CHAPTER V
THE HORSE THIEF
At Windyhough, Rupert had watched Sir Jasper and his brother ride out to the hunt, had felt the old pang of jealousy and helplessness. They were so hale and keen on the day’s business; and he was not one of them.
He turned impatiently from the upper window, not guessing that his father had carried the picture of his tired face with him to the meet. With some thought of getting up into the moor, to still his restlessness, he went down the stair and out into the courtyard. Lady Royd, who had not lain easy in her bed this morning, was standing there. Some stronger call than luxury and well-being had bidden her get up and steal into the windy, nipping air, to watch her men ride out. She was late, as she was for all appointments, and some bitter loneliness had taken hold of her when she found them gone. She had never been one of these gusty, unswerving people here in Lancashire, and their strength was as foreign to her as their weaknesses. Until her marriage with the impulsive northern lover who had come south to the wooing and had captured her girl’s fancy, she had lived in the lowlands, where breezes played for frolic only; and the bleakness of these hills had never oppressed her as it did this morning. She forgot the swift and magic beauty that came with the late-won spring, forgot how every slope and dingle of this northern country wakened under the sun’s touch, how the stark and empty moor grew rich with colour, how blackbird and lavrock, plover and rook and full-throated thrush made music wild and exquisite under the blue, happy sky. For the present, the wind was nipping; on the higher hill-crests snow lay like a burial-shroud; her husband and the younger son she idolised were riding out to-morrow on a perilous road because they had listened to that haunting, unhappy melody which all the Stuarts had the gift of sounding.
Lady Royd could not see beyond. Her faith was colder than the hills which frightened her, emptier than this winter-time she hated. She had not once captured the quiet, resolute note that sounded through her husband’s conduct of affairs. Let the wind whistle its keenest under a black and sullen sky, Sir Jasper knew that he was chilled, as she did; but he knew, too, that summer would follow, blithe and full of hay-scents, fuller, riper in warmth and well-being, because the months of cold had fed its strength.
She chose to believe that he was playing with a fine, romantic sense of drama, in following the Prince, that he was sacrificing Maurice to the same misplaced zeal. Yet hour by hour and day by day of their long companionship, he had made it plain, to a comrade less unwilling, that he had followed a road marked white at every milestone by a faith that would not budge, an obedience to the call of honour that was instinctive, instant, as the answer of a soldier to his commanding officer. If all went amiss with this Rising, if he gave his life for a lost cause, it did not matter greatly to Sir Jasper; for he was sure that in one world or another, a little sooner or a little later, he would see that Restoration whose promise shone like the morning star above the staunch, unbending hills of Lancashire.
“Who is to gain by it all?” murmured Lady Royd, shivering as she drew her wrap about her. “When I’m widowed, and Maurice has gone, too, to Tower Hill—shall I hate these Stuart fools the less? It matters little who is king—so little——”
She heard Rupert’s step behind her, turned and regarded him with that half-tolerant disdain which had stood to her for motherhood. Not long ago she had felt a touch of some divine compassion for him, had been astonished by the pain and happiness that pity teaches; but the mood had passed, and he stood to her now as a simpleton so exquisite that he had not strength even to follow the stupid creeds he cherished. She was in no temper to spare him; he was a welcome butt on which to vent her weariness of all things under the sun.
They looked at each other, silent, questioning. Big happenings were in the making. The very air of Lancashire these days was instinct with the coming troubles, and folk were restless, ill-at-ease as moor-birds are when thunder comes beating up against the wind.
“It is not my fault, mother,” said Rupert brusquely, as if answering some plainly-spoken challenge. “If I had my way, I’d be taking fences, too—but, then, I never had my way.”
Lady Royd laughed gently—the frigid, easy laugh that Rupert knew by heart. “A man,” she said, halting on the word—“a man makes his way, if he’s to have it. The babies stay at home, and blame the dear God because He will not let them hunt like other men.”