey. It was as if a sudden gust had quenched 
 all the candles that had lit the ballroom here when the yellow- 
 haired laddie came dancing south. 
 
 And still the fugitive tarried. He had been used so long 
 to night roads and the constant peril that this dim light, and 
 the wind piping at his ear, pleased him more than any blaze 
 of candles and lilt of dance-music. Deep knowledge came to 
 him, bred of the hazards that had made him hard and lean. 
 He sorrowed no more for Derby and Culloden; his present 
 thirst and hunger went by him, as things of slight account; 
 for he remembered the long months of hiding, the intimacy
 
 LOVE IN EXILE 395 
 
 he had been privileged to share with Prince Charles Edward. 
 There had been no glamour of the dance, no pomp, about these 
 journeyings through the Highlands; there had been no swift, 
 eager challenge and applause from ladies' eyes; and yet Ru- 
 pert had tested, as few had done, the fine edge and temper of 
 the Stuart charm. 
 
 Here, under the shadow of grey Holyrood, he loitered to 
 recall their wayfaring together. There had been winter jour- 
 neyings through incessant rain, or snow, or winds that raved 
 down mountain passes ; there had been summer travels through 
 the heather, with the sun beating pitilessly on them, over the 
 stark length of moors that had none but brackish water and 
 no shade. They had slept o' nights with danger for a pillow 
 and the raw wind for coverlet. And through it all the Prince 
 had shown a brave, unanswerable front to the sickness of 
 defeat, the hiding when he longed for action. If food and 
 drink were scarce, he sang old clan songs or recalled light jests 
 and stories that had once roused the French Court to laughter. 
 If danger pressed so closely from all four quarters of the 
 hill that escape seemed hopeless, his cheeriness infected those 
 about him with a courage finer than their own. 
 
 Looking back on these days, Rupert knew that no ball at 
 Holyrood here, no triumph-march to London, could have 
 proved the Stuart as those Highland journeyings had done. 
 The Prince and he had learned the way of gain in loss, and 
 with it the gaiety that amazes weaker men. 
 
 From Holyrood the moon free of clouds and the grey walls 
 finding faith again a friendly message came to him. He 
 caught the Stuart glamour up the true, abiding glamour that 
 does not yield to this world's limitations. What he had read 
 in the library at Windyhough was now a triumph-song that 
 he had found voice to sing. 
 
 He came to the house where .Lady Royd was lodging, and 
 knocked at the door; and presently a trim Scots lassie opened 
 to him, and saw him standing there in the moonlight of the 
 street, his face haggard, his clothes, made up of borrowed odds
 
 396 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 and ends, suggesting disrepute. She tried to close the door 
 in his face; but Rupert had anticipated this, and pushed his 
 way inside. 
 
 " Is Miss Demaine in the house? " he asked. 
 
 The maid recovered a little of her courage and her native 
 tartness. " She is, forbye. Have you come buying old claes, 
 or are you looking just for a chance to steal siller from the 
 hoose?" 
 
 Rupert caught at the help she gave him. " There's the quick 
 wit ye have, my lass," he said. 
 
 " Ah, now, you'll not be ' my lassing ' me ! I'll bid ye keep 
 your station, as I keep mine." 
 
 " Well, then, my dear, go up to your mistress the young 
 mistress, I mean and tell her there's a pedlar wanting her 
 a pedlar from the hills of Lancashire. Tell her he comes 
 buying and selling white favours." 
 
 " So you're just one of us," said the maid, with surprising 
 change of front. Then, her Scots caution getting the better 
 of her again, " Your voice is o' the gentryfolk," she added, 
 " but you're a queer body i' your claes. How should I know 
 what you'd be stealing while I ran up to tell the mistress ? " 
 
 Rupert, for answer, closed and barred the door behind him, 
 and pointed up the stair. And then the maid, by the master- 
 ful, quiet way of him, knew that he came peddling honesty. 
 
 And by and by Nance came down, guessing who had come, 
 because twice during the past month Rupert had sent word to 
 her by messengers encountered haphazard in the Highland 
 country. 
 
 At the stairfoot she halted, and never saw what clothes he 
 wore. She looked only at his hard, tired face, at the straight 
 carriage of him, as if he stood on parade. And, without her 
 knowing it, or caring either way, a welcome, frank and lumi- 
 nous, brought a sudden beauty to the face that had been mag- 
 ical enough to him in the far-off Lancashire days. 
 
 The warmth of the lighted hall, the sense of courage and 
 well-being that Nance had always brought him, were in sharp
 
 LOVE IN EXILE 397 
 
 contrast with the night and the ceaseless peril out of doors. 
 He went to her, and took her two hands, and would not be 
 done with reading what her eyes had to tell him. There could 
 be no doubting what had come to them the love deep, and 
 to the death, and loyal ; the love, not to be bought or counter- 
 feited, that touches common things with radiance. 
 
 Rupert was giddy with it all. He had only to stoop and 
 claim her, without question asked or answered. And yet he 
 would not. He fought against this sudden warmth that 
 tempted him to forget his friends those driven comrades 
 who trusted him to see them safely on board ship to the French 
 coast. He put Nance away, as a courtier might who fears to 
 hurt his queen, and only the strength of him redeemed his 
 ludicrous and muddied clothes. 
 
 " You are not proved yet? " said Nance, with a gentle laugh 
 of raillery and comradeship. "And yet the men who come 
 in from the Highlands the men we have helped to safety, 
 Lady Royd and I bring another tale of you." 
 
 Good women and bad are keen to play the temptress when 
 they see a man hard set by the peril of his own wind-driven, 
 eager heart ; for Eve dies hard in any woman. 
 
 "There are others," he said stubbornly " loyal men who 
 trust me to bring them into Edinburgh." 
 
 " Scruples ? " She mocked him daintily. " Women are not 
 won by scruples." 
 
 He looked at her with the disarming, boyish smile that she 
 remembered from old days the smile which hid a purpose 
 hard as steel. " Then women must be lost, Nance," he an- 
 swered suavely. 
 
 Nance looked at him. He had changed since the days when 
 her least whim had swayed him more than did the giving of 
 her whole heart now. He was steady and unyielding, like a 
 rock against which the winds beat idly. And suddenly a 
 loneliness came over her, a wild impatience of men's outlook. 
 She recalled the day at Windyhough, just after Sir Jasper had 
 ridden out, when Lady Royd had complained that honour was
 
 398 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 more to a man than wife-love and his home's need of him. 
 She remembered how, with a girl's untutored zeal, she had 
 blamed Sir Jasper's wife because she could not realise the 
 high romance of it. But now she understood. 
 
 "You rode out to prove yourself for my sake and the 
 Cause?" she said, with cool disdain. 
 
 " Yes, Nance." 
 
 "And you found adventure. And your name is one to 
 kindle hero-worship wherever loyal fugitives meet and speak 
 of you. Oh, you shall have your due, Rupert! But in the 
 doing of it the hard endeavour grew dear in itself dearer than 
 life, than than little Nance Demaine, for whose sake you got 
 to horse." 
 
 He flushed, knowing she spoke truth; and he stood at bay, 
 ashamed of what should have been his pride. And then he re- 
 turned, by habit, to the mood taught him by night-riding and 
 the over-arching skies. 
 
 " Men love that way," he said bluntly. 
 
 Nance was twisting and untwisting the kerchief she held 
 between her capable, strong fingers. She had not guessed till 
 now the bitterness of tongue she could command. 
 
 " Oh, yes, my dear ; we learned it together, did we not, in 
 the library at Windyhough? There was a book of Richard 
 Lovelace, his poems, and he was very graceful when he bade 
 his wife farewell: 
 
 "'I could not love thee, dear, so much 
 Loved I not honour more.' 
 
 And honour took him to the open to the rousing hunt and 
 his wife stayed on at home." 
 
 Rupert, unskilled in the lore that has tempted many fools 
 afield, was dismayed by the attack. In his simplicity, he had 
 looked for praise when he put temptation by him and asked 
 only for a God-speed till the road of his plain duty was ended 
 and he was free to claim her. He did not know how should
 
 LOVE IN EXILE 399 
 
 he? that women love best the gifts that never reach their 
 feet. 
 
 "Nance," he said, "what ails you women? It was so at 
 Windyhough, when the Loyal Meet rode out, and mother 
 cried as if they'd found dishonour." 
 
 " What ails us ? " She was not bitter now, but helpless, and 
 her eyes were thick with tears. "Our birthright ails us. 
 We're like children crying in the dark, and the night's lonely 
 round us, and we are far from home. And the strong hand 
 comes to us, and we cast it off, because we need its strength. 
 And then we go crying in the dark again, and wonder why 
 God made us so. And and that is what ails us," she added, 
 with a flash of sharp, defiant humour. And her eyes clouded 
 suddenly. " I I have lost a father to the Cause. It is hard 
 to be brave these days, Rupert." 
 
 So then he looked neither before nor after, but took the 
 straight way and the ready with her. And by and by the 
 yapping of a pampered dog broke the silence of the house, 
 and Lady Royd's voice sounded, low and querulous, from the 
 stairhead. 
 
 " Nance, where are you ? Poor Fido is not well not well 
 at all." 
 
 For the moment Rupert believed that he was home at 
 Windyhough again. Fido's bark, the need paramount that his 
 wants must be served at once, were like old days. 
 
 " They have not told her you are here," said Nance. " I'll 
 run up and break the news." 
 
 When Rupert came into the parlour up above, Fido, true to 
 old habit, ran yapping round him, and bit his riding-boots ; for 
 he hated men, because they knew him for a lap-dog. And, 
 after the din had died down a little, Rupert stepped to his 
 mother's side, and stooped to kiss her hand. And she looked 
 him up and down; and the motherhood in her was keen 
 and proved, but she could forego old habits as little as could 
 Fido. 
 
 " Dear heart, what clothes to wear in Edinburgh ! " she
 
 400 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 cried. " It's as well you're not known in the town for a 
 Royd." 
 
 " Yes, it's as well, mother," he answered dryly. 
 
 " You are thinner than you were, Rupert, and straighter in 
 the shoulders, and and many things have happened to you." 
 
 " I rode out for happenings." 
 
 " Oh, yes, you're so like your father ; and they tell me what 
 you've done " 
 
 " And you, mother ? " he broke in. " There are gentlemen 
 of the Prince's who would not be safe in France to-day with- 
 out your help yours and Nance's." 
 
 " There, my dear, you fatigue me ! I have done so little. 
 It grew dull in Lancashire, waiting for news of your father. 
 It was all so simple Fido, my sweet, you will not bark at 
 Rupert; he's a friend and then I had my own fortune, you 
 see, apart from Windyhough, and one must spend money 
 somehow, must one not? So I began playing at ships just 
 like a child gone back to the nursery and Nance here was as 
 big a baby as myself." 
 
 If Rupert had changed, so had Lady Royd. There was no 
 faded prettiness now about her face, but there were lines of 
 beauty. Behind her light handling of these past weeks in 
 Edinburgh there was a record of sleepless nights, of harassed 
 days, of discomfort and peril undertaken willingly. She had 
 spent money in providing means of passage for the exiles; 
 but she had spent herself, too, in ceaseless stratagem and 
 watchfulness. 
 
 " It was all so piquant," she went on, in the old, indolent 
 tone. " So many gallant men supped here, Rupert, before 
 taking boat. And they brought each his tale of battle in the 
 hills. And their disguises were so odd, almost as odd as the 
 clothes you're wearing now, my dear." 
 
 " The Prince's were little better when I last saw him," 
 laughed the other. 
 
 " Ah, now, you will sit down beside me here and Nance 
 shall sit there, like Desdemona listening to Othello. And you
 
 LOVE IN EXILE 401 
 
 will tell us of the Prince. You were very near his person dur- 
 ing the Highland flight, they tell me." 
 
 So Rupert, because he had that one night's leisure at com- 
 mand, forgot his own perils in telling of the Stuart's. He had 
 no art of narrative, except the soldier's plain telling of what 
 chanced; but, step by step, he led them through the broken 
 days, talking seldom of himself, but constantly of Prince 
 Charles Edward, until the bare record of their wanderings be- 
 came a lively and abiding tribute to the Stuart's strength. 
 And when he had done Lady Royd was crying softly, while 
 Nance felt a strange loyalty play round her like a windy night 
 about the moors of Lancashire. 
 
 " He was like that ! " said Lady Royd at last. " He was 
 like that, while, God forgive me ! I was picturing him all the 
 while in love-locks, dancing a minuet." 
 
 " The sword-dance is better known, mother, where we have 
 been," said Rupert, with pleasant irony. 
 
 Late that night, when Nance had left them together for a 
 while, Lady Royd came and laid a hand on her son's arm. 
 " You have done enough," she said. " Oh, I know ! There 
 are still many broken men, waiting for a passage. They must 
 take their chance, Rupert. Your father was not ashamed to 
 cross to France, with my help." 
 
 He put an arm about her, for he had learned tenderness in 
 a hard school. " Mother, he was not ashamed, because his 
 work was done here. Mine is not. What Oliphant knew of 
 the byways what the last months have taught me I cannot 
 take the knowledge with me, to rust in France. I am pledged 
 to these gentry of the Prince's." 
 
 "Then I shall go on playing at ships here till you come 
 to ask a passage." 
 
 And her face was resolute and proud, as if this son of hers 
 had returned a conqueror. 
 
 The next day, after nightfall, Rupert went out again, through 
 Edinburgh's moonlit streets, toward the northern hills and the 
 perils that he .coveted. And just before he went Nance De-
 
 402 THE LONE ADVENTURE 
 
 maine came down into the hall, and stood beside him in the 
 gusty candle-light Old days and new were tangled in her 
 mind ; she was aware only of a great heart-sickness and trouble, 
 so that she did not halt to ask herself if it were maidenly or 
 prudent to come down for another long goodbye. In some 
 muddled way she remembered Will Underwood, his debonair 
 and easy claiming of her kerchief, remembered their meeting 
 on the heath, and afterwards Will lying in the courtyard at 
 Windyhough, his body tortured by a gaping wound. She had 
 given him her kerchief then for pity, and now Rupert was go- 
 ing out without claiming the token she would have given him 
 for love. Rupert seemed oddly forgetful of little things these 
 days, she told herself. 
 
 " Would you not wear my favour for luck ? " she asked. 
 
 And then, giving no time for answer, she began feverishly 
 to knot her kerchief into a white cockade ; and then again she 
 thought better of it, and untied the blue scarf that was her 
 girdle, and snipped a piece from it with the scissors hanging 
 at her waist. 
 
 " It is the dear Madonna's colour ; and I think you ride for 
 faith," she said, with a child's simplicity. " Rupert, I do not 
 know how or why, but I let you go very willingly. I did not 
 understand until to-night how how big a man's love for a 
 woman is." 
 
 They were not easy days that followed. Rupert was among 
 the Midlothian hills farther afield sometimes snatching sleep 
 and food when he could, shepherding the broken gentry, leav- 
 ing nothing undone that a man's strength and single purpose 
 could accomplish. And in the house near Holyrood Lady 
 Royd and Nance were helping the fugitives he sped forward to 
 get on shipboard. And ever, as they plied this trade of separa- 
 tion under peril, a knowledge and a trust went up and down 
 between Edinburgh and the northern hills a trust that did 
 not go on horseback or on foot, because its wings were 
 stretched for flight above ground. 
 
 And near the year's end, with an easterly haar that made the
 
 LOVE IN EXILE 40S 
 
 town desolate, the last fugitive came to the house that lay 
 near Holyrood. He should have been spent with well-doing, 
 footsore and saddle-sore with journeyings among the hills; 
 but, instead he carried himself as if he had found abundant 
 health. 
 
 " I've done my work, mother," he said, stooping to Lady 
 Royd's hand. 
 
 " It's as well, my dear. Nance and I were nearly tired of 
 playing at ships." 
 
 That night they got aboard at Leith ; and, after a contrary 
 and troubled crossing, they 'came into harbour on the French 
 coast. The night was soft and pleasant, like the promises 
 that France had made the Stuart the promises made and 
 broken a score of times before ever the Prince landed in the 
 Western Isles. A full moon was making a track of amethyst 
 and gold across the gentle seas, and a faint, salt breeze was 
 blowing. 
 
 " Are you content ? " asked Nance. 
 
 "Content? My dear, what else?" 
 
 And yet she saw his glance rove out across the moonlit track 
 that led to England; and a jealous trouble, light as the sea- 
 breeze, crossed her happiness; and she conquered it, because 
 she had learned in Edinburgh the way of a man's heart. 
 
 "You're dreaming of the next Rising?" she said, with a 
 low, tranquil laugh. " I shall forgive you so long as you 
 let me share your dreams." 
 
 FINIS
 
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