“We keep you out of harm’s way, mother. Good-night,” said Rupert gravely. “What do you hear, Simon?” he asked the moment she was gone.
“Men creeping through the snow; I can hear their feet scrunching over the frozen crust; and they’re dragging branches after them. I was a fool not to listen to the women-folk when they asked me to get in yond cartload of fuel I left just outside the gate.”
The master understood at last. “They’ll be firing the main door?”
“Just that. And there’s straw in plenty, and the stack o’ bracken we got in last autumn, and a barrel of tar left over from the spring. They’ve got it all ready to their hands, master.”
“I’m glad of it,” said Rupert, with the keen, unerring foresight bred of the vigil he had kept.
“Oh? And for why, if a plain body might ask?”
“Because another night of this would find us fast asleep, Simon. I have had to wake you once or twice already, and I’ve not slept since Tuesday.”
“I can’t rightly follow you,” said Foster, whose wits jogged slowly.
“Let them fire the door. It’s our one chance. We can keep awake, say, for two hours longer, and the fight will help us.”
So then Simon, who thought himself old to warfare, yielded to a grudging admiration of this youngster who was fighting his first battle. “Who taught ye this?” he asked, with simple curiosity.