Endless Ebook, One Click Away – Start Downloading at ebookname.

com

Dictionary of computer vision and image processing

2ed. Edition R B Fisher

https://ebookname.com/product/dictionary-of-computer-vision-
and-image-processing-2ed-edition-r-b-fisher/

OR CLICK HERE

DOWLOAD EBOOK

Browse and Get More Ebook Downloads Instantly at https://ebookname.com

Click here to visit ebookname.com and download ebook now
Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) available
Download now and explore formats that suit you...

Handbook of computer vision algorithms in image algebra

2ed Edition Ritter G.X.

https://ebookname.com/product/handbook-of-computer-vision-
algorithms-in-image-algebra-2ed-edition-ritter-g-x/

Digital Image Processing and Analysis Human and

Computer Vision Applications with CVIPtools Second
Edition Umbaugh

https://ebookname.com/product/digital-image-processing-and-
analysis-human-and-computer-vision-applications-with-cviptools-
second-edition-umbaugh/

Image Processing Analysis and Machine Vision 4th

Edition Milan Sonka

https://ebookname.com/product/image-processing-analysis-and-
machine-vision-4th-edition-milan-sonka/

The Paul Mccartney Catalog A Complete Annotated

Discography of Solo Works 1967 2019 1st Edition Ted
Montgomery

https://ebookname.com/product/the-paul-mccartney-catalog-a-
complete-annotated-discography-of-solo-works-1967-2019-1st-
edition-ted-montgomery/
English File New Edition Advanced Student s Book Clive
Oxenden

https://ebookname.com/product/english-file-new-edition-advanced-
student-s-book-clive-oxenden/

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration Weston Andrew Price

https://ebookname.com/product/nutrition-and-physical-
degeneration-weston-andrew-price/

Church Mother Katharina Schütz Zell

https://ebookname.com/product/church-mother-katharina-schutz-
zell/

Strategic Marketing For Health Care Organizations

Building A Customer Driven Health System 1st Edition
Philip Kotler

https://ebookname.com/product/strategic-marketing-for-health-
care-organizations-building-a-customer-driven-health-system-1st-
edition-philip-kotler/

Healthcare without Borders Understanding Cuban Medical

Internationalism 1st Edition John M. Kirk

https://ebookname.com/product/healthcare-without-borders-
understanding-cuban-medical-internationalism-1st-edition-john-m-
kirk/
Sublimation and Superego Psychoanalysis Between Two
Deaths 1st Edition Jared Russell

https://ebookname.com/product/sublimation-and-superego-
psychoanalysis-between-two-deaths-1st-edition-jared-russell/
Robert B. Fisher
Toby P. Breckon
Kenneth Dawson-Howe
Andrew Fitzgibbon
Craig Robertson
Emanuele Trucco
Christopher K. I. Williams

Dictionary of
COMPUTER
VISION and
IMAGE
PROCESSING
Second Edition
Dictionary of Computer Vision
and Image Processing
 Dictionary
of Computer
Vision and Image
Processing
Second Edition

R. B. Fisher
University of Edinburgh, UK

T. P. Breckon
Durham University, UK

K. Dawson-Howe
Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

A. Fitzgibbon
Microsoft Research, UK

C. Robertson
Epipole Ltd., UK

E. Trucco
University of Dundee, UK

C. K. I. Williams
University of Edinburgh, UK
This edition first published 2014

C 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Registered office
John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United
Kingdom
For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services and for information about how to
apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at
www.wiley.com.
The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the
prior permission of the publisher.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in
print may not be available in electronic books.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks.
All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks
or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any
product or vendor mentioned in this book.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best
efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the
accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied
warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. It is sold on the understanding
that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor
the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. If professional advice or other expert
assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dictionary of computer vision and image processing / R. B. Fisher, T. P. Breckon,
K. Dawson-Howe, A. Fitzgibbon, C. Robertson, E. Trucco, C. K. I. Williams. – 2nd edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-119-94186-6 (pbk.)
1. Computer vision–Dictionaries. 2. Image processing–Dictionaries. I. Fisher, R. B.
TA1634.I45 2014
006.3′ 703–dc23
2013022869
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 9781119941866
Set in 9/10pt Garamond by Aptara Inc., New Delhi, India

1 2014
From Bob to Rosemary,
Mies, Hannah, Phoebe
and Lars

From Toby to Alison, my

parents and Amy

From Ken to Jane,

William and Susie

From AWF to Liz, to my

parents, and again to D

From Craig to Karen,

Aidan and Caitlin

From Manuel to Emily,

Francesca, and Alistair
 Contents

Preface Page ix

Numbers 1

A 7

B 25

C 40

D 71

E 86

F 94

G 106

H 119

I 127

J 143

K 144

L 148

M 162

N 185

O 192

P 201

Q 225

R 228

S 245

T 286

U 299

V 303

W 314
X 320

Y 321

Z 322

References 324

viii
 Preface

This dictionary arose out of a continu- of a portion of the field. Some of the
ing interest in the resources needed by concepts are quite recent; although com-
students and researchers in the fields of monly used in research publications, they
image processing, computer vision and may not yet have appeared in mainstream
machine vision (however you choose textbooks. Subsequently, this book is also
to define these overlapping fields). As a useful source for recent terminology
instructors and mentors, we often found and concepts. Some concepts are still
confusion about what various terms and missing from the dictionary, but we have
concepts mean for the beginner. To sup- scanned textbooks and the research liter-
port these learners, we have tried to ature to find the central and commonly
define the key concepts that a compe- used terms.
tent generalist should know about these The dictionary was intended for begin-
fields. ning and intermediate students and
This second edition adds approxi- researchers, but as we developed the dic-
mately 1000 new terms to the more than tionary it was clear that we also had some
2500 terms in the original dictionary. We confusions and vague understandings of
have chosen new terms that have entered the concepts. It surprised us that some
reasonably common usage (e.g., those terms had multiple usages. To improve
which have appeared in the index of quality and coverage, each definition was
influential books) and terms that were reviewed during development by at least
not included originally. We are pleased two people besides its author. We hope
to welcome Toby Breckon and Chris that this has caught any errors and vague-
Williams into the authorial team and to ness, as well as providing alternative
thank Andrew Fitzgibbon and Manuel meanings. Each of the co-authors is quite
Trucco for all their help with the first experienced in the topics covered here,
edition. but it was still educational to learn more
One innovation in the second edition about our field in the process of compil-
is the addition of reference links for a ing the dictionary. We hope that you find
majority of the old and new terms. Unlike using the dictionary equally valuable.
more traditional dictionaries, which pro- To help the reader, terms appearing
vide references to establish the origin elsewhere in the dictionary are under-
or meaning of the word, our goal here lined in the definitions. We have tried to
was instead to provide further informa- be reasonably thorough about this, but
tion about the term. some terms, such as 2D, 3D, light, cam-
Another innovation is to include a few era, image, pixel, and color were so com-
videos for the electronic version of the monly used that we decided not to cross-
dictionary. reference all of them.
This is a dictionary, not an encyclo- We have tried to be consistent with the
pedia, so the definitions are necessarily mathematical notation: italics for scalars
brief and are not intended to replace a (s), arrowed italics for points and vectors
proper textbook explanation of the term. (
v ), and bold for matrices (M).
We have tried to capture the essentials of The authors would like to thank Xiang
the terms, with short examples or math- (Lily) Li, Georgios Papadimitriou, and Aris
ematical precision where feasible or nec- Valtazanos for their help with finding cita-
essary for clarity. tions for the content from the first edi-
Further information about many of the tion. We also greatly appreciate all the
terms can be found in the references. support from the John Wiley & Sons edi-
Many of the references are to general torial and production team!
textbooks, each providing a broad view
 Numbers

1D: One dimensional, usually in ref- associate numbers to points. The coor-
erence to some structure. Examples dinates Px and Py of a point, P , are
include: a signal x(t) that is a function obtained by projecting P onto each
of time t; the dimensionality of a sin- axis in a direction parallel to the other
gle property value; and one degree of axis and reading the numbers at the
freedom in shape variation or motion. intersections: [JKS95:1.4]
[Hec87:2.1] 2D Fourier transform: A special case
1D projection: The projection of data of the general Fourier transform often
from a higher dimension to a single used to find structures in images.
dimensional representation (line). [FP03:7.3.1]
1-norm: A specific case of the p-norm, 2D image: A matrix of data represent-
the sum of the absolute values of the ing samples taken at discrete intervals.
entries of a given vector x,  x1 = The data may be from a variety of
 n−1
i=0 | x
i |, of length n. Also known as sources and sampled in a variety of
the taxicab (Manhattan) norm or the ways. In computer vision applications,
L1 norm. [Sho07] the image values are often encoded
2D: Two dimensional. A space describ- color or monochrome intensity sam-
able using any pair of orthogonal basis ples taken by digital cameras but may
vectors consisting of two elements. also be range data. Some typical inten-
[WP:Two-dimensional_space] sity values are: [SQ04:4.1.1]

2D coordinate system: A system

uniquely associating two real numbers
to any point of a plane. First, two
intersecting lines (axes) are chosen
on the plane, usually perpendicular to
each other. The point of intersection
is the origin of the system. Second,
metric units are established on each
axis (often the same for both axes) to
06 21 11
21 16 12 10 09
y axis 10 09 08 09 20 31
07 06 01 02 08 42
P 17 12 09 04
Py
Image values
x axis
2D input device: A device for sampling
Px light intensity from the real world into
a 2D matrix of measurements. The
most popular two-dimensional imag-
ing device is the charge-coupled device
(CCD) camera. Other common devices
Dictionary of Computer Vision and Image Processing, Second Edition.
R. B. Fisher, T. P. Breckon, K. Dawson-Howe, A. Fitzgibbon, C. Robertson, E. Trucco and C. K. I. Williams.

C 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
 are flatbed scanners and X-ray scan- follows: apply normalizing transform
ners. [SQ04:4.2.1] to 3D point world coordinates; clip
2D point: A point in a 2D space, against canonical view volume; project
i.e., characterized by two coordinates; onto projection plane; transform into
most often, a point on a plane, e.g., viewport in 2D device coordinates
an image point in pixel coordinates. for display. Commonly used projection
Notice, however, that two coordinates functions are parallel projection and
do not necessarily imply a plane: a perspective projection. [JKS95:1.4]
point on a 3D surface can be expressed 2D shape descriptor (local): A com-
either in 3D coordinates or by two pact summary representation of object
coordinates given a surface parameter- shape over a localized region of an
ization (see surface patch). [JKS95:1.4] image. See shape descriptor. [Blu67]
2D point feature: Localized structures 2D shape representation (global): A
in a 2D image, such as interest points, compact summary representation of
corners and line meeting points (e.g., image shape features over the entire
X, Y and T shaped). One detector for image. See shape representation.
these features is the SUSAN corner [FP03:28.3]
finder. [TV98:4.1] 2D view: Planar aspect view or pla-
2D pose estimation: A special case nar projected view (such as an image
of 3D pose estimation. A fundamen- under perspective projection) such
tal open problem in computer vision that positions within its spatial repre-
where the correspondence between sentation can be indexed in two dimen-
two sets of 2D points is found. The sions. [SB11:2.3.1]
problem is defined as follows: Given 2.1D sketch: A lesser variant of the estab-
two sets of points {x j } and {yk}, find lished 2.5D sketch, which captures
the Euclidean transformation {R, t} the relative depth ordering of (pos-
(the pose) and the match matrix sibly self-occluding) scene regions in
{M jk} (the correspondences) that best terms of their front-to-back relation-
relates them. A large number of tech- ship within the scene. By contrast, the
niques has been used to address this 2.5D sketch captures the relative scene
problem, e.g., tree-pruning methods, depth of regions, rather than merely
the Hough transform and geometric depth ordering: [NM90]
hashing. [HJL+89]
2D projection: A transformation map-
ping higher dimensional space onto
Image
two-dimensional space. The simplest
method is to simply discard higher 2.1D Sketch
dimensional coordinates, although
generally a viewing position is used
and the projection is performed.
Relative
scene
depth

Projected points
2.5D image: A range image obtained
Viewpoint by scanning from a single viewpoint.
It allows the data to be represented
in a single image array, where each
3D solid pixel value encodes the distance to
2D space
the observed scene. The reason this
is not called a 3D image is to make
explicit the fact that the back sides of
For example, the main steps for a the scene objects are not represented.
computer graphics projection are as [SQ04:4.1.1]
2
2.5D model: A geometric model repre- 3D data: Data described in all
sentation corresponding to the 2.5D three spatial dimensions. See also
image representation used in the range data, CAT and NMR. [WP:
model to (image) data matching 3D_data_acquisition_and_object_
problem of model-based recognition: reconstruction] An example of a 3D
[Mar82] An example model is: data set is:

aph
otogr
in ph arrows
n e s how t o f
ce oin
l of s m viewp
mode ro
2.5d t, top) − f
r
(inse 3D data acquisition: Sampling data in
all three spatial dimensions. There is
2.5D sketch: Central structure of Marr’s a variety of ways to perform this
Theory of vision. An intermediate sampling, e.g., using structured light
description of a scene indicating the triangulation. [FP03:21.1]
visible surfaces and their arrangement
with respect to the viewer. It is built 3D image: See range image.
from several different elements: the 3D imaging: Any of a class of techniques
contour, texture and shading informa- that obtain three-dimensional informa-
tion coming from the primal sketch, tion using imaging equipment. Active
stereo information and motion. The vision techniques generally include a
description is theorized to be a kind source of structured light (or other
of buffer where partial resolution of electromagnetic or sonar radiation)
the objects takes place. The name and a sensor, such as a camera
2.5D sketch stems from the fact that, or a microphone. Triangulation and
although local changes in depth and time-of-flight computations allow the
discontinuities are well resolved, the distance from the sensor system to
absolute distance to all scene points be computed. Common technologies
may remain unknown. [FP03:11.3.2] include laser scanning, texture projec-
3D: Three dimensional. A space describ- tion systems and moiré fringe methods.
able using any triple of mutu- Passive sensing in 3D depends only
ally orthogonal basis vectors consist- on external (and hence unstructured)
ing of three elements. [WP:Three- illumination sources. Examples of such
dimensional_space] systems are stereo reconstruction and
shape from focus techniques. See also
3D coordinate system: Same as 2D 3D surface imaging and 3D volumetric
coordinate system but in three dimen- imaging. [FMN+91]
sions: [JKS95:1.4]
3D interpretation: A 3D model, e.g.,
+Y a solid object that explains an image
or a set of image data. For instance,
+Z
a certain configuration of image lines
can be explained as the perspective
projection of a polyhedron; in simpler
words, the image lines are the images
+X of some of the polyhedron’s lines. See
also image interpretation. [BB82:9.1]
3D model: A description of a 3D
object that primarily describes its
3
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
But Sir Jasper, riding close beside the Prince, did not hear him. His
heart, in its own way, was simple as Giles’s, and he was full of pride.
“I wish my god-daughter could know,” he said.
“Your god-daughter?” echoed the other.
“Yes—Nance Demaine. It is her mare you’ve borrowed, sir—and I
should know, seeing I gave it her—though for the life of me I can’t
guess how she chanced to join the Rising.”
The Prince smiled as his glance met Sir Jasper’s. “There’s no chance
about this Rising,” he said pleasantly, as if he talked of the weather
or the crops. “We’re going to the Throne, my friend, or to the death;
but, either way, there’s no chance about it—and no regrets, I think.”
Sir Jasper felt again that sharp, insistent pity which had come to him
at sight of the yellow-haired laddie who had left women’s hearts
aching up across the border. In this wild campaign it seemed that he
had met a friend. And he spoke, as comrades do, disdaining
ceremony.
“That is the faith I hold,” he said, with an odd gentleness that
seemed to have the strength of the moors behind it. “Comrades are
few on the road o’ life, your Highness.”
The Prince glanced at him, as he had glanced at Giles not long ago—
shrewdly, with mother-wit and understanding. “They’re few,” he said
—“and priceless. I would God, sir, that you’d infect my lord Murray
with something of your likeable, warm spirit.”
And Sir Jasper sighed, as he looked far down the road to London,
and reckoned up the leagues of hardship they must traverse. Their
task was perilous enough for men united in common zeal; dissension
from within, of which he had already heard more hints than one,
was a more dangerous enemy than Marshal Wade and all his army
of pursuit.
Yet Sir Jasper had relief in action, in the need to meet every
workaday happening of the march. With his son, thrown on the
Langton Road, and listening to the hoof-beats of the runaway horse
as he went to join the Rising, the case was otherwise. His one
comrade had deserted him. He was here on the empty road, with
failure for his sole companion. His first impulse was the horse’s—to
run fast and hard, in the hope of overtaking his own kind. He ran
forward dizzily, tripped over a stone that some wagoner had used to
check his wheel while he rested his team, got up again, and felt a
sharp, throbbing pain in his right ankle. He tried to plod on, for all
that, his face set London way—failed, and sat down by the wet
roadside. And the wheels of circumstance passed over him, numbing
his faith in God.
They all but crushed him. He had dreamed of Prince Charles
Edward; had learned at last to sit a horse, because he needed to
follow where high enterprise was in the doing; had known the luxury
of a gallop in pursuit of men who had thought him short of initiative.
And now he was the Scholar again. His horse had failed him. His
own feet had played him false. He sat there, wet and homeless, and
from the cloudy hills a smooth, contemptuous voice came whispering
at his ear. Best be done with a life that had served him ill. He was a
hindrance to himself, to his friends. Best creep down to the pool at
the road-foot; he had bathed there often in summer and knew its
depth. Best end it all—the shame, the laughter of strong men, the
constant misadventure that met him by the way. He was weak and
accursed. None would miss him if he went to sleep.
“No,” he said deliberately, as if answering an enemy in human
shape, “a Royd could not do it.”
Sir Jasper’s view of his first-born was finding confirmation. The soul
of the lad had been tempered to a nicety, and the bodily pain scarce
troubled him, as he set his face away from London and the Prince,
and limped toward home. Now and then he was forced to rest,
because sickness would not let him see the road ahead; but always
he got up again. Self-blame had grown to be a mischievous habit
with him, and he was ashamed now that he had deserted his
allotted post. True, his father, in bidding him guard Windyhough, had
practised a tender fraud on him; but he had given his word, and had
been false to it when the first haphazard temptation met him by the
way. It had been so easy to steal Giles’s horse, so easy to scamper
off along the road of glamour, so bitter-hard to stay among the
women.
The lad was over-strained and heart-sick, ready to make molehills
into mountains; yet his shame was bottomed on sound instinct. He
came of a soldier-stock, and in the tissues of him was interwoven
this contempt for the sentry who forsook his post. No danger
threatened Windyhough. He was returning to a duty which, in itself,
was idle; but he had pledged his word.
He struggled forward. The road to London was not for him; but at
least he could keep faith with the father who was riding now, no
doubt, beside the Prince.
 CHAPTER VII
THE HEIR RETURNS

At Windyhough, Martha the dairymaid was restless, like all the

women left about the house. She could not settle to her work,
though it was churning-day, and good cream was likely to be
wasted. Martha at five-and-thirty, had not found a mate, yet she
would have made a good wife to any man; strong, supple, with wind
and roses in her cheeks, she was born to matronhood; though, by
some blindness that had hindered the farmer-folk about her when
she crossed their path, she had not found her road in life. And, in
her quiet, practical way, she knew that the shadows were beginning
to lengthen down her road, that she might very well go on dairying,
eating, sleeping, till they buried her in the churchyard of St. John’s—
no more, no less.
The prospect had never shown so cheerless as it did just now. The
men, as their habit was, had all the luck; they had gone off on
horseback, pretending that some cause or other took them into open
country. For her part, she was tired of being left behind.
Lady Royd was indoors. The housekeeper was not about to keep the
maids attentive to routine. All was silent and lack-lustre; and Martha
went down the road till she reached the gate at its foot—the gate
that stood open after letting the Loyal Meet ride through.
“It’s queer and lonesome, when all’s said,” she thought, swinging
gently on the gate. “Men are bothersome cattle—full o’ tempers and
contrariness—but, dear heart, I miss their foolishness.”
She thought the matter out for lack of better occupation, but came
to no conclusion. In front of her, as she sat on the top bar of the
gate, she could see the muddied hoof-tracks that marked the riding-
out. Her own father, her two brothers, were among Sir Jasper’s
company; they were thrifty, common-sense folk, like herself, and she
wondered if there was something practical, after all, in this business
that had left Windyhough so empty and so silent.
A man’s figure came hobbling up the road—a broad, well-timbered
figure enough, but bent about the legs and shoulders. It was Simon
Foster, coming in tired out from roaming up and down the pastures.
Though scarce turned fifty, he had been out with the ’15 Rising,
thirty years ago; but rheumatism had rusted his joints before their
time, and to-day, because he was not fit to ride with haler men, he
had kept away from the Meet at Windyhough, for he dared not trust
himself to stand an onlooker at this new Rising.
Martha got down from the gate, and opened it with a mock curtsey.
“I’m pleased to see a man, Simon,” she said, moved by some wintry
coquetry. “I began to fancy, like, we were all women here at
Windyhough.”
“So we are,” he growled—“but I’d set ye in your places, that I would,
if nobbut I could oil my joints.”
“You’ve come home in a nice temper, Simon.”
“Ay, lass, and I’ll keep it, till I know whether Sir Jasper has set a
crown on the right head. It isn’t easy, biding here wi’ Lancashire
weather——”
“And Lancashire witches,” put in Martha, with sly provocation.
Simon was tired, and had nothing especial to do; so he stayed
awhile, telling himself that a maid’s blandishments, though daft and
idle, were one way of passing the time. “Oh, ay, you’re snod enough,
Martha,” he said, rubbing his lean chin. “I’ve seen few in my time to
better ye.”
“Now, Simon! And they say your tongue is rough as an old file. For
my part, I allus knew ye could be kind and easy, if ye’d a mind to.”
“I war a bit of a devil once, may be,” he admitted, with a slow,
pleasant laugh, as if he praised himself unduly for past escapades.
“Ay, a bit of a devil, Martha. I’ll own to it. But rheumatiz has taught
me sense since them days.”
“Sense is as you take it, Simon. Ye might shoot wider o’ the mark
than to peep at a lass’s een, just whiles, like.”
Simon Foster, feeling that their talk grew warmer than mere
pleasantry demanded, glanced away from the topic. “I saw summat
on my way down fro’ the moor,” he said, dry and matter-of-fact once
more. “There’s no accounting for it, but I saw it with my two eyes,
and I’m puzzled. You wouldn’t call me less than sober, Martha?”
“No,” she put in dryly. “Sobriety was allus a little bit of a failing wi’
ye, Simon. There’s times to be sober, I allus did say—and times to be
playful, as the kitten said to the tabby-cat.”
“Well, I happened to look into th’ sky, just as I’d getten past Timothy
Wantless’s barn, and I saw summat,” went on Simon stolidly.
“So ye went star-gazing? Shame on ye! Only lads i’ their courting
time go star-gazing.”
“Maybe. But it was daylight, as it happened, and I wasn’t thinking o’
courtship—not just then,” he added guardedly. “I war thinking of an
old mare I meant to sell Timothy Wantless to-morn for twice as
much as she’s worth. She wasn’t fit to carry one o’ Sir Jasper’s men,
and she’ll ruin him i’ corn afore he comes back fro’ Lunnon, and it
stands to reason she mun be sold for what she’ll fetch. And I war
scratching my head, like, wondering how I’d get round Timothy—
he’s stiff and snappy at a bargain—when I happened to look up—
and there war men on horseback, fair i’ th’ middle o’ the sky, riding
all as it might have been a hunting day.”
“Good sakes! I’ll go skerry to my bed, Simon.”
“It war queer, I own; and, if they’d been on safe ground, I’d have
run in to see what ’twas all about; but, seeing they were up above, I
watched ’em a while, and then I left ’em to it.”
Martha’s brief mood of superstition passed. “Simon, you’re as sober
as a man that’s never had th’ chance to step into an ale-house, and
you’re over old to be courting-daft——”
“Not so old, my lass,” he broke in, with the heat she had tempted
from him. “I should know, at my age, how to court a woman.”
“I believe you do, Simon—if nobbut you’d try your hand, like.”
“Lads go daft about ye women—think ye’re all made up of
buttercups and kiss-me-quicks. But I know different.”
“Oh, ay?” asked Martha gently. “What d’ye know, Simon?”
“Naught so much, lass—only that women are like nettles. Handle
’em tenderly, and they’ll gi’e ye a rash ye can feel for a week o’ days.
But grasp ’em—and they’re soft as lettuces.”
“I allus did say older men had more sense than lads. You’re right,
Simon. Grasp us——”
“Ay, another day,” said Simon—bluntly, and with a hint of fear. “For
my part, I’m too full o’ Sir Jasper’s business to heed any sort o’
moonshine.”
He was half up the road already, but she enticed him back.
“These men you saw riding in the sky, Simon? You’ve frightened me
—and I was allus feared o’ ghosties.”
Simon, though he would not admit it, was troubled by the picture he
had seen, up yonder on the moors; and, after the human fashion, he
was willing to share his trouble with another.
“Well, I saw ’em—no denying that,” he said, returning slowly. “There
were two riding at the front—like as it might have been Sir Jasper
and Squire Demaine—and a lot o’ horsemen scampering after. There
was thick haze all across the sky, and I saw ’em like a picture in a
printed book. I’d have thought less about it, Martha, if it hadn’t been
that Maister Rupert—the day, ye mind, he came home from fighting
his brother—told me how, that varry morn, he’d seen the like picture
up above his head—just horsemen, he said, galloping up and down
where honest sky should be.”
“Ben o’ the stables war talking of it awhile since, now I call to mind.
One here and there had seen the same sort o’ picture, he said; but I
paid no heed. Ben was allus light and feather-brained—not steady,
Simon, like ye.”
Her glance was tender, frank, dismaying; and Simon answered it
with a slow, foolish smile. “Steady is as steady does. For my part—
what wi’ rheumatiz, and seeing other folk get all the fighting, and
me left at home—ye could mak a bit of a lile fool o’ me, Martha, I do
believe. Ye’re so bonnie, like——”
“No harm i’ that, is there?”
“Well, not just what ye’d call harm—not exactly harm—but my day’s
over, lass.”
“That’s what the rooster said when he war moulting, Simon; but he
lived to crow another day.”
Simon had learned from the far-off days of soldiering that there are
times when the bravest are counselled to retreat in good order.
“Well, I’m i’ the moult just now,” he said impassively, “and it’s time I
gat into th’ house, now they’re made me some queer sort of indoor
servant. Lady Royd will be wanting this and that—ye know her
pretty-prat way, needing fifty things i’ a minute.”
“But, Simon——”
He trudged steadily forward, not turning his head; and Martha
sighed as she climbed the gate again and began to rock gently to
and fro. “Men are kittlesome cattle,” she said discontentedly.
Round the bend of the road below she heard the sound of footsteps
—halting steps that now and then ceased for a while. She forgot
Simon, forgot her peevishness, as she saw the figure that came up
the road towards her. All the motherhood that was strong and eager
in this lass came to the front as she saw Rupert, the heir—Rupert,
who had been missing since the dawn—come home in this derelict,
queer fashion. She ran out and put an arm about him. He was not
the heir now, the master left in charge of Windyhough; he was the
lad whose cries she had helped to still, long since in nursery days.
“Why, sir, ye’re i’ th’ wars, and proper. You’re limping sorely.”
Rupert steadied himself against her arm for a moment, then put her
away and went forward. “Nay, I’m out of the wars, Martha,” he said,
with the rare smile that made friends among those who chanced to
see it. “I’m out of the wars—and that’s my trouble.”
“But you’re limping——”
“Yes,” he snapped, with sudden loss of temper. “I’m limping, Martha
—since my birth. That’s no news to me.”
He went in at the door of Windyhough, and in the hall encountered
Lady Royd. The light was dim here, and she did not see his
weariness.
“Where have you been, Rupert?” she asked peevishly.
He kissed her lightly on the cheek. “I’ve been up the moors, mother,”
he said, “planning how best to defend Windyhough if the attack
should come.” He was here to take up the post allotted to him, and
to his last ebb of strength he meant to be debonair and cheery, as
his father would have been under like hardship. “There are so few
men left here, and all of us are either old, or—or useless,” he added,
with his whimsical, quiet smile.
Lady Royd, oppressed by loneliness, swept out of her self-love by
the storm of this Loyal Meet that had left her in its wake, stood near
to the life which is known to workaday folk—the life made up of sleet
and a little sun, of work and the need for faith and courage. She
looked at her boy, trying to read his face in the dull, uncertain light;
and her heart ached for him.
“But, Rupert,” she said by and by, “there’s no fear of attack. The
march has gone south—the fighting will be there, not here—you
overheard your father say as much.”
He winced, remembering the eagerness with which he had followed
Sir Jasper round the house, the pride he had felt in noting each
loophole, the muskets, and the piles of shot entrusted to his care.
He recalled, with minute and pitiful exactness, how afterwards he
had been an unwilling listener while his father said it had been all a
fairy-tale to lull his elder-born to sleep.
“My father said it was child’s-play,” he answered quietly. “Yes, I’m
not likely to forget just what he said—and what he left unsaid. But,
mother, the storm might blow this way again, and I’m here to guard
you, as I promised.”
The day was no easy one for Rupert, accustomed from childhood to
find himself in the rear of action. Yet it was harder to Lady Royd,
who had known little discipline till now, who looked at this son who
was counted scholarly, and, with eyes accustomed to the dim light of
the hall, saw at last the stubborn manhood in his face.
“I did not guess,” she said, her voice gentle, wondering, submissive
—“Rupert, I did not guess till now why your father was always so full
of trust in you.”
His eyes brightened. He had expected a colder welcome from this
pretty, sharp-tongued mother. It seemed, after all, he had done well
to return to his post at Windyhough. His thoughts ran forward, like a
pack in full cry. The battle might shift north again—there might be
some hot skirmish in the open, or the need to protect fugitives at
Windyhough—or twenty pleasant happenings that would give him
escape from idle sentry-duty here. Rupert was at his dreams again.
An hour since he had dragged himself along the road, sick at heart,
sick of body, disillusioned altogether; and now he was eager with
forward hope because Lady Royd, from the pain of her own trouble,
had found one swift word of encouragement. Encouragement had
been rare in the lad’s life, and he found it a fine stimulant—too fine a
one for his present needs. He moved quickly forward. His damaged
foot bent under him, and for a moment the pain made him wince.
“It is nothing, mother,” he said, dropping on to the settle and looking
up with the quiet smile that haunted her. “I’m tired and wet—wet
through to the heart, I think—let me get up and help you.”
She did not know what to do with this son, who was growing dearer
to her each moment. Shut off from real life too long, she had no skill
such as workaday mothers would have learned by now, and she
called shrilly for the servants.
A big man, bent in the body, made his way forward presently
through the women, pushing, them aside as if he picked his way
through useless lumber. It was Simon Foster, who had grown used,
in the far-off ’15 Rising, to the handling of wounded men.
“A baddish sprain—no more, no less,” he growled, after he had taken
off boot and stocking and looked at the swollen ankle.
“Oh, the poor lad!” cried Lady Royd, fidgety and useless. “Go, one of
you, for the surgeon——”
“There’s no need, my lady,” broke in Simon Foster. He had forgotten
the manners of a trained servant, and was back again in the happy
days when he had carried a pike for the Cause and did not know it
lost. “I’ve mended worse matters than this in my time. You, Martha,
get bandages. They’re somewhere handy—we brought plenty in at
haytime, along with the powder-kegs.”
Lady Royd did not rebuke him. Martha, who not long since had
tempted him to folly, went off submissively to do his bidding. It
seemed natural to these women that a man should be in command
—a man who knew his mind and did not turn aside.
“There,” said Simon, after he had strapped the ankle. “It will bother
ye a while, master, but there’s a lot o’ time for rest these days at
Windyhough. Let me gi’e ye an arm up the stair. Ye’d best get to
bed, I reckon.”
Nance Demaine had kept to her room this morning. They had
brought her to Windyhough, had taken her mare, had left her
derelict in a house that harboured only memories of past deeds. The
active men were gone; the mettled horses were gone; she was
bidden to keep within four walls, and wait, and pray. And she wished
neither to pray nor to be stifled by four house-walls; she longed to
be out in the open country, following the open road that had led to
her heart’s desire. Tired of her own thoughts at last, she went out
on to the landing, with a restless sense that duty was calling her
below-stairs; but she got no farther than the window that looked on
a stormy sweep of moorland.
Nance was in a bitter mood, as she sat in the window-seat and
watched the white, lifeless hills, the sodden fields. Squire Demaine
had trained her to love of galloping and loyalty, had taught her that
England’s one, prime need was to see a Stuart on the throne again;
and now, when deeds were asked of men and women both, he had
left her here, to weave samplers, or to help Lady Royd brew simples
in the stillroom, while they waited for their men to come home from
the slaying.
There was Will Underwood, too. With the obstinacy that attaches to
a girl’s first love, she was warm in defence of him against the men
who had liked him—some few of them—but had never trusted him.
He had not come to claim her kerchief. Well, he would claim it
another day; he had his own reasons, doubtless, for joining the Meet
farther south. Some urgent message had reached him—from the
Prince himself, may be—bidding him ride out on an errand of
especial danger. No surmise was too wild to find acceptance. He was
so strong, so graceful and well-favoured; he sat his horse so well,
courted risks which prudent riders declined. It was fitting that he
should be chosen for some post demanding gaiety, a firm seat in
saddle, and reckless courage.
Nance, for all the sleety outlook, was seeing this Rising again as a
warm, impulsive drama. She had watched Sir Jasper and her father
ride out, had been chilled by their simple gravity; but she had
forgotten the lesson already, in her girl’s need for the alluring and
the picturesque. This love of hers for Underwood was an answer to
the like need. At all hazards she must have warmth and colour, to
feed her young, impulsive dreams of a world built in the midst of
fairyland. She could not know, just yet, that the true warmth, the
true, vivid colours come to those who, not concerned with the
fairyland of make-believe, ride leal and trusty through the wind that
stings their faces, over the sloppy, ill-found roads that spatter them
with mud.
She was desolate, this child who sat in the window-seat and
constructed all afresh the picture of her hero-lover. She was weaving
one of the samplers she despised, after all—not with wool and
canvas, but in fancy’s loom. Obstinate in her demand for vivid
drama, she was following Will Underwood already on this errand that
the Prince had entrusted to his care. She saw him riding through the
dangerous night roads, and prayed for his safety, at each corner of a
highway peopled with assassins. She saw him galloping recklessly in
open daylight, meeting odds laughable in their overwhelming
number, killing his men, not singly but by scores, as he rode on,
untouched, and gay, and loyal to his trust. It is so that young love is
apt to make its idol a knight miraculous, moving through a cloud-
land too ethereal for the needs of each day as it comes. Nance
Demaine could hold her own in the open country; but here, shut in
by the walls of a house that was old and dumb, waiting for the
men’s return, she reached out for Will Underwood’s help, and
needed him—or needed the untried, easy air of romance that he
carried with him.
She got up from the window-seat at last. The sleet and the piping
wind wearied her. She was tired already of inaction, ashamed of the
thoughts that could not keep away from pictures of Will Underwood,
riding on the Prince’s service. She remembered that she was a guest
here, that she must get away from her dreams as best she might.
“I must go down,” she said fretfully. “Lady Royd will be needing me.
And she’ll take my hands, and cry a little, and ask me, ‘Will Sir
Jasper live?’ And then she’ll kiss me, and cry again, and ask, ‘Will Sir
Jasper die?’ Oh, I know it all beforehand! But I must go down.”
Even now she could not bring herself to the effort. She paced up
and down the floor of her bedchamber. Disdain of her position here,
intemperate dislike of weaklings, the longing to be out and about
under the free sky, were overwhelming in their call to this child who
needed discipline. And, though she was Squire Demaine’s child, she
resented this first, drab-coloured call of duty.
She braced herself to the effort. But she was bitter still, and some
remembrance of her father’s teaching took her unawares. “Lady
Royd comes from the south country, where they killed a Royal Stuart
once,” she muttered. “She does not know—she cannot even learn—
our northern ways. Sir Jasper lives or dies—but either way he lives.
She does not know that either way he lives—as we count life up
here.”
Nance was shaken by the passion known to women who have seen
their men go out to war—the passion that finds no outlet in hard
give-and-take—the desperate, keen heartache that is left to feed
upon itself.
“I must go down,” she said, as if repeating a lesson hard to learn.
As she opened the door and crossed the landing, she heard a heavy
footfall on the stair below, then Simon Foster’s laboured breathing.
Some instinct of disaster chilled her. In this house of emptiness, with
the wind roaming like an unquiet ghost down every corridor, she
listened to the uncanny, stealthy upcoming. Once, years ago, she
had heard men bringing home her brother, killed in the hunting-field;
and it seemed to her that she was listening to the same sounds
again, was feeling the same vague, unreasoning dread. Then she
remembered that Rupert had been missing since dawn, and she was
moved by some grief that struck deeper than she understood.
They turned the corner of the stair at last, and Nance saw Rupert
coming up—Rupert, his face grey and tired as he leaned on Simon’s
arm; Rupert, who looked older, manlier, more like Sir Jasper. And
then, for no reason she could have given, she lost half her grief. At
least he was not dead; and there was a look about him which
stronger men of her acquaintance had worn when they were in the
thick of trouble.
There was a long, mullioned window lighting the stairway head. And
Rupert, looking up, saw Nance standing there—close to him, yet far
away as some lady of dreams might stand. The keen winter’s sun,
getting out from sleet-clouds, made a St. Luke’s summer round
about her; and Nance, who was just comely, good to see, at other
times, borrowed a strange beauty from the hour and place, and from
the human pity that was troubling her.
Rupert halted on the landing, and looked at her as if she were food
and drink to him. Then he flushed, and turned his head.
“You?” he said quietly. “I’d rather have met any one but you just
now.”
“And why, my dear?” asked Nance, with simple tenderness.
“Why? Because I’m maimed, and sick at heart,” he said savagely.
“How did it come about?” she interrupted, with the same impulsive
tenderness.
“I tried to join the Rising, and was thrown. So much was to be
expected, Nance?”
She had been thinking hard things of stay-at-homes and weaklings;
and, as she looked at Rupert now, she was touched by keen
reproach. He was ashamed, tired out, in pain of soul and body; yet
he was smiling, was making a jest of his indifferent horsemanship.
Nance recalled once more that evening on the moors, when Rupert
had bidden Will Underwood ride with her to Windyhough, while he
stayed with his brother. In his voice, in the set of his whole face,
there had been a stubborn strength that had astonished her; and
here again, on the sunlit, draughty stairhead, he was showing her a
glimpse of his true self.
“I wish you better luck,” she said simply—“oh, so much better luck.”
He saw that there were tears in her eyes, and felt his weakness
coming on him like a cloud, and fought it for a moment longer.
“It will come, Nance,” he said—cheerily, though he felt himself a liar.
“Go down to mother. She—she needs help more than I. Now, Simon,
you’ve got your breath again.”
“Ay, maister—as mich as I shall ever get, as the short-winded horse
said when they asked him why he roared like a smithy-bellows.”
“Then I’ll go forward”—again the keen, bitter smile—“to the lumber-
room, Simon, among the broken odds and ends.”
Nance stood aside, finding no words to help herself or him, and
watched them go along the corridor, and in at the door of Rupert’s
bedchamber. And she knew, beyond doubt or surmise, that the Loyal
Meet had left one useful volunteer at home to-day.
She found Lady Royd in the low-raftered parlour that always carried
an air of luxury and ease. In summer it was heavy with the scent of
garden flowers; and now there was a tired, luxurious appeal from
bowls of faded rose-leaves set everywhere about the room. A fire,
too big for the comfort of open-air folk, was crackling on the hearth.
In all things this parlour was a dainty frame enough for the mistress
whose beauty had been nipped, not strengthened, by the keen
winds of Lancashire.
“Nance, will he live?” asked Lady Royd, running forward with the
outstretched hands, the very words, that she had looked for. But she
spoke of Rupert, not of Sir Jasper. “He came home so wearied-out—
so lame and grey of face——”
“Oh, I met him on the stairhead just now,” broke in Nance, with
sharp common sense. “He’s had a fall from his horse—and he made
a jest of it—and that is all.”
“Then he’ll not die, you think? Nance, tell me, he’ll not die. I’ve been
unkind to him in days past, and I—I am sorry.”
It seemed to Nance that in this house of Windyhough she was never
to escape from pity, from the sharper, clearer insight into life that
these hopeless days were teaching her. This pretty matron, whom
her husband had spoiled, sheltering her from draughts as if she
were a hothouse flower too rare to take her chance in the open
border—she was foolish as of old, so far as speech and manner
went. But in her face, in her lisping, childish voice, there was a new,
strong appeal that touched the younger woman.
“I think that he—will live,” said the girl, with sudden passion. “He’s
here among the women now—but to-morrow—or the next day, or
the next—he’ll prove himself.”
Lady Royd moved aimlessly about the room, warmed her hands at
the fire, shivered as she glanced at the wintry sunlight out of doors.
Then she came close to Nance, as if asking protection of some kind.
“You hold the Faith, child. I do not,” she said, with bewildering
candour.
“But, Lady Royd—indeed, we’re of the same Faith——”
“Yes, in the open shows, when folk are looking on. I’d as lief go
abroad without my gown as not be seen at Mass. It is asked of Sir
Jasper’s wife; so is constancy to the yellow-haired laddie who has
sent sober men astray. Veiled lids are asked for when Will
Underwood makes pretty speeches, with his eyes on fire; but at my
heart, child—at my heart I’ve faith only in each day’s ease as it
comes.”
“Mr. Underwood has gone to the wars,” broke in Nance, with an odd
sense of misery and an obstinate contempt, for all that, of this
woman’s prattling. “He’ll come back in his own time, Lady Royd,
after the King is on his throne again.”
“But has he gone to the wars? I missed him among our friends to-
day.”
“Because he has ridden on a private errand of the Prince’s.” Nance
was reckless in her protection of Will’s honour. “He was the likeliest
rider of them all to be chosen for such service.”
“Oh, there! And I hoped he would be wise, and stay at home, and
ride over now and then to cheer us with his pleasant face.” Her smile
was frail and listless, with a certain youthful archness in it that drew
men to her side; but its appeal was lost on Nance. “Of course, I am
loyal to Sir Jasper—and I shall cry each night till he returns—but
Will’s homage is charming, Nance. It is so delicate, child—a word
here, and a glance there—that one forgets one is middle-aged. He
spent some years in Paris, they say—to escape from his father’s
money-making and from the bleak chapel on the hill—and I can well
believe it. The French have that gift of suggesting a grand passion,
when neither actor in the comedy believes a word of it.”
Nance moved away, and looked out at the sunlight and the sleety
hills. So strong, so impulsive, was her resistance to Sir Jasper’s wife
that even the “bleak chapel on the hill”—she knew it well, a four-
square, dowdy little building not far from her own home—took on an
unsuspected strength and dignity. It was reared out of moor-stone,
at least—reared by stubborn, if misguided, folk who were bred on
the same uplands as herself. Will Underwood had learned follies in
Paris, undoubtedly; but, if her liking for him, her care for his honour,
had any meaning, it rested on the faith that he had outgrown these
early weaknesses, that he was English to the core. He could ride
straight—there was something pathetic in her clinging to this one,
outstanding virtue—he was known among men to be fearless, strong
in all field-sports; he had endurance and a liking for the open air.
And Lady Royd, in her vague, heedless way, had painted him as a
parlour lap-dog, who could while a pleasant hour away for women
who lived in over-heated rooms.
Nance was obstinate in her loyalty to friends; yet she remembered
now stray hints, odds and ends of scandal passed between the
women after dinner, while they waited for the men to join them; and
all had been agreed that Will Underwood had the gift of making the
last woman who engaged his ardour believe she was the first.
Lady Royd warmed her hands at the fire again, and laughed gently.
“Why, child, you’re half in love with him, like the rest of us. I know it
by your silence.”
And Nance, whose good-humour was a byword among her
intimates, found her temper snap, like any common, ill-forged sword
might do. “By your leave,” she said, “I never did anything by halves.
My friends are my friends. I’m loyal, Lady Royd.”
“Yes, yes—and I—am middle-aged, my dear, and the fire grows cold
already.”
There was appeal in the older woman’s voice. She needed the girl’s
strength, her windy, moor-swept grasp of the big hills and the bigger
faith. But Nance was full of her own troubles, and would not heed.
“There are dogs left at Windyhough?” she said, moving to the door.
“Well, then, let me take them for a scamper. I cannot stay in prison,
Lady Royd.”
Nance swept out of the parlour, with its faded scent of rose-leaves,
donned hat and cloak, and went out in hot rebellion to cool her fever
in the nipping wind. She did not guess how she was needed by this
frail, discontented woman she had left indoors.
Lady Royd, indeed, was human—no more, no less. She could not
escape in a moment from the spoiled, settled habits of a lifetime. Sir
Jasper had ridden out, and the misery of it had been sudden,
agonising. Rupert had blundered home, in his derelict way, with a
sprained ankle and a face as white as the hills he loved; and the
motherhood in her, untrained, suppressed, had cut through her like a
knife. All was desolation here; and she thought of her homeland—of
the south country, where winds blew soft and quiet, and lilac
bloomed before the leaf-buds had well broken here in Lancashire—
and she was hidden by a mist of desperate self-pity.
Like Rupert, when he found himself lying in the mud of Langton
Road not long ago and heard his horse go galloping down the wind,
she thought of death as an easy pathway of escape. Like Rupert,
she was not needed here. She was not of the breed that rides out,
easy in saddle, on such heroic, foolish errands as Sir Jasper coveted.
And yet, when she came to face the matter, she had not courage,
either, to die and venture into the cold unknown beyond.
She had talked of Will Underwood, of his easy gallantry, and Nance
had thought her heartless; yet she had sought only a refuge from
the stress of feeling that was too hard for her to bear.
She moved up and down the parlour, in her haphazard, useless way.
Her husband had ridden out on a venture high and dangerous; and
she was setting a cushion to rights here, smoothing the fold of a
curtain there, with the intentness of a kitten that sees no farther
than its playthings. But under all there was a fierce, insistent
heartache, a rebellion against the weakness that hindered her. She
began to think of Rupert, to understand, little by little, how near
together they were, he and she. Her cowardice seemed lifted away
by friendly hands, as she told herself that she would go up and sit at
the lad’s bedside. She had known him too little in years past; there
was time now to repair mistakes.
Simon Foster was watching the master, as he lay in that sleep of
sheer exhaustion, following long effort and self-doubt, which was
giving him strength and respite before the morrow needed him.
Simon heard a low tapping at the door, opened it, saw Lady Royd
standing on the threshold.
“Is he asking for me?” she said diffidently.
“No, my lady. He’s asking for twelve hours o’ sleep—and he’ll get
them, if I’ve any say i’ the matter.”
“But you’ll be tired, Simon, and I—I am wide awake. Let me sit by
him——”
“You’re kind,” he interrupted bluntly; “but I’m watch-dog here, by
your leave. It happens to be war, not peace—and no offence, my
lady.”
She turned, aware that a man was in command here; and Simon
was left to his interrupted musings.
“By the Heart,” he growled, “if only he could find his way! He’s lean
and weak; but the lad’s keen, hard-bitten pluck—it’s killing him
before his time, it is. He can find no outlet for it, like.”
 CHAPTER VIII
THE ROAD TO THE THRONE

Sir Jasper, riding sometimes at the head of his men, at others near
the Prince, had little time for backward thoughts during this
surprising march. Each day was full of peril; but each day, too, was
full of chance humours of the road, of those odds and ends of traffic
by the way which turn men’s thoughts from a too deep, unpractical
thinking of the high Cause only to the means by which step by step,
it is to be attained.
In full truth they were following the open road, these gentry of the
Prince’s. Marshal Wade was blundering down from the north to take
them in the rear. The Duke of Cumberland was waiting for them
somewhere round about the Stafford country. They rode through
villages and towns that were not hostile—hostility is a nettle to grasp
and have done with it—but indifferent or afraid. Throughout this cold
and sloppy march, wet through, with the keen wind piping through
their sodden clothes, the greatest hardship that met them was the
lack of fierce and stubborn fight.
The Highlanders grew tired and listless, and Prince Charles, who
knew their temper to a nicety, for it was his own, was forced at last
to bid the pipers cease playing reels and strathspeys down the road.
“With all submission, your Highness,” said Lord Murray petulantly,
riding to his side as they marched out of Lancaster, “I would ask
your reason. The pipers not to play? It is all the comfort these
Highlanders can find in England here.”
Sir Jasper, riding near, saw the Prince turn, with that quick, hardly
restrained impatience which Murray’s presence always caused. “I
gave the order,” he answered, with deliberate calm, “because I know
your Highlanders—I, who was bred in France—better than their
leaders. Give me an army in front, my lord Murray, give me Wade, or
Cumberland, or the Elector, barring the road ahead, and the pipes
shall sing, I promise you.”
Then suddenly he threw his head up. His face, grown old and tired,
furrowed by sleepless care for his five thousand men, was young
again. He was seeing far ahead, beyond the mud and jealousies of
these wintry English roads. And again Sir Jasper understood why the
women up in Edinburgh had gone mad about this Stuart with the
yellow hair. The decent women love a fighter always—a fighter for
some cause that is big and selfless; and the Prince’s face, just now,
was lit by some glow from the wider hills.
“The pipes shall sing,” he went on, his voice deep, tender, hurried.
“They’ll play like quicksilver, Lord Murray, when—when the Hanover
men care to meet us in the open.”
“But meanwhile, your Highness, we’ve to trudge on, and I say you’re
forbidding meat and drink to your troops when you’ll not let them
hear the pipes.”
Sir Jasper moved his horse forward. They were alone, the three of
them, a furlong ahead of the army. Lord Murray’s tone was so bitter,
so like a scolding woman’s that Sir Jasper’s instinct was to intervene,
to take the quarrel on his own shoulders and settle it, here by the
wayside, in the honest Lancashire way. He was checked by the
Prince himself, who returned from the hills of dreams with surprising
quickness.
“We’ve to trudge on,” he said, with workaday grasp of the affairs in
hand. “You find the exact word, Lord Murray, as your habit is. What
use, then, to let the pipes go singing music into men’s feet? We have
to trudge.”
Murray, dour, unimaginative, possessed by a fever of jealousy which
would not let him rest, was scarcely civil. And manners, after all, are
the outward sign of character. “Your Highness issues commands, and
we obey——”
“Why, yes. I came from France to issue them,” broke in the other,
with a disdain that was royal in its quietness.
Sir Jasper thought of his windy house in Lancashire, of the dreams
he had fed upon, of the long preparation for this march that was to
light England with loyal fires. And he was here, riding at a footpace
through the dreary roads, watching the rift widen between the
Prince and Murray. He was oppressed by some omen of the days to
come, or by the sadness of the Highlanders, who sought a fight and
could not find it. He had dreamed of an army—loyal, compact,
looking neither to left nor right—that would march, at speed and
with a single purpose, on London, an army that would not rest until
it drove the Hanoverian abroad. Instead, there were divided
counsels, a landscape dreary and rain-shrouded, and Murray for ever
at their elbows, sowing doubt and dull suspicion.
“Your Highness,” said Sir Jasper, all in his quick, hill-bred way, “we
seem to be riding on a Lenten penance, and Christmas is six weeks
off as yet. Surely Lord Murray would be well quit of his dourness.”
The Prince turned in saddle. “My thanks, Sir Jasper,” he said, with an
easy laugh. “Lord Murray has never kept a Lenten fast—it smacks
too much of superstition, he says; but, by the God we serve, Sir
Jasper, he would likely be the better for it.”
So then Murray, seeing two against him and not relishing the odds,
lost his temper outright. “Superstition does not carry armies on to
victory,” he snapped.
“No,” assented the Prince, as if he reckoned up a sum in simple
addition. “But faith, my lord Murray—it carries men far and happily.”
Murray checked himself with obvious effort, and they rode on in
silence for a while. “Your Highness, I spoke hastily just now,” he said
by and by. His voice, try as he would, had no warmth in it, no true
sincerity. “I ask your pardon.”
“Oh, that is granted. Our royal purse is empty, but we can still be
spendthrift with forgiveness.”
Again Sir Jasper glanced at this many-sided Prince of his. The smile,
the grave rebuke hidden beneath gentlest courtesy, were not his
own; they were gifts entrusted to his keeping by many generations
of the Stuart race. They had not always done well or wisely, these
Stuarts; but wherever down the track of history they had touched a
world made dull and ugly by the men who lived in it, they had stood
always for the buoyant faith, the clean and eager hope, the royal
breadth of sympathy that sweeps shams and make-believes aside.
Sir Jasper, riding through this wet, unlovely country, found himself
once more in that mood of tenderness, of wrath and pity, which had
surprised him not long ago in Langton High Street. The islanders of
Skye—Skye, in the misty Highland country—had known this mood
from birth and were accustomed to it, as they were used to the daily
labour to win bread, from land or sea, for their wives and bairns. But
Sir Jasper was young to it, and was disturbed by the simple, tragic
pity that seemed to cling about the Stuart—a something filmy and
impalpable, as if with him always there rode a phantom shape of
martyrdom to come.
He sought relief in action, glanced up and down the highway in hope
of straightforward, healthy battle. But Marshal Wade was a good
three days’ march in the rear, and the Duke of Cumberland was
playing hide-and-seek along the Staffordshire lanes without success.
Sir Jasper turned from looking up and down the road, and saw Lord
Murray riding close on his right. The man’s face was set and hard;
and Sir Jasper, with the intuition that comes to tired and heart-sick
men, knew that the enemy was here among them—not in the shape
of an army challenging endeavour, but of one cautious Scotsman
who was busy saving halfpennies while guineas were going down
the wind.
As if to prove Sir Jasper’s judgment accurate, Lord Murray broke the
silence. “You spoke of faith just now, your Highness,” he said.
“Why, yes—because you asked it of me. One seldom speaks of such
matters unless compelled.”
“Then, with all submission, I say that faith is for kirk on Sabbaths,
for the quietness of a man’s bedchamber; but we’re here in open
war. War—I’ve seen it overseas, and have been wounded twice—is a
cold, practical affair, your Highness.”
So then the Prince glanced at Sir Jasper and laughed outright, and
after that was silent for a while. “My lord Murray,” he said quietly,
“faith, mine and Sir Jasper’s, goes into battle with us, goes into
every road we take. I’m ashamed, somehow, to speak so plainly of—
of what I know.”
“May I speak of what I, too, know?” put in Murray sharply. “It is of
war I speak, your Highness. I know the rules of it—know that this
hurried march of ours through England can end only in disaster.
Retreat in good order, even now, is our only course—retreat to
Scotland, where we can gather in the clans that were slow to join us
——”
“Retreat?” said the Prince, his head lifted suddenly, his voice ringing
with command and challenge. “I never learned the word, at school
or afterwards. Retreat? My lord Murray, there’s only one plain rule of
war—to ride forward, and plant your blow where the first
opportunity serves.”
“That is our rule in Lancashire,” put in Sir Jasper dryly.
Murray glanced at the two of them. He had hoped much from the
cold logic that guided his days for him, had been sure that he could
persuade the Prince to his own view of the campaign; and these
two, resolute in faith and almost gay, were treating him as if he were
a stripling with much to learn in life beyond the rules of war and
mathematics.
“I say, your Highness, that we’ve hardened troops against us,
officered by men who have grown old in strategy——”
“And yet we’re here in spite of them, right through the northern
counties, and likely to keep Christmas in London. We’re here, my
lord Murray, because zeal laughs at strategy.”
“For all that,” put in Murray dryly, “you’ll not let the pipes be played.
They, surely, are musical with faith—your own sort of faith, that bids
men forget calculation and all else.”
Again the Prince moved impatiently in saddle. “I am not used to give
reasons for my conduct, but you shall have them now, since you
persist. My Highlanders, they take a dram to whet their appetite for
meals; but if there’s no meal waiting, why, my lord Murray, it is idle
to offer them the dram.”
“There’s no fight near at hand, you mean? Your Highness, there are
three big battles that I know of—and others, it may be—waiting
close about us on this road to London. Give the Highlanders their
pipes again. Their appetite needs sharpening if you persist in going
forward.”
The Prince glanced at Sir Jasper. “We go forward, I think?” he asked,
with a whimsical, quick smile.
“That is our errand,” Sir Jasper answered simply.
“Then, Lord Murray, ride back and bid the pipers play their fill. And I
pray that one of your three phantom armies waiting for us on the
London road may prove flesh and blood.”
Murray was exact in his calculations. He was not greatly moved by
the bagpipes, for his own part, but he knew that they were as
necessary as food and drink to the Highlanders, who were the nerve
and soul of this army following the forlornest hope. He turned his
horse and galloped back.
And presently the footmen’s march grew brisker; jaded riders felt
their nags move less dispiritedly under them.
The pipes were singing, low at first, as if a mother crooned to her
child up yonder in the misty Highlands. And then the music and the
magic grew, till it seemed that windy March was striding, long and
sinewy of limb, across the land of lengthening days and rising sap
and mating beasts and birds. And then, again, there was a warmth
and haste in the music, a sudden wildness and a tender pity, that
seemed like April ushering in her broods along the nestling
hedgerows, the fields where lambs were playing, the banks that
were gold with primroses, and budding speedwell, and strong,
young growth of greenstuff. And then, again, from the rear of this
tattered army that marched south to win a kingdom for the Stuart,
full June was playing round about this wet and dismal Stafford
country. The Prince knew it; Sir Jasper knew it. Even Lord Murray,
riding far behind was aware that life held more than strategy and
halfpennies.
“Dear God, the pipes!” said the Prince, turning suddenly. “D’ye hear
them, Sir Jasper?”
“I’m hill-bred, too, your Highness. Could I miss their note?”
And they fell silent, for there is something in this hill music that
touches the soul of a man. It finds out his need of battle, his instinct
to be up and doing along the wide, human thoroughfares of life. And
then it stifles him with pity, with homesickness and longing for the
wife and bairns who, for all that, would not approve him if he failed
to take the road. And then, again, it sounds the fighting note, till
every fibre responds to the call for instant action.
No action met them. They rode forward through the driving wind,
the Prince and Sir Jasper; and now the pipes, hurried and
unwearied, played only mockery about them, rousing their strength
while denying it an outlet.
It was then Sir Jasper heard the first and last bitter word from the
leader who had summoned him to this drear adventure. “The pity of
it!” said the Prince. “I ask only a free hand, and they’ll not give it
me. Sir Jasper, what is amiss with Lord Murray? There was
something left out of him at birth, I think—soul, or heart—or what
you choose to name it. This march of ours—he will not listen when I
tell him it is bigger than the strict rules of warfare.”
Sir Jasper reined near and put a hand on the Prince’s bridle-arm, as
a father might who sees his boy attempting more than his strength
warrants. “I understand,” he said simply. “By your leave, I’ll play
watch-dog to Murray till we reach London. He stands for caution,
and I”—a sudden remembrance came to him of Windyhough, of the
wife and heir, and his loneliness bit so deep that, for shame’s sake,
he had to cover up his grief—“and I, your Highness,” he added, with
a touch of humour, “have been blamed for many things, but never
yet for caution.”
“No, no. We might be old in friendship, you and I. We see the like
world, Sir Jasper—the world that caution is too mean to enter. And
yet my lord Murray—who has been bred among the hills, while I
have not—has never learned their teaching, as I learned it at my
first coming to the misty Highlands.”
The pipes would not be quiet, behind them on this sloppy road. The
Prince, as his habit was, had seen far and wisely when he forbade
the music. To and fro the uproar went, wild, insistent, friendly as the
cry of moor-birds—snipe and curlew and wide-roving plover—to men
who love the uplands. The music lacked its fulness, for in these
Midlands there were no mountains to echo it, to pass it on from rise
to rise, till it grew faint and elfin-like among the blue moor-tops; but
even here the pipes were swift and tender with persuasion.
“All this, Sir Jasper,” the Prince said by and by—“the pipes playing
fury into us, and in front of us the empty road. Murray promised us
three battles at the least, and we’re here like soldiers on parade.”
Sir Jasper had cherished dreams of this Rising, but war, in the hot
fighting and in the dreary silences between, is not made up of
dreams. The poetry of it comes before and after, when peace
smooths her ruffled plumage and sings of heroism; the prose of it is
so commonplace that men sensitively built need dogged loyalty to
keep them safe from disillusionment.
“The wind blows east, your Highness,” he said. “You’ll pardon me,
but an east wind sets my temper all on edge. My sympathy is
catholic, but I’d hang the nether millstone round Lord Murray’s neck
if I had my way.”
The Prince glanced behind, because the pipes were tired of battle
now, and were crooning lullabies—the strong, tender cradle-songs
that Highland mothers know. “No,” he said quietly. “We share the
same desire, but we’d relent.”
“Not I, for one.”
“Yes, you, for one, and I, for one, because we’re human. So few of
your English folk are human, somehow, as I’ve seen them since my
Highlanders crossed Annan River. They’re ill-clad, these Highland
lads of mine, and raw to look at, but they carry the ready heart, Sir
Jasper, and the simple creed—you can bend them till point meets
hilt, like a Ferrara blade, and yet not break them.”
“We are tempered steel in Lancashire, your Highness,” said Sir
Jasper, in passionate defence of his county. “Few of us have come to
the Rising, but I can answer for each man of mine that follows you.”
“I was hasty; the pipes play that mood into a man. When we
planned this Rising, years ago in France, the King—my father—bade
me remember always that Lancashire was staunch and its women
beautiful. The east wind must be excuse for me, too, Sir Jasper.”
“Your Highness, I spoke hastily. My temper, I tell you, is frayed at
the edges by winter and harsh weather.”
“I like your temper well enough, Sir Jasper. Let’s take a pinch of
snuff together, since there’s nothing else to do.”
It was in this mood that they rode into a little village clustered round
a stream. The hamlet was so small that the crowd of men and
women gathered round about the ford seemed bigger than its
numbers. The villagers, enticed by the news that the Rising neared
their borders, raised a sudden tumult when they saw the van of the
army ride into sight. Curiosity held them, while fear and all the
rumours they had heard prompted them to instant flight. Mothers
clutched their babies, and turned as if to run for shelter, then turned
again and halted between two minds, and must needs stay to see
what these queer Highlanders were like. The younger women, glad
of this respite from the day’s routine, ogled the Prince and Sir Jasper
with unaffected candour. The men looked on sheepishly, afraid for
their own safety, but not content to leave their women in the lurch.
“Here’s the cannibals from Scotland!” cried one big, shrill-voiced
woman. “They feed on English babies, so we’re told. Dear mercy, I
hope they’ve had their breakfast earlier on the road!”
The Prince checked his horse suddenly. His face was flushed,
ashamed, as if a blow had struck him on the cheek. “My good
woman,” he said, bending from saddle to look into her plump, foolish
face, “have they lied so deep to you as that?”
“Lies? Nay, I know what I’m talking about, or should do at my years.
There’ve been well-spoken gentry in and out these weeks past, and
they all had the same tale; so it stands to reason the tale was true
as Candlemas.” She set her arms akimbo. The quietness of this
horseman who talked to her, his good looks and subtle air of
breeding, had killed her terror and given her instead a bravado no
less foolish. “Thou’rt well enough to look at, lad, and I wish I was
younger, I do, to kiss ye on the sly when my man didn’t happen to
be looking; but the rest o’ ye, coming down the road, ye’re as
ragged a lot o’ trampish folk as I’ve set eyes on.”
The Prince laughed, not happily, but as if the pipes were bidding him
weep instead. Then he plucked his mare forward—Nance Demaine’s
mare, which he had borrowed—and splashed through the ford. And
it was not till the hamlet was a mile behind him that he turned to Sir
Jasper.
“A lie chills me,” he said abruptly; “especially a lie that is foisted on
poor, unlettered folk. They told me this and that, Sir Jasper, of
Hanoverian methods, and I—what shall I say?—disdained, I think, to
believe it of an enemy. They will not fight us in the open since we
worsted them at Prestonpans, but instead they send ‘well-spoken
gentry’ to honeycomb the countryside with lies.”
Sir Jasper, the more he followed the open road with this comrade in
adversity, found ever and ever a deeper liking for him. He could be
ashamed, this Stuart whom women had done their best to spoil in
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