“Ah, good!” said Cumberland gruffly, looking up from a map which he was studying. “What news from Derby?”
“The best news. They’ve turned tail, though we could not credit the rumours that came into camp. Derby is empty, your Grace.”
The two men were oddly like each other, as they stood in the lamplit room. They were big and fleshy, both of them; and each had the thick, loose lips, the heavy jaw, that go with an aggressive lust for the coarser vices, an aggressive ambition, and a cruelty in the handling of all hindrances.
Cumberland drained the tankard at his elbow, thrust his boots a little nearer to the fire-blaze. “What fools these Stuarts are!” he said lazily.
“By your leave, no,” said Captain Goldstein, wishing to be exact in detail. “From all I gathered, it was not the Pretender, but the leaders of the clans, who forced the retreat.”
“Well, either way, it’s laughable. The Elector bars their way at Finchley with ten thousand men; it sounds formidable, Goldstein, eh? but we know what a rotten nut that is to crack. And I could not overtake them; they march with such cursed speed; and poor old Marshal Wade, supposed to be converging from the north, is always a week late for the fair. They held the cards; and, Goldstein, are you jesting when you say that they’ve retreated?”
“I never jest, your Grace. Derby is empty, I say; and it is not my place to suggest that you order boot-and-saddle to be sounded.”
“No,” snarled Cumberland, facing round on this officer whom he was wont to kick or caress, according to his mood. “No, Goldstein, it is not your place. Your place? You’d be housed in the kennels if you had your proper lodgings. I rescued you from that sort of neighbourhood, because you seemed to have the makings of a soldier in you.”
“They’ll retreat with speed, as they advanced. The wind’s in the feet of these Highlanders,” said Goldstein stubbornly.
“We shall catch them up. To-day I’ve much to do, Goldstein—an assignation with the miller’s buxom daughter, a mile outside the camp; she’s waiting for me now.”