He winced, remembering the eagerness with which he had followed Sir Jasper round the house, the pride he had felt in noting each loophole, the muskets, and the piles of shot entrusted to his care. He recalled, with minute and pitiful exactness, how afterwards he had been an unwilling listener while his father said it had been all a fairy-tale to lull his elder-born to sleep.
“My father said it was child’s-play,” he answered quietly. “Yes, I’m not likely to forget just what he said—and what he left unsaid. But, mother, the storm might blow this way again, and I’m here to guard you, as I promised.”
The day was no easy one for Rupert, accustomed from childhood to find himself in the rear of action. Yet it was harder to Lady Royd, who had known little discipline till now, who looked at this son who was counted scholarly, and, with eyes accustomed to the dim light of the hall, saw at last the stubborn manhood in his face.
“I did not guess,” she said, her voice gentle, wondering, submissive—“Rupert, I did not guess till now why your father was always so full of trust in you.”
His eyes brightened. He had expected a colder welcome from this pretty, sharp-tongued mother. It seemed, after all, he had done well to return to his post at Windyhough. His thoughts ran forward, like a pack in full cry. The battle might shift north again—there might be some hot skirmish in the open, or the need to protect fugitives at Windyhough—or twenty pleasant happenings that would give him escape from idle sentry-duty here. Rupert was at his dreams again. An hour since he had dragged himself along the road, sick at heart, sick of body, disillusioned altogether; and now he was eager with forward hope because Lady Royd, from the pain of her own trouble, had found one swift word of encouragement. Encouragement had been rare in the lad’s life, and he found it a fine stimulant—too fine a one for his present needs. He moved quickly forward. His damaged foot bent under him, and for a moment the pain made him wince.
“It is nothing, mother,” he said, dropping on to the settle and looking up with the quiet smile that haunted her. “I’m tired and wet—wet through to the heart, I think—let me get up and help you.”
She did not know what to do with this son, who was growing dearer to her each moment. Shut off from real life too long, she had no skill such as workaday mothers would have learned by now, and she called shrilly for the servants.
A big man, bent in the body, made his way forward presently through the women, pushing, them aside as if he picked his way through useless lumber. It was Simon Foster, who had grown used, in the far-off ’15 Rising, to the handling of wounded men.
“A baddish sprain—no more, no less,” he growled, after he had taken off boot and stocking and looked at the swollen ankle.
“Oh, the poor lad!” cried Lady Royd, fidgety and useless. “Go, one of you, for the surgeon——”