“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 infirmities. “And you could not trust your men to guard you?” he said sharply. “That was your thought?”
“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 control. She had been harsh and bitter, had wounded him because 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.