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 man seemed to be looking backward to 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 unthinking 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 overseas 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.”