Clouds were hurrying up against the sun—yellow, evil clouds, packed thick with snow—and a bitter wind was rising. The going underfoot was vile. Their errand was to join an army in retreat, with likelihood that they would dine and breakfast on disaster. And yet—because God made them so—they found tranquillity. Sir Jasper had dreamed of this, since his first gladness that he had an heir, his first sorrow when he admitted to himself, grudgingly, that the boy was not as strong as he had wished. And Rupert, while his shoulders found their scholarly droop in reading old books at Windyhough, had shared the same dream—that one day, by a miracle, he might ride out with his father on the Stuart’s business.
And they were here together. And nothing mattered, somehow, as the way of men is when their souls have taken the open, friendly road.
They rode hard in pursuit of the Prince’s army, nursing their horses’ strength as far as eagerness would let them; and, at long last, they overtook their friends on the windy summit of Shap Fell, where the Stuart army was bivouacked for the night.
Sir Jasper asked audience of the Prince, and found him sitting in his tent, eating a stew of sheep’s kidneys—the one luxury royalty could command at the moment. And the Prince rose, forgetting his quality, in frank welcome of this man who had shared the evil Derby days with him.
“I thought you dead, sir; and I’m very glad to see you—alive, but thinner than you were.”
No detail ever escaped the Prince’s eye, when he was concerned about the welfare of his friends; and the solicitude, the affection of this greeting atoned for many hardships.
“I was wounded, your Highness, or should have been with you long since.”
“So much I knew. No other hindrance would have kept you,” said the Prince, with flattering trust.
“I bring a volunteer with me.”
“He must be staunch indeed! A volunteer to join us in these days of havoc? Has he been jilted by one of your Lancashire witches, that he’s eager to trudge through this evil weather?”