They had come home this afternoon from musket-drill, and Simon had left them in the courtyard. A little, sobbing wind was fluting round the gables, and the red light on the hills foretold, unerringly, that snow would come.
Nance looked up at the black front of Windyhough. The homeless desolation of the land took hold of her. She was cold, and tired of all things; and she sought for some relief, and could find none, save by way of the tongue that is woman’s rapier.
“What of your trust, Rupert?” she asked sharply. “A week ago—it seems half a lifetime—you said there would be some swift attack—you said that you had faith. Faith, my dear—I tell you it is cold and empty as the wind. Your only answer is—why, just your mother’s spaniel barking at you from within. Faith should know the master’s footstep, Rupert.”
He had been sick at heart till now. The answer had not come as soon as he had hoped, and his need was urgent; but the faith in him rose clear and dominant.
“You’re a baby, Nance. You talked of half a lifetime. I could wait so long in patience, knowing the Stuart, soon or late, would come to the good crowning.”
She glanced at him with impatience, with a certain wistful curiosity. “Does your creed go deep as that, Rupert? Mine does not,” she said, with her frank, bewildering honesty.
“My creed?” Rupert’s shoulders were squared in earnest now. He stood to his full six feet, and in his eyes was that look of the man who cannot be bought, or bullied, or flattered, from allegiance to the straight road ahead. “It goes deeper, Nance. What else? Faith! You seem to think it means only kneeling in a church, a woman’s refuge from the outside storms, a ball to play with, when the time seems slow in passing.”
“You will tell me more,” said Nance gently.
“I cannot. Go to Sir Jasper, who can use a sword; go to your father, who can fight and hunt and play the man wherever men are gathered. They kneel in church, Nance—and in the open roads they feel their swords the cleaner for it; they carry knighthood with them, so that clowns read it in their faces as they pass.”
“Who taught you this?” she asked.