“I was not denying his pluck, sir; he gave me a taste of it that day he fought like a wild cat on the moor.” His face flushed, for he had not known, until the separation came, how deep his love went for his brother. The novelty and uproar of the march had stifled his heartache for a day or two, but since then he had missed Rupert at every turn. “It was because I--because I know his temper, sir,” he went on, with a diffidence unlike his usual, quick self-reliance. “He’d have been all for high faith, and a battle at the next road-corner; and these days of trudging through the sleet would have maddened him. I’m glad he stayed at home. He’d have picked a quarrel long since with one of our own company, just to prove his faith.” Squire Demaine glanced dryly at Sir Jasper. “The young pup and the old pup, Royd. Maurice here has better judgment than I thought. I always said that Rupert was true to the Royd breed. Your own encounter in the wood just now----” “Your encounter, sir?” broke in Maurice eagerly. “Giles was saying to me just now that he’d rather be riding on his bailiff’s business up among the hills than be following this dog-trot through the rain. He said--and he was so quiet that I knew his temper was red-raw--he said that naught was ever like to happen again, so far as he could see, and he was longing for a thunderstorm, just to break up the quietness, like.” The boy was so apt in his mimicry of Giles that Squire Demaine gave out the frank, hearty bellow that did duty for a laugh. “We’re all of the same mind, my lad. Thunder--or a straight, soon over fight--clears up one’s troubles.” “Your encounter, father?” said Maurice, persistent in his curiosity. “Did you meet a spy of George’s, and kill him?” Sir Jasper looked at this younger-born of his, at the frank, open face and sturdy limbs. And then he thought, with that keen, recurrent stab of pain that had been bedfellow to him since first he knew his heir a weakling, of Rupert, left up at Windyhough to guard a house that--so far as he could see just now--was in need of no defence. “It was not--not just a spy of George’s I met,” he said, with a grave smile. “He may come to that one day. And I did not kill him, Maurice, though I had the chance.” “Why, sir?” said Maurice, downright and wondering. “Why? God knows. We’d best be pushing forward.” At Windyhough, where the wind had piled a shroud of snow about the gables, they were thinking, all this time, that those who had ridden out were fortunate. As day by day went by, and Rupert found himself constantly alone in a house where only women and old men were left, he found it harder to stay at home, drilling the household to their separate parts in an attack whose likelihood grew more and more remote.