To-night, as he thought of these things, he understood, to the last depth, this love that possessed him utterly. It was a soldier’s love, a strong man’s. It was content to forego, content to watch and guard and work, so long as Nance was happy, though to himself it brought tumult and unrest enough. The keen, man’s longing to claim her for his own, to take her out of reach of such as Will Underwood, had given him many an evil day and night; but through it all, unconquerable, had come that strong, chivalrous desire to keep her feet from the puddles and the mire of life, to serve her hand and foot, and afterwards, since he was needful to her in no other way, to stand by and watch her happiness from some shadowed corner.
There was all his life’s training, all the tenor of his long, boyhood’s thoughts, in this fine regard he brought Squire Demaine’s daughter. There was, too, the Stuart training that had deepened the old Royd instincts given him at birth. It was, in part, the devotion he would have given a queen if he had been her cavalier; and, through it all, there went that silver skein of haplessness and abnegation bravely borne which is in the woof and weft of all things Stuart. He knew the unalterable strength and beauty of his love; and, with a sudden overmastering shame, he saw himself—himself, unfit to join the Rising, useless and a stay-at-home, beside this other picture of his high, chivalrous regard for Nance. He laughed bitterly. It was grotesque, surely, that so fine a passion should be in charge of such a weakling.
And then, from the midst of his humiliation and pain, he plucked courage and new hope. It was his way, as it had been his father’s. If this dream of his came true—if the retreat swept up this way, as Simon hoped, and gave work into his hands—he would give Nance deeds at last.
“The night is not so empty as it was, Simon,” he said, turning sharply. “We’ll patrol the house.”
CHAPTER XII
THE GALLOP
The retreat had moved up through Staffordshire and Cheshire, always evading the pursuit that followed it so closely from many separate quarters. The Highlanders had ever their hearts turned backward to the London road—the road of battle; but old habit made their feet move briskly along the route mapped out for them. They set the pace for the Lowland foot, less used to the swinging stride that was half a run; and for this reason the Prince’s army went northward at a speed incredible to Marshal Wade, the Duke of Cumberland, and other heavy-minded generals who were eager in pursuit.
There was irony in the whole sad business. A few cautious leaders of the clans apart, few men were anxious to succeed in this retreat. They would have welcomed any hindrance by the way that allowed one or more of the pursuing armies to come up with them. Food was often lacking, because defeated folk are apt to find less wayside hospitality than conquerors; their feet were sore from long contact with the wet roads, that both chafed and softened them; yet their worst hardship was the need for battle that found no food to thrive on. Behind them Cumberland was cursing his luck because he could not catch them up; yet, had he known it, he was the gainer by his failure. If he and his mixed company of hirelings had met the Prince’s men just now, they would have been ridden through and through, as Colonel Gardiner’s men had been at Prestonpans in the first battle of the Rising. For the Highlander is sad and gusty as the mist-topped hills that cradled him; but when the mood is on him, when all seems lost, and he is gay because the odds are ludicrously against him, he goes bare-sark to the fight and accomplishes what more stolid men name miracles.
They went north—the men who wished to overtake and the men who yearned to be overtaken. And the luck was all with Marshal Wade and Cumberland, for the Prince’s army constantly evaded them. There are times, maybe, when God proves His gentlemen by the road of sick retreat, by denial of the fight they seek. But few win through this sort of hazard.