He had filled his barrow, and was stooping to the handles, when he, too, heard the beat of hoofs come ringing up between the wind-beats. The storm, perhaps, had stirred even his unfanciful outlook upon life; for he was strangely restless to-night, and ready to believe that some miracle might come to rouse them from their fireside life at Windyhough. He turned his head up-wind, one hairy ear cocked like a spaniel’s, and listened for a while. The gale began to fall a little, and he could hear the quick, recurrent _tippety-tap_ more frequently. He left his barrow, hobbled across the courtyard, saw Rupert and his mother standing in the light of the scudding moon that fought for mastery with the gloaming. “There’s a horse galloping, Simon,” said Rupert. “Did you hear him?” “Ay, I heard him right enough; and I’m wondering who the rider is. It might be Sir Jasper, or it might be one o’ Maister Oliphant’s wild-riding breed----” “Oh, you’re mistaken, both of you!” broke in Lady Royd fretfully. “The snow would deaden hoof-beats. I can hear none, I tell you.” “Nay,” said Simon stolidly, “the road’s harder than the snow’s soft just yet. By and by it will be different, when the wind drops. We’ll be snowed up by morn, my lady.” And now her untrained ear caught the _tippety-tap_, the ring of a gallop close at hand. “It may be Sir Jasper,” she echoed. “Oh, I trust you are right, Simon--so long as he rides unwounded,” she added, quick to find the despondent note. The wind was settling fast. Now and then it yelped and whined like a dog driven out from home on a stark night; but the snow was falling ever a little more steadily, more thickly. And into the blur of snow and moonlight, across the last edge of the gloam, the galloping horseman rode through the open gate into the courtyard, and pulled up, and swung from saddle. He looked from one to another of those who stood this side the porch. “Is that you, Master Rupert?” he asked, without sign of haste or emotion. “Yes, Shackleton. What’s your news?” “Sir Jasper’s lying at my farm. He’s ta’en a hurt, and sent me forrard--seeing he couldn’t come himself--and he said to me that you’re to keep Windyhough against a plaguy lot o’ thieves.” “What thieves, Ben?” “Nay, I know not. He said they were riding an odd mile or two behind, and no time to waste.” Lady Royd was crying softly in the background, secure in her belief that the worst had happened and that her husband’s hurts were mortal. Rupert did not heed her, did not heed anything except the tingling sense of mastery and strength that was firing his young, unproved soul. Through the long nights and days of self-contempt he had longed for this. When his heart had been sick to find himself among the women and the greybeards, he had fought, as if his life depended on it, for the dim hope that his chance would come one day. And, because he was prepared, there was no surprise in Shackleton’s news, no hurried question as to how this sudden onset must be met.