Download the Full Version of the Ebook with Added Features ebookname.

com

Programming C Sharp 3 0 5th Edition Jesse Liberty

https://ebookname.com/product/programming-c-sharp-3-0-5th-
edition-jesse-liberty/

OR CLICK HERE

DOWLOAD NOW

Download more ebook instantly today at https://ebookname.com

Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) available
Download now and explore formats that suit you...

Programming NET 3 5 Build N Tier Applications with WPF

AJAX Silverlight LINQ WCF and More 1st Edition Jesse
Liberty
https://ebookname.com/product/programming-net-3-5-build-n-tier-
applications-with-wpf-ajax-silverlight-linq-wcf-and-more-1st-edition-
jesse-liberty/
ebookname.com

Learning ASP NET 2 0 with AJAX a Practical Hands on Guide

1st Edition Jesse Liberty

https://ebookname.com/product/learning-asp-net-2-0-with-ajax-a-
practical-hands-on-guide-1st-edition-jesse-liberty/

ebookname.com

Programming F 3 0 Second Edition Chris Smith

https://ebookname.com/product/programming-f-3-0-second-edition-chris-
smith/

ebookname.com

The House of Mirth Webster s Spanish Thesaurus Edition

Edith Wharton

https://ebookname.com/product/the-house-of-mirth-webster-s-spanish-
thesaurus-edition-edith-wharton/

ebookname.com
Encyclopedia Of The Cold War 1st Edition Ruud Van Dijk

https://ebookname.com/product/encyclopedia-of-the-cold-war-1st-
edition-ruud-van-dijk/

ebookname.com

Anesthesiology board review Second Edition Kerri M.

Robertson

https://ebookname.com/product/anesthesiology-board-review-second-
edition-kerri-m-robertson/

ebookname.com

Bacterial Pathogenesis Methods and Protocols 1st Edition

Michael A. Apicella (Auth.)

https://ebookname.com/product/bacterial-pathogenesis-methods-and-
protocols-1st-edition-michael-a-apicella-auth/

ebookname.com

Coherence in Three Dimensional Category Theory Cambridge

Tracts in Mathematics 1st Edition Nick Gurski

https://ebookname.com/product/coherence-in-three-dimensional-category-
theory-cambridge-tracts-in-mathematics-1st-edition-nick-gurski/

ebookname.com

Susceptibility Weighted Imaging in MRI Basic Concepts and

Clinical Applications 1st Edition E. Mark Haacke (Editor)

https://ebookname.com/product/susceptibility-weighted-imaging-in-mri-
basic-concepts-and-clinical-applications-1st-edition-e-mark-haacke-
editor/
ebookname.com
Atomic Force Microscopy Biomedical Methods and
Applications 1st Edition Pier Carlo Braga

https://ebookname.com/product/atomic-force-microscopy-biomedical-
methods-and-applications-1st-edition-pier-carlo-braga/

ebookname.com
 FIFTH EDITION

Programming C# 3.0

Jesse Liberty and Donald Xie

Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Paris • Sebastopol • Taipei • Tokyo

Programming C# 3.0, Fifth Edition
by Jesse Liberty and Donald Xie

Copyright © 2008 O’Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472.

O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions
are also available for most titles (safari.oreilly.com). For more information, contact our
corporate/institutional sales department: (800) 998-9938 or [email protected].

Editor: John Osborn Indexer: Angela Howard

Developmental Editor: Brian MacDonald Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery
Production Editor: Sumita Mukherji Interior Designer: David Futato
Copyeditor: Audrey Doyle Illustrator: Jessamyn Read
Proofreader: Sumita Mukherji

Printing History:
July 2001: First Edition.
February 2002: Second Edition.
May 2003: Third Edition.
February 2005: Fourth Edition.
December 2007: Fifth Edition.

Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly logo are registered trademarks of
O’Reilly Media, Inc. Programming C# 3.0, the image of an African crowned crane, and related trade
dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.

Java™ is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Microsoft, MSDN, the .NET logo, Visual Basic, Visual
C++, Visual Studio, and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as
trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media, Inc. was aware of a
trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps.

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and authors
assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the
information contained herein.

This book uses RepKover™, a durable and flexible lay-flat binding.

ISBN-10: 0-596-52743-8
ISBN-13: 978-0-596-52743-3
[M]
 Table of Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Part I. The C# Language

1. C# 3.0 and .NET 3.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The Evolution of C# 3
The C# Language 4
The .NET Platform 6

2. Getting Started: “Hello World” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Classes, Objects, and Types 7
Developing “Hello World” 14
Using the Visual Studio 2008 Debugger 18

3. C# Language Fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Types 21
Variables and Constants 25
Whitespace 33
Statements 33
Operators 49
Preprocessor Directives 59

4. Classes and Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Defining Classes 62
Creating Objects 67
Using Static Members 75
Destroying Objects 79
Passing Parameters 83

iii
 Overloading Methods and Constructors 89
Encapsulating Data with Properties 92
readonly Fields 96

5. Inheritance and Polymorphism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Specialization and Generalization 98
Inheritance 101
Polymorphism 102
Abstract Classes 109
The Root of All Types: Object 113
Nesting Classes 115

6. Operator Overloading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Using the operator Keyword 118
Supporting Other .NET Languages 119
Creating Useful Operators 120
Logical Pairs 120
The Equality Operator 120
Conversion Operators 121
Putting Operators to Work 121

7. Structs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Defining Structs 128
Creating Structs 129

8. Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Defining and Implementing an Interface 132
Overriding Interface Implementations 147
Explicit Interface Implementation 151

9. Arrays, Indexers, and Collections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Arrays 156
The foreach Statement 162
Indexers 177
Collection Interfaces 186
Constraints 190
List<T> 195
Queues 206
Stacks 208
Dictionaries 211

iv | Table of Contents
10. Strings and Regular Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Strings 215
Regular Expressions 229

11. Exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Throwing and Catching Exceptions 242
Exception Objects 252

12. Delegates and Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Events 256
Events and Delegates 257
Anonymous Methods 271

Part II. C# and Data

13. Introducing LINQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Defining and Executing a Query 280
LINQ and C# 285
Anonymous Types 291
Implicitly Typed Local Variables 291
Extension Methods 292
Lambda Expressions in LINQ 297

14. Working with XML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

XML Basics (A Quick Review) 302
X Stands for eXtensible 304
Creating XML Documents 304
Searching in XML with XPath 311
Searching Using XPathNavigator 322
XML Serialization 329

15. Putting LINQ to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

Getting Set Up 338
LINQ to SQL Fundamentals 339
Using Visual Studio LINQ to SQL Designer 344
Retrieving Data 349
Updating Data Using LINQ to SQL 353
Deleting Relational Data 358
LINQ to XML 363

Table of Contents | v
 16. ADO.NET and Relational Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
Relational Databases and SQL 368
The ADO.NET Object Model 372
Getting Started with ADO.NET 374

Part III. Programming with C#

17. Programming ASP.NET Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
Web Forms Fundamentals 381
Creating a Web Form 385
Data Binding 391

18. Programming WPF Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404

WPF in a Very Small Nutshell 404
Building the Application 406
What Have You Learned, Dorothy? 419

19. Programming Windows Forms Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

Creating the Application 420

Part IV. The CLR and the .NET Framework

20. Attributes and Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
Attributes 449
Reflection 456

21. Threads and Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465

Threads 466
Synchronization 474
Race Conditions and Deadlocks 485

22. Streams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

Files and Directories 488
Reading and Writing Data 499
Asynchronous I/O 506
Network I/O 511
Web Streams 527
Serialization 529
Isolated Storage 538

vi | Table of Contents
 23. Programming .NET and COM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 542
Importing ActiveX Controls 542
P/Invoke 551
Pointers 554

C# Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569

Table of Contents | vii

 Preface 1

In 2000, .NET revolutionized the way we create both web and Windows applica-
tions. .NET 2.0 was a dramatic incremental improvement over .NET 1.0. This book
covers C# 3.0 and .NET 3.5, and this time we are looking at an even more significant
set of changes.
C# 3.0 introduces a new generation of changes to a framework that takes an enor-
mous leap forward, revolutionizing the way we program Windows applications, web
services, and, to a lesser degree, web applications.
In 2000, I wrote in the first edition of this book that Microsoft had “bet the com-
pany” on .NET. It was a good bet. In 2007, I bet my career on .NET by joining
Microsoft as senior program manager in the Silverlight Development Division.
Because one way (my preferred way) to program Silverlight is with C#, I have the
opportunity to stay very current with this mature yet rapidly evolving language. It is
an exciting time for C#; version 3.0 adds a number of tremendously useful features,
and the newest edition of Visual Studio makes programming with these features eas-
ier than ever.
It is my goal that you’ll find Programming C# 3.0 to be of great use whether this is
your first exposure to .NET programming, or you’ve been at it for some time. I’ll
start with the fundamentals, and introduce new additions to the language not as
obscure add-ons, but as the integrated features that they are.
If you are already a C# 2.0 programmer, feel free to skim through the parts you
know. The new features are called out by appropriate headings; you won’t inadvert-
ently skip over them. But be sure to reread Chapter 12, and all of Parts II and III.

ix
C# and .NET
The programming language of choice for .NET is C#, which builds on the lessons
learned from C (high performance), C++ (object-oriented structure), Java™ (gar-
bage collection, high security), and Visual Basic (rapid development) to create a
language ideally suited for developing component-based, n-tier, distributed Windows
client and web applications.
C# 3.0 brings greatly enhanced features and a powerful new development environ-
ment. It is the crowning achievement of Microsoft’s R&D investment. It is wicked
cool.

About This Book

This book is a tutorial, both on C# and on writing .NET applications with C#.
If you are a proficient C# 2.0 programmer, and all you want to know is what is new
in C# 3.0, put this book down, buy Programming .NET 3.5 by myself and Alex
Horovitz (O’Reilly), and then read a lot about Language-Integrated Query (LINQ).
You’ll get by.
If, on the other hand, you want to brush up on your C# skills, or you are proficient
in another programming language such as C++ or Java, or even if C# is your first
programming language, this book is for you.
Note that for this edition I have been joined by a second author: Donald Xie. Donald
and I have worked together on a number of books for the past decade. He is smart,
diligent, and careful, and much of the work of this book is his, but every word in this
book is mine. Donald wrote and rewrote much of the new material, but he did so
knowing that I would then rewrite it so that this book speaks with a single voice. I
think it is imperative for a tutorial such as this to speak from the mind of a single
developer (me) into the mind of another developer (you) with as little distortion as
possible.

What You Need to Use This Book

To make the best use of this book, please obtain the latest release of Visual Studio
2008. Any edition will do, including the Express edition for C#.
For Chapter 16, you will want to ensure that SQL Server or SQL Server Express is
installed (it is normally installed automatically with Visual Studio), and you’ll want
to install the (old) Northwind database that was created for SQL Server 2000, but
which works fine with the latest SQL Server editions.
To run the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) example in Chapter 18, you’ll
need to be running Vista, or you’ll need to download the .NET 3.5 runtime.

x | Preface
All of this is available on the Microsoft web site, at no cost. Go to http://www.
microsoft.com and type “C# Express” into the search window. The first or second
link should take you to the download page.
The source code for every example in this book is available through the O’Reilly site,
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527433, or through my portal site: http://
www.jesseliberty.com. Please scroll to and click on the book site, then click on Books
and scroll to this book, and you should find a link to the source code.
In addition, I provide a private, free support forum for all my writing, which you can
also access through the portal.

How This Book Is Organized

Part I focuses on the details of the language, Part II examines how C# supports inter-
acting with data, Part III discusses how to write .NET programs, and Part IV
describes how to use C# with the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) and
Framework Class Library (FCL).

Part I: The C# Language

Chapter 1, C# 3.0 and .NET 3.5
This chapter introduces you to the C# language and the .NET 3.5 platform.
Chapter 2, Getting Started: “Hello World”
This chapter demonstrates a simple program to provide a context for what
follows, and introduces you to the Visual Studio integrated development envi-
ronment (IDE) and a number of C# language concepts.
Chapter 3, C# Language Fundamentals
This chapter presents the basics of the language, from built-in datatypes to
keywords.
Chapter 4, Classes and Objects
Classes define new types and allow programmers to extend the language so that
they can better model the problems they’re trying to solve. This chapter explains
the components that form the heart and soul of C#.
Chapter 5, Inheritance and Polymorphism
Classes can be complex representations and abstractions of things in the real
world. This chapter discusses how classes relate and interact.
Chapter 6, Operator Overloading
This chapter teaches you how to add operators to your user-defined types.
Chapter 7, Structs
This chapter introduce structs, which are lightweight objects that are more
restricted than classes and that make fewer demands on the operating system
and on memory.

Preface | xi
Chapter 8, Interfaces
Interfaces, the subject of Chapter 8, are contracts: they describe how a class will
work so that other programmers can interact with your objects in well-defined
ways.
Chapter 9, Arrays, Indexers, and Collections
Object-oriented programs can create a great many objects. It is often convenient
to group these objects and manipulate them together, and C# provides extensive
support for collections. This chapter explores the collection classes provided by
the FCL, the new Generic collections, and how to create your own collection
types using Generics.
Chapter 10, Strings and Regular Expressions
This chapter discusses how you can use C# to manipulate text strings and regu-
lar expressions. Most Windows and web programs interact with the user, and
strings play a vital role in the user interface.
Chapter 11, Exceptions
This chapter explains how to deal with exceptions, which provide an object-
oriented mechanism for handling life’s little emergencies.
Chapter 12, Delegates and Events
Both Windows and web applications are event-driven. In C#, events are first-
class members of the language. This chapter focuses on how events are managed
and how delegates (object-oriented, type-safe callback mechanisms) are used to
support event handling.

Part II: C# and Data

Chapter 13, Introducing LINQ
This chapter introduces LINQ, a new technology in C# for interacting with data
from any data source, including relational databases, XML, files, and other non-
traditional data sources.
Chapter 14, Working with XML
This chapter is a brief tutorial on XML, the lingua franca of .NET programming.
Chapter 15, Putting LINQ to Work
This chapter returns to LINQ and dives deeper into interacting with SQL and
XML data in your C# programs.
Chapter 16, ADO.NET and Relational Databases
This chapter demonstrates the use of the .NET Framework’s ADO.NET object
model, designed to provide access to relational data from objects.

xii | Preface
Part III: Programming with C#
On top of the .NET infrastructure sits a high-level abstraction of the operating sys-
tem, designed to facilitate object-oriented software development. This top tier
includes ASP.NET and Windows applications. ASP.NET (with AJAX) is one of the
world’s most popular ways to create web applications. Although C# is a standalone
programming language, it is my premise that the vast majority of the readers of this
book are learning C# to build .NET applications.
Chapter 17, Programming ASP.NET Applications
This chapter demonstrates how to build an ASP.NET application and use C# to
handle events.
Chapter 18, Programming WPF Applications
This chapter is a crash course in building a nontrivial WPF application, with a
focus on using C# to create event handlers.
Chapter 19, Programming Windows Forms Applications
This chapter demonstrates how to build a significant Windows Forms applica-
tion, again using C# for event handling.

Part IV: The CLR and the .NET Framework

Part IV of this book discusses the relationship of C# to the CLR and the FCL.
Chapter 20, Attributes and Reflection
.NET assemblies include extensive metadata about classes, methods, properties,
events, and so forth. This metadata is compiled into the program and retrieved
programmatically through reflection. This chapter explores how to add metadata
to your code, how to create custom attributes, and how to access this metadata
through reflection. It goes on to discuss dynamic invocation, in which methods
are invoked with late (runtime) binding.
Chapter 21, Threads and Synchronization
The FCL provides extensive support for asynchronous I/O and other classes that
make explicit manipulation of threads unnecessary. However, C# does provide
extensive support for threads and synchronization, discussed in this chapter.
Chapter 22, Streams
This chapter discusses streams, a mechanism not only for interacting with the
user, but also for retrieving data across the Internet. This chapter includes full
coverage of C# support for serialization: the ability to write an object graph to
disk and read it back again.

Preface | xiii
Chapter 23, Programming .NET and COM
This chapter explores interoperability: the ability to interact with COM compo-
nents that are created outside the managed environment of the .NET Framework.
It’s possible to call components from C# applications into COM, and to call com-
ponents from COM into C#. Chapter 23 describes how this is done.
The book concludes with a glossary of C# keywords first published in C# 3.0 in a
Nutshell by Joseph and Ben Albahari (O’Reilly). Whenever you encounter a key-
word that you don’t recognize in an example, turn first to the glossary and then to
the index for further information.

Who This Book Is For

Programming C# 3.0, Fifth Edition, was written for programmers who want to
develop applications for the .NET platform. No doubt many of you already have
experience in C++, Java, or Visual Basic (VB). Other readers may have experience
with other programming languages, and some readers may have no specific program-
ming experience but perhaps have been working with HTML and other web technol-
ogies. This book is written for all of you, though if you have no programming
experience at all, you may find some of it tough going.
For a deeper exploration of the more advanced C# language elements we introduce
in this book, especially LINQ, we recommend C# 3.0 in a Nutshell. C# 3.0 Cook-
book by Jay Hilyard and Steve Teilhet (O’Reilly) contains more than 250 C# 3.0
solutions to common programming tasks you’re likely to face on the job after you’ve
mastered this book.
If you prefer a more structured approach to the basics of C# programming, com-
plete with quizes and exercises to test your knowledge, I suggest you take a look at
Learning C# 2005, by myself and Brian MacDonald (O’Reilly).

Conventions Used in This Book

The following font conventions are used in this book:
Italic is used for:
• Pathnames, filenames, and program names
• Internet addresses, such as domain names and URLs
• New terms where they are defined
Constant Width is used for:
• Command lines and options that should be typed verbatim
• Names and keywords in program examples, including method names, variable
names, and class names

xiv | Preface
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
and popularity among big-hearted gentry—passed by him like a fast-
moving company of ghosts. And then another phantom stole, with
faltering steps and shrouded head, across this vision he was
borrowing from another world. He saw his cowardice, lean,
shrivelled, stooping—the cowardice that had been born of ease and
frank self-seeking. He had pledged faith that he would follow the
Stuart when need asked; and he had broken troth, because he
yearned to keep his house and lands, because he had planned to
give a ball at Christmas that should set all Lancashire talking of its
pomp.
God was very kind to-night to Wild Will. The run was short and swift
to Windyhough, as time is reckoned; but during the scamper over
broken ground he found that leisure of the soul which is cradled in
eternity. He won free of his past. He knew only that the squire had
spoken a true word in jest.
He was deep in love. All the ache and trouble of his need for Nance
were wiped clean away. She was in danger, and he was running to
her aid; and he understood, with a clean and happy sense of well-
being, the way of his Catholic friends when they loved a woman.
Until now it had been a riddle to him, the quality of this regard. He
had seen them love as full-blooded men do—with storm and
jealousy and passionate unrest, but always with a subtle reserve, a
princely deference, shining dimly through it all. And to-night, his
vision singularly clear, he knew that their faith was more than lip
speech, knew that the Madonna had come once, and once for all, to
show the path of chivalry.
If Rupert had found happiness during this siege that had tested his
manhood, so, too, had Will Underwood. With a single purpose, with
desire only to serve Nance, asking no thanks or recompense, he
raced over the last strip of broken ground and through the courtyard
gate.
“Be gad! they’ve been busy here!” growled the red-faced squire,
seeing the bodies lying black against the snow and hearing the
wounded crying in their anguish. But Will did not see the littered
yard, the white, keen moonlight that spared no ugly detail. His eyes
were fixed on the burning threshold—Nance was behind it, and she
needed him.
The fallen doorway, the blazing remnants of the settle, had set fire
by now to the woodwork of the hall. Will ran through the heat and
smoke of it, saw Rupert swaying dizzily half up the stair, and below
him four Hessian troopers, one of whom was lifting a musket to his
shoulder. He had his fowling-piece in hand, half-cocked by instinct
when he left the duck-shooting for this scamper down the moor. He
cocked it, and at the moment the trooper who was taking aim at
Rupert turned sharply, hearing the din of feet behind, saw a press of
men, white from head to foot, pouring through the doorway, and
fired heedlessly at Underwood. And Will’s fowling-piece barked at
the same moment; at six paces the charge of shot was compact and
solid as a bullet, but the wound it made was larger, and not clean at
all.
The three troopers left faced round on the incoming company. They
saw seven men, white in the linen coats they had not found thought
or leisure to throw off, and sudden panic seized them. Through the
stark waiting-time of their siege, with the moors and the sobbing
winds to foster superstition, they had learned belief in ghosts, and
thought they saw them now. They ran blindly for the doorway.
Rupert leaped from the stair, and they were taken front and rear.
When all was done, Rupert steadied himself, stood straight and
soldierly, scanned the faces of his rescuers, and knew them all for
friends.
“My thanks, gentlemen,” he said, with tired courtesy. “You came in a
good hour.”
He leaned a hand on the Red Squire’s shoulder, wiped a trickle of
blood from some chance wound that had touched his forehead,
glanced round at them with dim, unseeing eyes.
“Have I kept the house? Have I finished?”
“The house is in our keeping now. You’ve done well, my lad,” said
the red-faced squire, with gruff tenderness.
“Then I’ll get to sleep, I think.”
And he would have fallen, but the squire held him up and, putting
two rough arms about him, carried him upstairs.
“A well-plucked one,” he said, returning quickly. “And now,
gentlemen, the house will be on fire, by your leave, if we don’t turn
our hands to the pump.”
Nance, watching from the shadows, was bewildered by the speed
and fury of it all—bewildered more by the business-like, quiet way in
which these linen-coated gentry went in and out of hall, carrying
buckets and quenching the last smouldering flames with water from
the stable yard. This was war—war, with its horror, its gallantry, its
comedy; but it was not the warfare she had pictured when she sang
heroic ballads at the spinet.
And then the night’s uproar and its madness passed by her. She
thought only of the master who had all but died just now to save the
house—to save her honour. She could not face the busy hall, the
man sprawling on the stair, head downward, where Rupert’s blow
had left him. Instead, she went back along the corridor and up by
the servants’ stairway, and found Rupert lying in a dead sleep in his
own chamber, a lighted candle at his elbow, just as the red-faced
squire had left him.
“My dear,” she said, knowing he could not hear, “my dear”—her voice
broke in a deep, quiet laugh that had no meaning to her as yet
—“they said you were the scholar. And I think they lied.”
She lifted her head by and by, hearing the squire’s voice below in the
hall.
“Where’s Will Underwood?” he was asking noisily. “We’ve got the fire
under, and we can see each other’s faces now we’ve lit the candles.
Where, by the Mass, is Underwood?”
Nance shivered. Through her weariness, through the panic of this
sharp attack, she recalled the shame of her first love, recalled her
meeting with Will Underwood on the high moors, when he had
talked of loyalty as a thing of barter.
She stooped to touch Rupert as he slept. Here was a man, spent and
weak; but here, proved through and through, was a cleanly
gentleman who, against odds, had kept his obligations. Old affection
stirred in her, and new pride in his conduct of the siege.
“Where’s Underwood?” came the squire’s voice again. “Is this some
prank of his, to hide away?”
“With Nance Demaine, sir,” answered some pert youngster of the
company. “Where else should he be? He was never one to waste
time.”
“You’ve guessed the riddle, youngster.” The squire’s laugh was
boisterous. “It’s odd to think of Underwood lovesick as a lad in his
teens—especially just now, with all this litter in the hall.”
Outside the doorway Will Underwood was lying in the moonlight. He
had been hit in the groin by Goldstein’s trooper, just as he answered
with a charge of shot at six paces; and because the hills had bred
him, he needed to get out into the open, taking his sickness with
him.
He lay in the snow and looked up at the sky. He had never seen a
whiter moon, a clearer light, at time of midwinter. Land and sky
were glittering with frost, and overhead he saw the seven starry
lamps of Charlie’s Wain. He was in bitter anguish, and knew that his
hurt was mortal; he had no regret for that, because he knew, too,
that Windyhough and Nance were saved. His bitterness was of the
soul. Strain as he would, he could not shut out the picture—clear as
the frosty sky above him—of Nance’s face when she met him on the
moor—years ago, it seemed—and he thought he was his own ghost,
come to warn her of his death.
He lived through that scene again in detail, heard Nance’s voice
sweep all his prudent self-esteem aside. And her scorn bit deeper
now, because he knew at last the strength of his fine regard for her.
Passion was gone. Prudence was gone, because men near to death
remember that they came naked into the world. He had lost the
trickeries that had earned him the name of Wild Will, and was glad
to let them go. He was aware only that he lay between here and
hereafter, in pain of body and soul, and that he might take this last
fence gladly, as on a hunting-morn, if he could wipe away the
remembrance of one day gone by.
Many things grew clear to him as he lay and watched the moon. The
wrath and pitiless hell-fire of Rigstones Chapel yielded to a wider
outlook on the forgiveness of a Being greater than himself in charity.
He found it easy to forgive his enemies, to forget his jealousy of
Rupert, whom he had saved just now. But, warring against the
peace he sought, and keeping the life quick in his tortured body, was
remembrance of that day on the high moors. His work, good or ill,
was done, and he longed to die, and could not.
Into the littered hall at Windyhough, while the squire paced up and
down asking noisily for Will Underwood, old Nat the shepherd
sauntered, pipe in hand. He was old, and a dreamer, and the
gunshots and the fury had not disturbed him greatly.
Nat glanced round at the fallen men and the standing, at the
doorway through whose blackened lintels the keen moonlight stole
to drown the candle-flames. And he laughed, a gentle, pitying laugh.
“It’s naught so much to brag about,” he said. “There were bonnier
doings i’ the ’15 Rising. Men were men i’ those days.”
Nance wearied of it all as she stood by the master’s bed and listened
to the talk downstairs. The house seemed full of men, and insolent
coupling of her name with Will Underwood’s, and the sickly, pungent
smell of blood and smoke. She was tired of gallantry and war, tired
of her own weariness; and she went down the stair, stepping lightly
over Rupert’s enemy, and came among them into hall.
“Your servant, Miss Nance,” said the red-faced squire, not guessing
what a figure of comedy he cut, bowing under the folds of a white
linen coat.
“I thank you, gentlemen,” said Nance unsteadily. “From my heart I
thank you. You—you have done us service. And now, by your leave,
I need to get out of doors. I—I have been in prison here.”
They made a lane of honour for her. They had been laggards in the
Prince’s service; they were recusants, come at the last hour to prove
themselves; but they felt, seeing Nance step down between them,
her face stained with weariness and long vigil, that a royal lady had
come into their midst.
Nance went through the charred doorway, and halted a moment as
the pleasant frost-wind met her. The moonlight and the clean face of
the sky gave her a sense of ease and liberty, after the cramped days
indoors. The siege’s uproar, its stealthy quiet, were lost in this big
silence of the frosty spaces overhead.
From the silence, from the snowy courtyard at her feet, a groan
brought her back sharply to realities. She looked down, and saw Will
Underwood lying face upwards to the stars. He, too, was linen-
sheeted, as the squire had been; but there was no touch of comedy
in his apparel. It seemed to Nance that he was shrouded for his bier.
They looked into each other’s eyes for a while, and some kindness in
the girl’s glance, some regret to see him lying helpless with the fire
of torment in his eyes, fired his courage.
“You?” she said gently. “You came to save the house?”
“No, Nance; I came to save you. That was my only thought.”
“They are asking for you indoors. I do not understand—you are
wounded——”
“In your service—yes. They were right, after all—they always said I’d
more luck than I deserved.”
She was free now of the bewilderment of this night attack, the sharp
battle in the hall, quick and confused in the doing. The moonlight
showed her the face of a man in obvious pain, a man fighting for
every word that crossed his lips; and yet he was smiling, and the
soul of him was gay.
“I’ll bring help,” she said, turning toward the house.
“No; you’ve brought help. Nance, I’ll not keep you long. There was a
day—a day when we met up the moor, and I was your liar, Nance—
from heel to crown I was your liar—and God knows the shame you
put on me.”
Nance, scarce heeding what she did, took a kerchief, stained with
gunpowder, from the pocket of the riding-coat she had worn, day in,
day out, since the siege began.
“I keep my promise, Will.”
Even yet, though Nance was kneeling in the snow beside him and he
heard the pity in her voice, Will could not free himself from some
remembrance of that bygone meeting. “As a flag of truce?” he asked
sharply.
“As a badge of honour. You are free to wear it.”
He reached out for her hand, and put it to his lips with the reverence
learned since he came down from duck-shooting to find a mortal
hurt. “As God sees me,” he said, a pleasant note of triumph in his
voice—“as God sees me, I die happy.”
And then he turned on his side. And the pert youngster who had
coupled Nance’s name with Will’s, coming out in search of the
missing leader, saw the girl kneeling in the snow and heard her sobs.
And he crept back into the hall, ashamed in some queer way.
“Why, lad, have you seen a ghost out yonder?” asked the red-faced
squire.
“No, sir,” the boy answered gravely. “It is as I said—Will is with
Nance Demaine, and—and I think we’d better leave them to it.”
 CHAPTER XVIII
THE RIDING OUT

Sir Jasper, out at Ben Shackleton’s farm, had been no easy guest to
entertain since he sought refuge there from the pursuit of
Goldstein’s men. He slept for twelve hours, after they had laid him
on the lang-settle and stopped the bleeding from his wound; and
then, for an hour, he had lain between sleep and waking; and, after
that, he was keen to be up and doing.
Shackleton’s wife, dismayed because her goodman had not returned
long since from carrying his message to Windyhough, was sharp of
tongue, and lacking in deference a little, as the way of the sturdy
farm-folk is when they are troubled.
“As you wish, Sir Jasper,” she said tartly. “Just get up and stand on
your two feet, and see how it feels, like.”
He got stubbornly to his feet, and moved a pace or two across the
floor; and then he grew weak and dizzy, and was glad to find his
way again to the lang-settle.
“Ay, so!” said Shackleton’s wife. “It’s good for men-folk to learn, just
time and time, how they can go weak as a little babby.”
“My wife needs me yonder.”
“Ay, and I need my goodman here. Exchange is no robbery, Sir
Jasper.”
“She is in danger,” he snapped, with a sick man’s petulance.
“Well, so’s my man, I reckon—they’ve kept him yonder, or he’d have
been home lang-syne.”
Then weariness conquered Sir Jasper; and he slept again till that day
passed, and the next night, and half through the morning. It was his
respite from remembrance of the retreat from Derby, from the
wound that kept him out of action.
“You’ll do nicely now,” said Shackleton’s wife, glancing round from
ironing a shirt of her husband’s. “You’ve got the look of your old self
about you, Sir Jasper.”
The wound itself was of less account than the bleeding that had
followed it; and by nightfall he was waiting impatiently until the
shepherd saddled his mare and brought her to the door.
The farm-wife looked him up and down, with the frank glance that
had only friendliness and extreme solicitude behind it. “Eh, but you
look sick and wambly,” she said. “Can you sit a horse, Sir Jasper?”
“I am hale and well,” he answered—fretfully, because he felt his
weakness and because he was fearing for his wife.
He got to saddle, and the mare and he went slushing up and down
the mile of bridle-track that separated them from home. He was no
longer conscious of pain or weakness; his heart was on fire to see
his wife again, to know her safe. At the turn of the hill, just beyond
the gallows-tree that stood naked against the sky, he saw
Windyhough lying below him, the moonlight keen on snowy
chimney-stacks and gables.
“Thank God!” he said, seeing how peaceful the old house lay.
A little later he came to the splintered gateway, and his heart
misgave him. The mare fidgeted and would not go forward; and,
looking down, he saw a dead man lying in the moonlight—the
trooper at whom Rupert had fired his maiden battle-shot.
He got from saddle, left the mare to her own devices, and ran across
the courtyard. Here, too, were bodies lying in the snow. The main
door was gone, save for a charred framework through which the
moon showed him a disordered hall.
Without thought of his own safety here, with a single, savage
purpose to find his wife—dead or worse—he crossed the hall; and at
the stairway foot he met the red-faced squire, coming down with a
brisk tread surprising in a man of his bulk and goutiness.
“By gad! we’re too busy with flesh and blood to care for ghosts,”
said the squire, halting suddenly. His laugh was boisterous, but it
covered a superstition lively and afraid.
“A truce to nonsense,” snapped Sir Jasper. “Where is Lady Royd?”
“Asleep—and her toy spaniel, too.” The squire had come down and
touched Sir Jasper to make sure that he was of this world. “I should
poison that dog if it were mine, Royd. It yapped at every wounded
man we carried in.”
“My wife is asleep—and safe?” asked the other, as if he feared the
answer.
“We’re all safe—except poor Will Underwood; and all busy, thanks to
that game pup of yours. For a scholar, he shaped well.”
“Rupert kept the house?” Through all his trouble and unrest Sir
Jasper tried to grasp the meaning of the charred doorway, the
groans of wounded men above. “It did not seem so when I came
indoors.”
So then the Squire told him, all in clipped, hurried speech, the way
of it. And Sir Jasper forgot his wife, forgot his wound, and all the
misery that had dogged his steps since Derby. He had an heir at last.
Rupert, the well-beloved, had proved himself.
“Where is he?” he asked huskily.
“Asleep, too, by your leave. No, we’ll not wake him. He’s had three
days of gunpowder and wakefulness, Royd. Let him sleep the clock
round.”
The squire, seeing how weak Sir Jasper was, took him by the arm
into the dining-chamber, filled him a measure of brandy, and pushed
him gently into a chair.
“I came late to the wedding, Royd,” he said dryly, “but I’m in
command here, till you find your strength.”
Sir Jasper, for the first time since Derby, was content. His wife was
safe, and his heir was a man at last. And the red-faced squire, whom
he had always liked, was no recusant, after all.
“You talked of carrying wounded men in?” he asked by and by. “I
can hear them crying out for thirst.”
“That’s where they have us, Royd, these flea-bitten men of
George’s,” said the squire, with another boisterous laugh. “They
were crying like stuck pigs—out in the cold—and we had to take
them in. Windyhough is a hospital, I tell you, owing to the queer
Catholic training that weakens us. They’d not have done as much for
us.”
“That is their loss—and, as for training, I think Rupert has proved it
fairly right.”
“Well, yes. But I hate wounds, Royd, and all the sickroom messiness.
It’s an ill business, tending men you’d rather see lying snugly in their
graves.”
Sir Jasper laughed, not boisterously at all, but with the tranquil
gaiety that comes of sadness. “There was a worse business, friend,
at Derby. I went through it; and, I tell you, nothing matters very
much—nothing will ever matter again, unless the Prince finds his
battle up in Scotland.”
And by and by they fell to talking of ways and means. Sir Jasper was
pledged to rejoin the Prince, and would not break his word. Neither
would he leave his son at Windyhough a second time, among the
women and old men. And yet—there was his wife, who needed him.
The red-faced squire, blunt and full of cheery common sense,
resolved his difficulties. “Cannot you trust us, Royd? There’ll be six
men of us—seven, counting Simon Foster, who is getting better of
his hurt—and only wounded prisoners to guard.”
“What if another company of roving blackguards rides this way?”
“Not likely. By your own showing, the hunt goes wide of this.
Besides, we shall get a new doorway up. Rupert held the house with
two to help him—seven of us could do the like.”
Sir Jasper began to pace restlessly up and down. “You forget,” he
said sharply, “it will be my wife you’re guarding—my wife—and she
means so much to me, old friend.”
“We know, we know. D’ye think we’d let hurt come to her? Listen,
Royd. When these jackanapes who groan in German are fit to look
after themselves, we’ll leave them to it, and take all your women
with us to my house at Ravenscliff. And word shall go round that
Lady Royd—the toast of the county to this day—needs gentlemen
about her. She’ll not lack friends, I tell you.”
The squire’s glance fell as it met Sir Jasper’s. His conscience was
uneasy still, and he fancied a rebuke that was far from Royd’s
thoughts. So had the Prince been the county’s toast—until the Prince
asked instant service.
“I can trust you,” said Sir Jasper, with sudden decision. “Guard her—
as God sees us, she is—is very dear to me.”
Then, after a restless silence, Sir Jasper’s doubts, bred of bodily
weakness, ran into a new channel.
“There’s yourself to think of in all this—your own wife, and your
house. The Hanover men will not be gentle if we lose the battle up
in Scotland.”
“Royd,” said the red-faced squire, not fearing now to meet his
glance, “we’ve come badly out of this, we fools who stayed at home.
There’s been no flavour in our wine; we’ve been poor fox-hunters,
not caring whether we were in at the death or no—you’ll not grudge
us our one chance to play the man?”
Sir Jasper understood at last that recusants can have their evil
moments, can find worse cheer than he had met at Derby.
“I warn you, Ned, there’s small chance of our winning now. For old
friendship’s sake, I’ll not let you go blindly into this.”
“What’s the ballad Nance Demaine sings so nattily? Life’s losing and
land’s losing, and what were they to gi’e? Oh, it’s all true, Royd. We
have our chance at last—and, gad! we mean to take it.”
“It bites deep, Ned,” said the other, with grave concern. “It bites
deep, this wife losing and land losing.”
“Not as deep as shame,” snapped the red-faced squire. “I’m a free
man of my hands again. And now, by the look of you, you’d best get
to bed. Honest man to honest man, Royd, you’re dead-beat?”
“Yes—if the house is safe,” said Sir Jasper, with unalterable simplicity.
“Oh, trust me, Royd! I’m in command here—and, I tell you, all is
safe.”
He went upstairs, and into his wife’s room. There was a candle
burning on the table at her elbow, and he forgot his own need of
sleep in watching hers. The strain of the past days was gone. She
lay like a child at peace with God and man, and the peevish, day-
time wrinkles were smoothed away; and she was dreaming, had her
husband known it, of the days when she had come, as a bride, to
Windyhough.
A gusty tenderness, a reverence beyond belief, came to Sir Jasper.
He forgot all hardships Derby way. The simple heart of him was
content with the day’s journey, so long as it brought him this—his
wife secure, with happiness asleep about her face.
He stooped to touch her, and the spaniel sleeping at her side stood
up and barked at him, rousing the mistress.
“Be quiet!” she said sleepily. “I was dreaming—that my lord came
home again, forgiving all my foolishness.”
The spaniel only barked the more. And Sir Jasper, who was by way
of being rough just now with all intruders, big or little, pitched him
out on to the landing.
His wife was awake now, and she looked at him with wide eyes of
misery. “You have kept tryst, my dear. You promised—when you rode
out—that, if you died, you would come to tell me of it. And I—God
help me!—was dreaming that we were young again together.”
“We’re very young again together, Agnes,” said Sir Jasper, with a
quiet laugh. “Do I look so ghostly that you all mistake me for a
wraith?”
She touched him, as the squire had done—gently at first, and then
with gaining confidence. “You look—as I have never seen you,
husband; you are as grey of face as Rupert, when his work was
done and they carried him upstairs. Your wound—Jasper, it is not
mortal?”
“It is healing fast. There, wife, you are only half awake, and I’m
dishevelled. I had no time to put myself in order. I was too eager
just—just to see my wife again.”
And Lady Royd was wide awake now. Not only the husband, but the
lover, had returned. “I shall have to take care of you, Jasper,” she
said, with the woman’s need to be protective when she is happy.
“You’ll need nursing, and——”
“I need sleep,” growled Sir Jasper—“just a few hours’ sleep, Agnes,
and—and forgetfulness of Derby.”
“Ah, sleep! That has been our need, too. We—we none of us went
out with you, Jasper—but we kept the house. And we learned what
sleep means—more than food or drink, more than any gift that we
can ask.”
It is in the hurried, perilous moments that men come to
understanding. Sir Jasper, by the little said and the much left unsaid,
knew that his wife, according to her strength, had taken a brave part
in this enterprise.
“You talk of what old campaigners know,” he said.
And there was a little, pleasant silence; and after that Lady Royd
looked into her husband’s face.
“You are home again—to stay until your wound is healed?” she
asked.
“No, my dear. I take the road to-morrow. The Prince needs me.”
She turned her face to the wall. And temptation played like a windy
night about Sir Jasper, taking him at the ebb of his strength, as all
cowards do. He was more weak of body than she guessed; he had
given really of himself, and surely he had earned a little ease, a
sitting by the hearth while he told his wife, this once again, what
was in his heart for her.
And his wife turned suddenly. Her eyes were radiant with the faith
that siege had taught her—siege, and the reek of gunpowder, and
the way men carried themselves in the face of the bright comrade,
danger.
“Go, Jasper—and good luck to your riding,” she said quietly.
At two of the next afternoon Sir Jasper and Rupert got to saddle;
and the father, knowing the way of his son’s heart, rode on ahead
down the long, sloping bridle-track, leaving him to say good-bye to
Nance Demaine.
Nance had been used to courage, as she was used to wind on the
hills; but all her world was slipping from her now. She had given her
kerchief to Will Underwood, from pity for a love that was dead and
hidden out of sight; she had gone through stress and turmoil; and at
the end of all Rupert, her one friend here, was riding out with his
eyes on the hills, though she stood at his stirrup and sought his
glance.
“God speed, Rupert!” she said.
He stooped to kiss her hand, but his thoughts were far away. “It
seemed all past praying for, Nance—and it has come.”
“What has come?” she asked—peevishly, because she was tired and
very lonely. “Fire, and sleeplessness, and the cries of wounded men
—what else has come to Windyhough?”
“Not Stuart songs,” he answered gravely. “Stuart deeds are coming
my way, Nance, at long last.”
“So you—are glad to go, Rupert?”
He looked down at her and for a moment he forgot the road ahead.
He saw only Nance—Nance, whom he had loved from boyhood—
Nance, with the wholesome, bonnie face that discerning men, who
could see the soul behind it, named beautiful. All his keen young
love for her was needing outlet on the sudden. She was so near, so
friendly; and about her was a clear, eager starshine, such as lovers
see.
The siege, and killing of a man here and there, stepped in and
conquered this old weakness that was hindering him. “Nance, my
dear,” he said, “I shall come back—when I’m your proven man.”
It was so he went quietly out into the sunlight that had struggled
free awhile of the grey, wintry clouds. And again Nance was chilled,
as she had been when the Loyal Meet rode out—years ago, it
seemed—without sound of drum or any show of pageantry. She had
not learned even yet that men with a single purpose go about their
business quietly, not heeding bugle-calls of this world’s sounding.
She watched him go, old pity and old liking stirred. And she longed
to call him back, but pride forbade her.
Simon Foster came grumbling through the charred courtyard gate.
He had stood at the hilltop, watching the old master and the young
go out along the track he was too infirm to follow; and there was a
deep, abiding bitterness in his heart.
“They shouldn’t have gi’en me a taste o’ fight, Miss Nance,” he said.
“I call it fair shameful just to whet a body’s appetite, and then give
him naught solid to follow. Oh, I tell ye, it’s ill work staying at home,
tied up wi’ rheumatiz.”
Nance was glad of the respite from her own muddled thoughts, from
the sense of loss that Rupert had left her as a parting gift. “It is time
you settled down,” she said, with a touch of the humour that was
never far from her. “And you have Martha to make up for all you’re
losing.”
“Ay, true,” grumbled Simon, his eyes far away; “but Martha could
have bided till I’d had my fill, like. She’s patient—it’s in the build of
her—but, I never was.”
“Patience?” said Nance. “It is in no woman’s build, Simon. We have
to learn it, while our men are enjoying the free weather.”
Rupert had overtaken his father on the winding, downhill track, and
they rode in silence together for a mile or so, each thinking of the
other and of the work ahead. It was a pleasant, deep communion
for them both; and the son remembered, for the last time, how Sir
Jasper had lied to him in giving him the house of Windyhough to
keep. From the soldiery learnt there, from the peril waiting for them
ahead, Rupert had won the priceless gift, forgiveness—a herb
troublesome and hard to find.
“You’re silent, lad,” said Sir Jasper, as they came to the stretch of
level track that took them right-handed into the Langton road.
“I was thinking—that dreams come true, sir, as I said to Nance just
now.”
Clouds were hurrying up against the sun—yellow, evil clouds, packed
thick with snow—and a bitter wind was rising. The going underfoot
was vile. Their errand was to join an army in retreat, with likelihood
that they would dine and breakfast on disaster. And yet—because
God made them so—they found tranquillity. Sir Jasper had dreamed
of this, since his first gladness that he had an heir, his first sorrow
when he admitted to himself, grudgingly, that the boy was not as
strong as he had wished. And Rupert, while his shoulders found their
scholarly droop in reading old books at Windyhough, had shared the
same dream—that one day, by a miracle, he might ride out with his
father on the Stuart’s business.
And they were here together. And nothing mattered, somehow, as
the way of men is when their souls have taken the open, friendly
road.
They rode hard in pursuit of the Prince’s army, nursing their horses’
strength as far as eagerness would let them; and, at long last, they
overtook their friends on the windy summit of Shap Fell, where the
Stuart army was bivouacked for the night.
Sir Jasper asked audience of the Prince, and found him sitting in his
tent, eating a stew of sheep’s kidneys—the one luxury royalty could
command at the moment. And the Prince rose, forgetting his quality,
in frank welcome of this man who had shared the evil Derby days
with him.
“I thought you dead, sir; and I’m very glad to see you—alive, but
thinner than you were.”
No detail ever escaped the Prince’s eye, when he was concerned
about the welfare of his friends; and the solicitude, the affection of
this greeting atoned for many hardships.
“I was wounded, your Highness, or should have been with you long
since.”
“So much I knew. No other hindrance would have kept you,” said the
Prince, with flattering trust.
“I bring a volunteer with me.”
“He must be staunch indeed! A volunteer to join us in these days of
havoc? Has he been jilted by one of your Lancashire witches, that
he’s eager to trudge through this evil weather?”
“No. He has just won through a siege on your behalf—the siege of
my own house—and could not rest till he had seen you.”
The Prince had been in a black mood of despair not long ago. He
was alone in his tent, with none to need him for the moment, none
to know if he were sick at heart. Like all men, great or small, he was
at once the victim and the captain of the temperament given him at
birth; and none but the Stuarts knew how dearly they purchased—
through lonely hours of misery, self-doubt, denial of all hope—the
charm, the gay, unyielding courage that touched the dullest
wayfarers with some fine hint of betterment.
Sir Jasper’s coming had cleared the Prince’s outlook. In the man’s
simplicity, in the obvious love he held for this unknown volunteer, the
Stuart read a request unspoke.
“Present him,” he said, with the smile that had tempted men and
women alike to follow him for love. “He’ll forgive me if I finish this
stew of kidneys? For I own I’m devilish hungry.”
Through the toilsome ride from Windyhough to Shap, Rupert had
talked of the Prince, and only of the Prince; and Sir Jasper went now
to find his heir, proud—as simple men are—of the transparent
diplomacy that had secured Rupert his heart’s desire so promptly. He
did not find him at once among the busy camp; and when they were
admitted to the royal tent, his Highness had finished his meal, and
was smoking the disreputable pipe that had been his friend
throughout this weary, meaningless retreat.
“My son, your Highness,” said Sir Jasper.
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.
They left the Duke with his dead; and, because they were hopelessly
outnumbered if the daylight found them still in possession of Clifton,
they went through the black night to Penrith, bringing news to the
Prince of their little victory. And after that it was forward to Carlisle.
 CHAPTER XIX
THE FORLORN HOPE

It can be bitter cold in Carlisle, when the wind raves down from the
Border country and the rain will not be quiet; but never had the grey
town shown more cheerless than it did to the Prince’s eyes when, six
days before Christmas, he rode in with his retreating army. The brief,
sudden warmth of the victory at Clifton was forgotten. They had
travelled all night, over distressing roads, fetlock deep in mud. They
were strained to breaking-point, after incessant marches, day after
day seeing the footmen cover their twenty miles with bleeding feet.
They were disillusioned, hopeless, sport for any man to laugh at
whose faith went no farther than this world’s limits.
For the Prince, when he got inside the Castle, and gave audience to
Mr. Hamilton, the governor, there was worse trouble brewing.
Hamilton, caring only for the Stuart’s safety, was resolute to hold
Carlisle against the pursuing Hanoverians, encamped at Hesket,
within an easy day’s march of the city. He pointed out, with a clear
reasoning beyond dispute, that the Castle was strong to stand a
siege, that the Duke of Cumberland would halt to capture it,
knowing it the key of the Border country, that a small garrison could
ensure the Stuart army a respite from pursuit until they joined their
friends in Scotland.
“I decline, Mr. Hamilton,” said the Prince sharply. “You can hold out—
for how long?”
“For a week at least, your Highness—ten days, may be. They say the
Duke has no artillery with him yet.”
“But the end—the end will be the same, soon or late.”
“A pleasant end, if it secures your safety. Oh, think, your Highness!
You’ve five thousand men with you, and we are less than a hundred,
all told. I tell you, I have thought out all this. The garrison has
thought it out, and—and we are bent on it.”
“My men would not buy safety at the price. How could they? No, no,
Mr. Hamilton. Your garrison shall take their chance in the open with
us.”
Yet that night the Prince could only sleep by snatches. Throughout
this swift campaign, opposed to all the prudences of warfare, his
thought that had been constantly for the welfare of his soldiery, so
far as he could compass it. And Hamilton had planned a gallant
chance of safety for them. Undoubtedly, the plan was good.
To and fro his thoughts went, and they gained clearness as the night
went on. For himself, he had no care either way. He had left hope
behind at Derby, for his part. His heart was not broken yet, but it
was breaking; and, if he had found leisure during this wakeful night
for one private, selfish prayer, it would have been that he might die
at dawn, facing the Duke’s motley army of pursuit. For the Prince
was not himself only, fighting his battle against circumstance with a
single hand; he was bone of the Stuart fathers who had gone
before, and death had always seemed as good a friend as life, so
long as it found him with straight shoulders and head up to the
skies.
There was the garrison here, resolved to die with gallantry. There
was his army, horsemen saddle-sore and footmen going with
bleeding feet for Stuart love. And one or other must be sacrificed. It
was no easy riddle for any man to solve—least of all for a Prince
whose soul knew deeper sickness than usual men’s, whose body was
racked by long riding through wet roads. He had an aching tooth,
moreover, that moved him to get up at last, and light his black clay
pipe, and pace up and down the room allotted to him in the castle.
He was no figure to entice the ladies who had danced with him,
some months ago, at Holyrood. It was the man’s business that
claimed him now, and he fought out the battle of Stuart pity against
the bigger, urgent need.
At dawn he went down, and met the Governor coming up the stair.
“Your garrison can have their wish, Mr. Hamilton,” he said quietly. “It
seems the better of two evil ways.”
“Can you spare twenty of your men, your Highness? Some few of us
have fallen sick since you marched south, and we need
strengthening.”
And the Prince laughed, because pity and heart-sickness compelled
it. “I can spare anything just now,” he said, “even to the half of my
kingdom—the kingdom that Lord Murray hopes to win for me in
Scotland.”
“There are better days coming—believe me——”
“To-day is enough for you and me, Mr. Hamilton. My faith, thank
God, teaches me so much, in spite of a raging tooth.”
He went out, and in the courtyard encountered a friend grown dear
to him during a forward march and a retreat that had given men
opportunities enough to prove each other. It was Colonel Towneley,
whose name even before the Rising had stood for all that Catholic
Lancashire had found likeable—Towneley, who had joined the
southward march with the loyal company known as the Manchester
Regiment; Towneley, who was resolute and ardent both, two
qualities that do not always run together. “Mr. Hamilton is insistent to
hold the Castle,” said the Prince, with the sharpness that was always
a sign of trouble on other folk’s behalf.
“Yes, your Highness. I learned yesterday that he’s of my own mind.
If a hundred men can save five thousand, why, the issue’s plain.”
“He needs twenty volunteers to strengthen the garrison.”
A sudden light came into Towneley’s face—a light not to be feigned,
or lit by any random spark of daring that dates no farther back than
yesterday. “By your leave,” he said quietly, “he needs nineteen only.
I am privileged to be the first.”
The Prince laid a hand on his shoulder. “Towneley, I cannot spare
you! Let younger men step in. There’s Lochiel, and you, and Sir
Jasper Royd, men I’ve grown to love—I cannot spare one of you.”
Towneley met the other’s glance and smiled. “I had a dream last
night,” he said.
“But, friend, it is reality to-day.”
“Let me be, your Highness. Perhaps dreams and reality are nearer
than we think. I dreamed that I knelt with my head on the block,
and heard the axe whistle—and then—I woke in Paradise.”
“Towneley, you’re over-strained with all this devilish retreat——”
“Your pardon, but I speak of what I know. I woke in Paradise, your
Highness, and found leisure to think of my sins. It was a long
thinking. But there was one comfort stayed by me—my Stuart
loyalty. Look at it how I would, there had been no flaw in it. The
dream”—again the lightening of the face—“the dream contents me.”
A little later they went out into Carlisle street. Wet and chilly as the
dawn was, both soldiery and townsfolk were astir; and the Prince
and Towneley, who had talked together of things beyond this day’s
needs, faced the buzz and clatter of the town with momentary
dismay.
The Prince was losing a friend, tried and dear; but he had lost more
at Derby, and dogged hardihood returned to him. He looked at the
way-worn men who faced him, eager to obey the Stuart whom they
idolised, wherever he bade them go.
“We march north to-day, leaving the garrison here,” he said, a
straight, kingly figure of surprising charm—charm paid for in
advance and royally. “There are twenty needed to volunteer—for
certain death, my friends. I have no lies for you; and I tell you it is
certain death.”
“Nineteen, your Highness,” corrected Towneley.
“Nineteen are needed. I forgot that Colonel Towneley——”
He got no farther for a while. Wherever a man of Lancashire stood,
in among the crowd, a great cheer went up. And Towneley, because
he was human, was glad that these folk, who knew his record, loved
him quite so well.
What followed was all simple, human, soon over, as great
happenings are apt to be. There was Carlisle street, with its gaping
townsfolk, chattering foolishly and asking each other how these
restless Highlanders would affect the profits of good shopkeepers;
there was the Castle, set in a frame of murky rain, and, in front of it,
Prince Charles Edward, asking for nineteen volunteers to follow
Colonel Towneley’s lead.
Even the townsfolk ceased balancing their ledgers. They saw only
one face in this crowded street—the Prince’s, as he stood divided
between high purpose and sorrow for the toll of human sacrifice that
is asked of all fine enterprises. They saw him as he was—no squire
of dames, good at parlour tricks, no pretty fool for ballad-mongers,
but a Christian gentleman, with sorrow in his eyes and a hard look of
purpose round about his mouth and chin.
“Colonel Towneley,” the Prince was saying gravely, “your gallantry
has left me no choice in this. God knows how willingly I’d take your
place.” And then, because a full heart returns to old simplicities, his
voice broke and he stretched out a hand. “Towneley,” he went on, in
lowered tones, “we’re in the thick of trouble, you and I, and yours is
the easier death, I think. I covet it—and Towneley, journeys end——
you know the daft old proverb.”
There was a moment’s pause. The rain dripped ceaselessly. The
wind struck sharp and cruel from the east, as it can strike nowhere
surely as in Carlisle and grey Edinburgh. Yet no man heeded, for
they knew that they had royalty among them here. And Colonel
Towneley, for his part, began to sob—the tears coursing down his
rugged, weather-beaten face, not because he had to die within a
week or two, but because he was compelled to say good-bye to one
who, in conduct and in faith, seemed nearer to the stars than he.
“Towneley”—the Prince’s voice was raised again, for he cared not
who knew his old, deep-seated love of Lancashire—“Towneley, I was
taught as a lad to like your country. Your men are loyal—your
women ask it of you—but I warn volunteers again that they go to
certain death.”
“Just to another life, your Highness. I have no doubts; believe me, I
have none. In one place or another—why, we shall see the Stuart
crowned again. Sir, I thank God for this privilege; it goes far beyond
my own deserts.”
So then there was no more to be said. A great gentleman had
spoken, content to take death’s hand as he would take a comrade’s;
and when such speak, the lies and subterfuges of common life drift
down the wind like thistledown. The townsfolk of Carlisle began to
ask themselves if, after all, they had balanced up their ledgers
rightly. These gentry, in the east wind and the rain, seemed to pass
to and fro a coinage, not of metal but of the heart. And the coinage
rang true.
Again there was a silence. And then the Prince asked gravely who
would volunteer for death. There was a noisy press of claimants for
the honour; but first among them was Rupert, putting bulkier men
aside as he forced his way forward to the Prince.
“I, your Highness,” he said quietly. “I was bred in Lancashire, like
Colonel Towneley, and I claim second place.”
“And why?” asked two or three behind him jealously.
Rupert turned, with a grave, disarming smile. Past weaknesses, past
dreams of heroism, the slow, long siege of Windyhough, went by
him as things remembered, but of little consequence. He felt master
of himself, master of them all, and with a touch of pleasant irony he
recalled past days.
“Because, gentlemen, I am God’s fool, and I know not how to live,
but I know how to die. That is the one trade I’ve learned.”
There was no answer. There could be no answer. This man with the
lean body and the purpose in his face was innocent of guile, and
fearless, and strangely dominant. And then at last the Prince smiled
—the fugitive, rare smile that few had captured since Derby and
retreat.
“I believe you, sir,” he said. “To know how to die—there is no better
trade to learn.”
Then Maurice pushed forward, eager for the forlorn hope, and
moved, too, by the old, abiding instinct to stand by and protect his
elder brother. And Sir Jasper, unswerving until now, was moved by
sharp self-pity. He had been glad that Rupert should prove himself at
heavy cost; glad that he himself could surrender the dearest thing
he had to the Prince’s need; but all his fatherhood came round him,
like a mist of sorrow.
“One son is enough to give your Highness,” he said, with direct and
passionate appeal to the Prince. “I’m not too old to help garrison
Carlisle, and my wife will need a young arm to protect her later on;
let me take Maurice’s place.”
It was then the Prince found his full stature. In retreat, in sickness of
heart, under temptation to deny his faith in God and man, the Stuart
weighed Sir Jasper’s needs, found heart to understand his mood,
and smiled gravely. “There are so many claimants, sir, that I shall
not permit more than one man from any house to share the
privilege. As for Maurice, I shall have need of him at my side—and of
you—I cannot spare you.”
The tradesmen of Carlisle looked on and wondered. This was no
shopkeeping. From the sleet and the tempest that had bred them, it
was plain that these gentry had learned knighthood. Jack Bownas,
the bow-legged tailor, who had held stoutly that kings and gentry
were much like other men, save for the shape of their breeks, was
bewildered by this scene in Carlisle’s ugly street. He was aware that
men are not equals, after all, that some few—gently or lowly born—
are framed to claim leadership by steadfastness of soul and outlook.
“I’d like to tailor for yond Prince,” he growled to his neighbour.
“So you’ve turned Charlie’s man?” the other answered, dour and
hard—a man who had yielded to north-country weather, instead of
conquering it. “For me, he’s a plain-looking chiel enough, as wet and
muddied-o’er as you and me, Jack.”
“He’s a man, or somewhere near thereby, and I build few suits these
days for men. I spend my days in cutting cloth for lile, thin-bodied
folk like ye.”
“I’m a good customer o’ yours, and there are more tailors in Carlisle
than one.”
Jack Bownas, prudent by habit, was loath to lose customers. He
pondered the matter for a moment. “Awa wi’ ye,” he said at last.
“I’ve seen the Prince. You may gang ower to Willie Saunderson’s, if
you wull. He makes breeks for little-bodied men.”
It was the tailor’s one and only gift to the Stuart, this surrender of a
customer; but, measured by his limitations, it was a handsome and a
selfless tribute to the Cause. Born to another calling, he might, with
no greater sacrifice, have set his head upon the block.
And through all this to-and-froing of the townsfolk, through the rain
and the bitter wind and the evil luck, the forlorn hope—twenty of
them—halted at the gateway of the Castle before going in.
Rupert turned round to grip his father’s hand. “Goodbye, sir,” he said
gravely.
“Goodbye, my lad.”
And that was all their farewell. No more was needed, for all the
rough-and-ready training of their lives at Windyhough had been a
preparation for some such gallant death as this.
Colonel Towneley marshalled his volunteers in front of the gateway,
and the bitter wind drove through them.
The Prince, with his shoulders square to the wind, took the salute of
men soon to die. And then he drooped a little, as all his race did
when they were thinking of the needs of lesser men. “Friends,” he
said, lifting his head buoyantly again, “there’s no death—and by and
by I shall be privileged to meet you.”
Throughout this march to Derby, and back again to wet Carlisle,
there had been no pageantry to tempt men’s fancy. There were none
now. A score of soldiers, drenched to the skin, went in at the Castle
gateway, and the rain came down in grey, relentless sheets. Prince
Charles Edward, as he moved slowly north at the head of his five
thousand men, was still fighting the raging toothache that the
hardships of the march had brought him. And toothache sounds a
wild, disheartening pibroch of its own.
The night passed quietly in Carlisle, and the garrison was grave and
business-like, as men are when they stand in face of certain death
and begin to reckon up their debts to God.
Colonel Towneley had persuaded Hamilton to get to bed and take his
fill of sleep, and had assumed command; and about three of the
morning, as he went his round, he came on Rupert, standing at his
post. Towneley had the soldier’s eye for detail, and he glanced
shrewdly at the younger man.
“You were the first to volunteer with me?” he asked, tapping him
lightly on the shoulder. “I remember your tired, hard-bitten face.”
“It was my luck, sir—and I’ve had little until now.”
“You should not be sentrying here. We’ve had no easy march to-day.
You had earned a night’s rest.”
“I did not need it. I asked to take my place here.”
Towneley looked him up and down, then tapped him lightly on the
shoulder. “By gad! you’ve suffered, one time or another,” he said
unexpectedly. “You’re young to have earned that steady voice. Good-
night, my lad.”
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

ebookname.com