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] come to Windyhough, but always in haste. You would never tell me what his name was.”

[30]

“Mr. Oliphant of Muirhouse. Who else?” Sir Jasper answered, 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 beside 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, following the Stuart’s business. And, because he had leisure for many dreams, he had made of Oliphant a hero of more immaculate 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 himself 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. 

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