“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[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 exchange 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.

[31]

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 whispering at his ear. He recalled the lad’s bruised face, the passionate 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 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.”

 Prev. P 26/322 next