So then Oliphant grew hot on the sudden, as Highlanders will when they defend a thing that is marrow of their bones. “The pipes? You’ll hear them rightly, I hope, before you die. The soft, clear tongue of them! They’ll drone to ye, soft as summer, Lady Royd, and bring the slopes o’ Lomond to your sight--and you’ll hear the bees all busy in the thyme; and then they’ll snarl at you, and stretch your body tight as whipcord--and then you taste the fight that’s brewing up----” “True,” said Lady Royd; “but you ask me for my husband, and I’m loth to part with him. Not all the pipes in Scotland may comfort me after--after this fight that you say is brewing up.” Sir Jasper glanced at her. He had followed her whimsies with great chivalry and patience for six-and-twenty years, because it happened that he loved her, once for all; but he had not heard, till now, this answering care for his safety, this foolish and tempestuous wish to keep him by her side. Oliphant of Muirhouse understood their mood. He had ridden through the lonely places, counting life cheap; and such men grow quick of intuition. “Your husband?” he echoed. “I only claim his promises. He’ll return to you, after paying pleasant debts.” “Ah! but will he return?” The messenger was surprised again into open confession of his faith. “One way or another you will meet--yes. The good God sees to that,” he answered gravely. “And now, Sir Jasper, we’ve talked enough, and my bed lies ten miles farther on. Your roads are quagmires--the only bad things I’ve found yet in Lancashire.” “But, Oliphant, you’ll stay the night here? I’ll call you at daybreak if needs must.” “I’ll sleep--a little later, friend--and at your house another day.” His smile was easy as he bade farewell to Lady Royd and gripped his host’s hand for a moment; but Sir Jasper saw him stumble a little as he made towards the door. “How far have you ridden to-day?” he asked sharply. “Oh, fifty miles, no more--with a change of horses. Why d’ye ask?” said Oliphant, turning in some surprise. “Because you look underfed and over-ridden, man. Stay here the night, I say. The Prince himself would not ask more of you if he could see you now.” “The Prince least of all, perhaps. It is his way to shift burdens on to his own shoulders--if we would let him.” Lady Royd found a moment’s respite from her spoiled and stunted outlook, from the sense of foreboding and of coming loss--loss of the husband whom, in some queer way, she loved. She looked at Oliphant of Muirhouse, standing in the doorway and looking backward at them; and she wondered by what gift he could be sleepless and saddle-sore, serene and temperately gay, all at the one time. “Mr. Oliphant,” she said, “this lad with the Stuart name gets more than his deserts. He has few men like yourself among his following, surely?”