“No, by your leave!” snapped Oliphant. “You’ll play sentry here. Your orders are precise. You guard the house and women, as Sir Jasper bade you.”
“Because Sir Jasper knew that no assault would come,” said Rupert, with a return of the old heartache. “You leave me as you found me, sir—a toy soldier guarding a house that could only tempt fools to capture it.”
Oliphant straightened himself, clicked his heels together. His voice was tired and husky, but precise. “Your officer commands. You obey. What else? Men do not question at these times.” Then, with sudden understanding of the man he had to deal with—with some remembrance of his own rebellious and lonely boyhood—Oliphant stood, rugged and uncompromising, a lean, hard six-foot-two of manhood. “To your post, sentry!” he said sharply.
And Rupert found his heart leap out to the command. Instinctively—because breed shapes us all—he lost the scholarly stoop of shoulders, lost his ill-temper and loneliness. He saluted stiffly. And Oliphant got to horse, and was riding, slowly forward, when Lady Royd ran to his saddle.
“I have the most dismaying curiosity, Mr. Oliphant,” she said, lifting the pretty, faded face that would always keep its charm. “It is the woman’s curse, they tell us. What did King Charles mean when he said ‘Remember’? We’ve been guessing at the riddle for a hundred years or so, and it still baffles us.”
Oliphant glanced up at the roomy hills, at the red snow-gloaming that was dying slowly round their crests. “What did he mean—that day he went to death? No words could tell you. It was something high, and strong, and lasting, like your moors up there.”
“Oh, no; that could not be. He was so full of courtesy, so gentle—so like the warm south-country I left long ago. King Charles, sir, was never like these hills that frighten me.”
Oliphant looked down at her, with some pity and a great chivalry. “You hold the woman’s view of him,” he said, with the simplicity inborn in him. “As a man sees him, Lady Royd, he did what few among us could. His wife and bairns were pulling him back from the scaffold—and he loved them; his ease, his love of life, his fear of the unknown—all were against him. He could have saved the most comely head in England, and would not, because his faith was stubborn. By your leave, I bow my head when the thought of Martyred Charles goes by me.”
Lady Royd looked at this man, so hard of body, so tired and resolute. “I thought you practical, Mr. Oliphant.”
“None more so. I’m a Scotsman,” he put in, with a laugh that struck no discordant note. “If it had not been for King Charles, I should not be here—riding evil roads as if I danced a pleasant measure.”