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 fire-glow 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 reigning it here, and that other overseas—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.”