“Why? Because I’m maimed, and sick at heart,” he said savagely.
“How did it come about?” she interrupted, with the same impulsive tenderness.
“I tried to join the Rising, and was thrown. So much was to be expected, Nance?”
She had been thinking hard things of stay-at-homes and weaklings; and, as she looked at Rupert now, she was touched by keen reproach. He was ashamed, tired out, in pain of soul and body; yet he was smiling, was making a jest of his indifferent horsemanship.
Nance recalled once more that evening on the moors, when Rupert had bidden Will Underwood ride with her to Windyhough, while he stayed with his brother. In his voice, in the set of his whole face, there had been a stubborn strength that had astonished her; and here again, on the sunlit, draughty stairhead, he was showing her a glimpse of his true self.
“I wish you better luck,” she said simply—“oh, so much better luck.”
He saw that there were tears in her eyes, and felt his weakness coming on him like a cloud, and fought it for a moment longer.
“It will come, Nance,” he said—cheerily, though he felt himself a liar. “Go down to mother. She—she needs help more than I. Now, Simon, you’ve got your breath again.”
“Ay, maister—as mich as I shall ever get, as the short-winded horse said when they asked him why he roared like a smithy-bellows.”
“Then I’ll go forward”—again the keen, bitter smile—“to the lumber-room, Simon, among the broken odds and ends.”