Rupert, coming out of the stark night outside, blinked as he met the flickering light of the rush-candles within the tent. Then his eyes cleared, and some trouble took him by the throat. He was young, and in the Presence; and his dreams had been greatly daring, sweeping up to the stars of Stuart loyalty. “I commend you, sir,” said the Prince, looking the lad through and through, as his way was, to learn what shape he had. “There are apt to be volunteers when a cause is gaining, but few when it’s escaping to the hills.” The heart of a man, kept bridled for five-and-twenty years, knows no reticence when it meets at last the comrade of its long desire. “Your Highness,” said Rupert, with a simplicity larger than his father’s, because less way-worn, “I begin to live. I asked to serve you, and--and the prayer is granted.” “You join us in retreat?” said the Prince, touched by the pity of this hero-worship. “I join you either way. I’ve found--why, happiness, I think.” The Prince was a few months younger than himself; but he touched him now on the shoulder, as a father might. “Good luck to your honour lad!” he said. “Clean the world’s mud off from it whenever you find leisure, as you polish a sword-blade. That’s the soldier’s gospel.” The next day they were on the march again. The weather was not gentle on the top of Shap Fell, and the red sun, rising into a clear and frosty sky, showed them a lonely and a naked land--hills reaching out to farther hills, desolate, snow-white, and dumb. Not a bird called. The Highlanders, with their steady, swinging strides, the horsemen moving at a sober pace, were ringed about with silence. Before nightfall, however, they reached Clifton village, and here at last they found diversion from the day’s austerity. The Prince, with the greater part of his cavalry, had pushed forward to Penrith; but Lord Elcho, who, with Sir Jasper’s horsemen, had charge of the rear, gave a sharp sigh of thanksgiving when a messenger brought news that the Duke of Cumberland, with his own regiment and Kingston’s light horse, were close at his heels after ten hours’ hard pursuit. Elcho was glad even of the long odds against him, knowing that his Highlanders were wearying for battle, and made his dispositions with a cheery sense that the Duke had done them a good turn in overtaking them. Taking full advantage of the cover afforded by the country, Elcho placed his men behind the hedges and stone walls, and as the first of the dusk came down the Duke’s soldiery delivered their attack. It was a sharp, bewildering skirmish, ended speedily by nightfall; but to Rupert, fighting in the open after the stifled days at Windyhough, it was easy to show a gallantry that roused the applause of men grown old and hard to combat. And ever he thought less of Nance, and more of this new comrade, danger, whose face was bright, alluring.