“I am not so sure of that, sir,” put in Lady Royd, with sharpness and a hint of coquetry. “You are robbing me of a husband.”
“Nay, surely,” said Oliphant, with a touch of his quick humour. “The Prince will restore him to you by and by. We’re all for Restoration these days, Lady Royd.”
“Oh, I know! And you’ve passed your wine over the water before you set lips to it. I know your jargon, Mr. Oliphant—but it is lives of men you are playing with.” A stronger note sounded in her spoiled, lazy voice; she glanced at her husband, asking him to understand her passion.
“Not playing with,” said the messenger, breaking an uneasy pause. “Lives of men were given them to use.”
“Yes, by gad!” broke in Sir Jasper unexpectedly. “I’m sixty, Mr. Oliphant, and the Prince needs me, and I feel a lad again. I’ve been fox-hunting here, and shooting, and what not, just to keep the rust out of my old bones in case I was needed by and by—but I was spoiling all the while for this news you bring.”
“What are the chances, Mr. Oliphant?” asked Lady Royd, with odd, impulsive eagerness. “For my part, I see a county of easy-going gentlemen and bacon-eating clowns, who wouldn’t miss one dinner for the Cause. The Cause? A few lean Highlanders; a lad who happens to carry the name of Stuart; the bagpipes waking our hills in protest with their screeching—righteous protest, surely—I see no hope in this affair.”
Oliphant was striding up and down the room. He halted, faced this petted woman of the world; and she wondered how it came that a man so muddied and so lined with weariness could smile as if he came down to breakfast after a night of pleasant sleep.
“The chances? All in our favour, Lady Royd. We’re few, and hold the Faith. We never count the chances; we just march on from day to day.” His smile grew broader. “And, by your leave, you’ll not speak ill of the pipes. They’re food and drink to us, when other rations fall a little short. The pipes? You’ve never heard them, surely.”
“Yes, to my cost,” put in the other shrewishly. “They’re like—like an east wind singing out of tune, I think.”
So then Oliphant grew hot on the sudden, as Highlanders will when they defend a thing that is marrow of their bones. “The pipes? You’ll hear them rightly, I hope, before you die. The soft, clear tongue of them! They’ll drone to ye, soft as summer, Lady Royd, and bring the slopes o’ Lomond to your sight—and you’ll hear the bees all busy in the thyme; and then they’ll snarl at you, and stretch your body tight as whipcord—and then you taste the fight that’s brewing up——”