The night went leadenly by.  At last he slept, and was waked by trumpets blowing.  He saw through the window that it was at faintest dawn.  Much later the door opened and a man brought him a poor breakfast.  Rullock questioned him, but could gain nothing beyond the statement that to-day at latest the “rebels” would be wiped from the face of the earth.  When he was gone Ian climbed to the small window that, even were it open and unguarded, was yet too small for his body to pass.  But, working with care, he managed to loosen and draw inward without noise one of the round panes.  Outside lay a trampled farm-yard.  A few soldiers, apparently invalided, lounged about, but there was no such throng such as he had passed through when they brought him here.  He supposed that the attack upon the force at Shap might be in progress.  If the Duke of Cumberland’s whole power was at hand the main column might be set upon.  All around him the hills, the farm inclosure, and these petty walls cut off the outer world.  The hours, the day, limped somehow by.  He walked to keep himself warm.  Back and forth and to and fro.  December—­December—­December!  How cold was the Kelpie’s Pool?  Poisoned love—­poisoned friendship—­ambition in ruin—­bells ringing for executions!  To and fro—­to and fro.  He had always felt life as sensuous, rich, and warm, with garlands and colors.  It had been large and aglow, with a profusion of arabesques of imagination and emotion.  Thought had not lacked, but thought, too, bore a personal, passional cast, and was much interested in a golden world of sense.  Just this December day the world seemed the ocean-bed of life, where dull creatures moved slowly in cold, thick ooze, and annihilation was much to be desired....  The day went by.  The same man brought him supper.  There seemed to be triumph in his face.  “They’ll be bringing in more prisoners—­unless we don’t make prisoners!” Nothing more could be gained from that quarter.  In the night it began to rain.  He listened to its dash against the window.  Black Hill came into mind, and the rain against his windows there.  He was cold, and he tried, with the regressive sense, to feel himself in that old, warm nest.  His Black Hill room rose about him, firelit.  The fire lighted that Italian painting of a city of refuge and a fleeing man, behind whom ran the avenger of blood....  Then it was July, and he was in the glen with Elspeth Barrow.  He fought away from the recollection of that, for it involved a sickness of the soul....  Italy!  Think of Italy.  Venice, and a month that he had spent there alone—­Old Steadfast being elsewhere.  It had been a warm season, warm and rich, sun-kissed and languorous, like the fruit, like the Italian women....  Leave out the women, but try to feel again the sun of Venice!

He tried, but the cold of his prison fought with the sun.  Then suddenly sprang clamor without.  The uproar increased.  He rose, he heard the bolts open, the door open.  In came light and voices.  “Captain Rullock!  We beat them at Clifton!  We learned that you were here!  Lord George sent us back for you....”