No other shot sounded from below, and they returned at last to their waiting for the duck to come over. But Will Underwood kept his eyes steadily on the house below, and wondered, with an unrest that gained strength every moment, if all were well with Nance. He was roused by a sharp call from the squire.
“Your bird, Will!”
Will glanced up by instinct, saw a drake winging big and high overhead, and brought him down. Then he looked across at Windyhough again, and saw a flicker of crimson shoot up against the leafless tree that guarded it. The flicker grew to a ruddy, pulsing shaft of flame till the roof-snow took on a rose-colour.
Underwood, ruffler, stay-at-home, and man of prudence, felt thanksgiving stir about his heart. There was danger threatening Windyhough; and Nance was there, and his single thought was for her safety.
“Gentlemen,” he said, with a quiet gravity, “the duck must wait. We’re needed there at Windyhough.”
CHAPTER XVII
THE PLEASANT FURY
At Windyhough there was an end of watching. Sleep had been the one traitor within-doors, and Goldstein’s men, by firing the main door, had killed their comrade in the garrison. Rupert, fingering one of his six muskets, was tasting the keenest happiness that had come to him as yet. Ben Shackleton, as he watched the timbers of the doorway flame and glow, forgot that he had a farm, a wife, and twenty head of cattle needing him. And Simon Foster, for his part, remembered the ’15, the slow years afterwards, and knew that it was good to be alive at last.
They watched the fire eat at the woodwork, watched the shifting play of colour; and, apart from the roar of the flames, the cracking of strained timbers, there was silence on each side of the crumbling barricades. Then suddenly the whole middle of the door fell inward, and in the pulsing light outside Rupert saw a press of men.