Maurice shared his elder brother’s bedroom; and somewhere in the dark hours before the dawn he heard Rupert start from a broken sleep, crying that the Prince was in some danger and needed him. Maurice was tired after the day’s hunting, and knew that he must be up betimes; and a man’s temper at such times is brittle.
“Get to sleep, Rupert!” he growled. “The Prince will be none the better for your nightmares.”
Rupert was silent. He knew it was true. No man would ever be the better, he told himself, for the help of a dreamer and a weakling. He heard his brother turn over, heard the heavy, measured breathing. He had no wish for sleep, but lay listening to the sleet that was driving at the window-panes. It was bitter cold, and dark beyond belief. Whatever chanced with the Prince’s march to London, there was something to chill the stoutest faith in this night-hour before the dawn. Yet the scholar chose this moment for a sudden hope, a warmth of impulse and of courage. Down the sleety wind, from the moors he loved, a trumpet-call seemed to ring sharp and clear. And the call sounded boot-and-saddle.
He sprang from bed and dressed himself, halted to be sure that Maurice was still sound asleep, felt his way through the pitch-dark of the room until he reached the door. Then he went down, unbarred the main door with gentle haste, and stood in the windy courtyard. It was a wet night and a stormy one on Windyhough Heights. Now and then the moon ran out between the grey-black, scudding clouds and lit a world made up of rain and emptiness.
And Rupert again heard the clear, urgent call. Slight of body, a thing of small account set in the middle of this majestic uproar of the heath, he squared his shoulders, looked at the house-front, the fields, the naked, wind-swept coppices, to which he was the heir.
Old tradition, some instinct fathered by many generations, rendered him greater than himself. “Get to saddle,” said the voice at his ear; and he forgot that the ways of a horse were foreign to him. He glanced once again at the heath, as if asking borrowed strength, then crept like a thief toward the stables.
It was near dawn now. The wind, tired out, had sunk to a low, piping breeze. The moon shone high and white from a sky cleared of all but the filmiest clouds; and over the eastern hummocks of the moor lithe, palpitating streaks of rose, and grey, and amber were ushering up the sun.
All was uproar in the stable-yard, and the future master of these grooms and farm-lads waited in the shadows—a looker-on, as always. He saw a lanthorn swinging up and down the yard, confusing still more the muddled light of moon and dawn; and then he heard Giles, his father’s bailiff, laugh as he led out Sir Jasper’s horse, and listened while the man swore, with many a rich Lancashire oath, that Rising work was better than keeping books and harrying farmers when they would not pay their rents. And still Rupert waited, watching sturdy yeomen ride in from Pendle Forest, on nags as well built as themselves, to answer Sir Jasper’s rally-call.
“’Tis only decent-like, Giles,” he heard one ruddy yeoman say, “to ride in a little before our betters need us. I was never one to be late at a hunt, for my part.”
“It all gangs gradely,” Giles answered cheerily. “By dangment, though, the dawn’s nearer than I thought; and I’ve my own horse to saddle yet.”