On one of these days he rode in, tired and spent, bringing news from the braes of Glenmoriston, and found the Stuart smoking his pipe, while he skinned a deer that he had shot. “You are killing yourself for loyalty,” said the Prince, glancing at him with a sudden, friendly smile. “By your leave, sir,” said Rupert, as if he talked of Murray’s plain arithmetic, “I am alive at last.” “You’re made of the martyr’s stuff,” said the other. “Your Highness, they called me the scholar there in Lancashire, and I knew what that meant. I am trying to outride the shame.” Rupert was tired out. The Prince was tired at heart, because of Culloden, because of Miss MacDonald, whom he was not to see again, and all the dreams that had tumbled from the high skies to sordid earth. Neither of them had tasted food for six-and-thirty hours. And at these times men are apt to find a still, surprising companionship, such as the tramps know who foot it penniless along the roads. “We have found our kingdom, you and I,” said the Prince, with sudden intuition--“here on the upland tracks, where a man learns something of the God who made him.” Rupert looked out across the mountains, blue-purple in the gloaming, and caught the other’s mood, and spoke as a friend does to a friend, when the heart needs a confidant. “It is all a riddle,” he said slowly. “I thought all lost, after Culloden--and yet I’ve tasted happiness, tasted it for the first time in my life. To carry your life on the saddle with me, to keep open eyes when I’m sick for sleep, to know that the Stuart trusts me--I tell you, I have tasted glory.” The Prince turned his head aside. This was the loyalty known to him since he first set foot in Scotland, the service he claimed, he knew not why, from gentle and simple of his well-wishers. And he was remembering how many of these eager folk had died on his behalf, was forgetting that he, too, had gone sleepless through peril and disaster because he carried at his saddle-bow, not one life only, but a kingdom’s fate. “Your news from Glenmoriston, sir?” he asked sharply. “Pleasant news. A man has died for you, with gallantry.” “You call it pleasant news?” “Listen, your Highness! It was one Roderick MacKenzie--he was a merchant in Edinburgh, and left the town to follow you; and he found his way, after Culloden, to the hills about Glenmoriston. He was alone, and a company of the enemy surprised him; and he faced them, and killed two before they overcame him; and he died in anguish, but found strength to lift himself just before the end. He knew that he was like you, in height and face, and cried, ‘God forgive you, you have killed your Prince!’” “It was brave; it was well meant. But, sir, it is not pleasant news.” “He bought your safety. They are carrying his head to London to claim the ransom. And the troops have left the hills, your Highness--they believe you dead.”