“There’s the bonnie, snod lass you are, Martha!” Simon was declaring. “I never thought to see such a day as this. Why didn’t I think of it before, like?”
“Perhaps you were blind, Simon,” put in the other, with a coy upward glance.
Nance retreated out of eye-shot, and for the moment she forgot her troubles. She just laughed until her eyes were wet and her slim little body shook. The scene was so unexpected, so instinct with sheer humour, that the gravest must have yielded to it. Then, as the pressure of the last ill-fated days returned to her, she was filled with a childish wonder that life should be so muddled, so rough-and-tumble, so seemingly disordered. There was Sir Jasper, conquering or defeated, but either way carrying his life in his hands. There was Windyhough itself--house, lands and all--at stake. And yet Simon and the dairymaid, whose discretion now, if ever, should have ripened, were reading folly in each other’s eyes.
She heard Martha cross, singing, to the kitchen, and turned and sought the stables again. She was anxious to learn something which only Simon could tell her; for Rupert was diffident of his own skill at all times, and would not have given her, had she asked it, a true account of his marksmanship.
Simon was brushing down the horse when she went in. He glanced up with grave, stolid innocence, as if he had had no other occupation than this of grooming.
“What has the master learned in these last days?” she asked abruptly. “Does he aim well, Simon?”
“He shapes grandly; but then, he always does when his mind is fair set on a matter. We were in a lonely spot, too, you see, with none to laugh at him while he made his first mistakes.”
Nance stroked the fiddle-headed nag, and watched him munch his carrot, and seemed glad to linger here.
“Well, I reckon if I were the man, I’d as lief be out of range as in. I tell you, the young master does naught by halves. The trouble is to get him started. You’d best come with us when we go out again this afternoon, and shoot a match with him.”
And by and by Nance went indoors with a light step and a sense of betterment. It was pleasant to hear Rupert praised.
WHILE the Lancashire farmers were watering their cattle, milking them, tending the sheep whose fleeces were the great part of their livelihood; while Lady Royd and Nance were querulous because they had a roof above their heads, and fires in the house, and food in plenty; while Rupert went doggedly about his drill of musket-practice, with a heart yearning for the battles he pictured in the doing London way, the Prince’s army came to Derby--came in the dusk of a wild November day, with wind-driven rain across their faces, and every house-roof running wet.