At Will Underwood’s house, five miles away across the heath, the feckless men who had shirked the Rising, took heart again. The duck-shooting that Will had promised them had miscarried yesterday, because the snow declined to humour them; but there would be sport to-night. Civil war, arising suddenly, brings always strange medleys, and it seemed unbelievable that these gentry could be here, quietly discussing the prospects of their moonlight shooting, while the house that was nearest neighbour to Underwood was standing, unknown to them, a siege against long odds. For Windyhough lay isolated, high up the moors that were untravelled by chance wayfarers during this rough weather; it was circled by rolling hills that caught the crack of muskets, and played with the uproar, passing it on from spur to spur, until it reached the outer world as a dull, muffled sound that had no meaning to the sharpest ears. Rupert did not ask aid, would have resented any. And, as the day wore on to seven o’clock--ticked out solemnly by the great clock in the hall--he was fighting, with surprising gaiety and patience, the battle against silence and the foe without. His eyes were not misty now with sleep. His mind was clear, unhurried, fixed on a single purpose; and, when now and then he made his round of the house, his body seemed light and supple in the going, as if he trod on air. He was possessed, indeed, by that dangerous, keen strength known to runners and night-riders as second wind. One of Goldstein’s sentries, patrolling the front of the house, chose this moment for a fool’s display of confidence. The house was so silent, the strain on the endurance of the garrison so heavy, that he thought them all asleep within doors, and came out into the open to reconnoitre. Rupert saw him creep, a dark splash against the frosty snow, and levelled his musket sharply. In this mood of clear vision and clear purpose, he could not have missed his aim; and the sentry dropped, as a bullock does when the pole-axe strikes his forehead. And then there was a sound of hurried feet across the yard, and another sentry came to see what was in the doing. And a second musket-shot ran out “What is it, Rupert?” came a low, troubled voice from the doorway. He turned and saw Nance standing there, roused by the shots, but still only half awake. Not again, perhaps, would he taste the exquisite, unheeding joy, the sense of self-command, that held him now. “There are two less, my dear,” he said. She had been dreaming of old days and new, during the vigil at the north window that had proved too long for her; and she spoke as a child does, half between sleep and waking. “I thought you came to me, Rupert, and you held me close, because there was danger, and you told me you were proved at long last. I always trusted you to show them--how big a Stuart heart you had.”