Rupert glanced at the ship, then at the Stuart’s face. There was temptation in the longing, to be near his Prince until France was reached, but none in the thought of personal safety. “I lay awake last night,” he said slowly, “and it grew clear, somehow, that I was needed here in Scotland. There’s the country round Edinburgh, your Highness—packed thick with loyal men who are waiting their chance to find a ship across to France—and I hold so many threads that Oliphant of Muirhouse would have handled better, if he had lived.”
“Why, then,” said the Prince, yielding to impulse after these months of abnegation, “we’ll let our friends set sail without us. These gentry did me service. You shall teach me to return it.”
“Your Highness, it would ruin all! I can ride where you cannot, because I’m of slight account——”
“So you, too, have your mathematics, like the rest,” put in the other wearily—“and all your sums add up to the one total—that I must be denied the open hazard. I tell you, Mr. Royd, it is no luxury to take ship across to France and leave my friends in danger.”
The mist was thickening, and Lochiel, growing anxious on account of the delay, leaped ashore and came to where the two were standing. And the Prince, returning to the prose of things, knew that he must follow the road of tired retreat mapped out for him since Derby.
“Lochiel,” he said grimly, “I was planning an escape—from safety. And your eyes accuse me, because my heart is with this gentleman who chooses to stay in Scotland.”
And then he told what Rupert had in mind; and Lochiel, for all the urgency, halted a moment to appraise this lean, tranquil man who met the call of destiny as if it were an invitation to some pleasant supper-party.
“It was so Oliphant carried himself, Mr. Royd,” he said gravely. “God knows I wish you well.”
They parted. And Rupert watched their boat reach the privateer, watched the ship’s bulk glide huge and ghostly into the mists. He was hard and zealous, had chosen his road deliberately; but he was human, too, and a sense of utter loneliness crept over him. The Cause was lost. Many of his friends would not tread French or Scottish ground again, because the soil lay over them. He had not tasted food that day, and the mist seemed to be soaking into the bones of him. And loyalty, that had brought him to this pass, showed like a dim, receding star which mocked him as a will-o’-the-wisp might do.
For all that, he was born and bred a Royd, and the discipline of many months was on his side. And, little by little, he regained that steadiness of soul—not to be counterfeited or replaced by any other joy—which comes to the man whose back is to the wall, with a mob of dangers assaulting him in front.