Once again Sir Jasper was surprised by this Prince’s close touch with the road of life as men follow it every day, his catholic, broad understanding of his fellows. It was the Stuart gift—the gift that had carried them to the throne or to the scaffold—that they had a kingly outlook on men’s needs and their infirmities, and would not surrender, for any wind of circumstance that blew about them, their royal love for big or little of the men who trusted them. Sir Jasper was learning, indeed, what afterwards the folk in Skye were to learn—in Skye and in Glenmoriston and in a hundred lonely glens among the Highlands—that the Prince he served was the simplest and most human man, perhaps, among them all.
The wind dropped as they rode, and the sleet ceased falling for a while; and the sun, an hour before its setting, struck through the clouds that had hindered it all day. Lights, magical and vivid, began to paint the land’s harsh face. The moorland peaks, to right and left, were crowned with fugitive, fast-racing mists of blue and green and rose colour; and ahead of them, astride the steep, curving rise of the highway, there was a belt of scarlet that seemed to flame the hills with smoky fire.
“Your land is beautiful, Sir Jasper,” said the Prince, halting a moment to breathe his horse as they reached the hilltop. “I did not guess it when we rode south through sunless mire.”
It is in time of defeat and stress that the deep chords of a man’s soul are struck, and now Sir Jasper’s face lit up. “My land of Lancashire—it is always beautiful to me. It cradled me. There’s no midwinter bleakness can drive away remembrance of the pleasant days we’ve shared.”
“You speak as men do who are married happily,” laughed the Prince. “This barbarous country is just a wife to you, I think—her temper may be vile, but you remember gentler days.”
Sir Jasper fell in with his mood, and smiled as if he jested; but he talked of matters very dear to the honest, simple heart of him. “I can count on my fingers, your Highness, the things in life that are of importance to me—my Faith, my Prince, the wife who’s waiting for me over yonder at Windyhough, and my lads—and the dear moors o’ Lancashire that bred me.”
Their eyes met; and, somewhere from his tired, hunted mood, the Prince found a candour equal to Sir Jasper’s own. “Faith first,” he said quietly, “but your wife before your Prince, by your leave. I—I have not deserved well of you, Sir Jasper. I asked you to take me to the throne, and—I have given you this.”
Sir Jasper thought of his wife, her weak caprices, the yapping of the toy spaniel that had its mimic cradle in their bedroom at Windyhough—thought of Rupert, who should have been beside him now—thought of all that had hindered him through these years. For he was not as young as his keen ardour wished, and these empty days of bodily hardship, with no reward of fight to hearten them, had sapped his courage. Yet he responded, bravely enough, to the challenge.
“My wife, God bless her! is—so dear that we’ll not give her any place, your Highness. She claims her own, by right.”
The Prince puffed gently at the disreputable, blackened pipe he cherished. He glanced at the hills, saw the next storm creep grey and wan across the sunset lights. “It is a savage land,” he said dispassionately. “I never guessed it could breed courtiers. Your wife, if she were near, would be pleased to know the temper of your constancy—it is hard and lithe as whipcord, sir, like a sword-blade forged by old Andrew Ferrara.”