“She’ll wait, sir, till your return. You have that gift with women.”
Cumberland stirred lazily, got to his feet. He was pleased by this flattery that was clumsy as his own big, unwholesome body. “She’ll wait, you think? Well, let her wait. Women are best trained that way. There, Goldstein, I was only jesting. You broke the good news too sharply. They’ve retreated? Say it again. Oh, the fools these Stuarts are! I must drink another measure to their health.”
A little later the whole Hanoverian army moved north. Cumberland was keen and happy, because he saw butchery and renown within his grasp. Through days and weeks of hardship over sloppy roads he had hunted the Stuart whom he loathed, had found him constantly elude pursuit. And now, it seemed, his hour of triumph was at hand. And triumph, to his Grace of Cumberland, meant always, not pardon of his enemies, but revenge.
“They leave us a plain track to follow,” he said to Goldstein as, near midday, after riding slantwise from their camp to strike the northern road, eight miles north of Derby, they came from muddied bridle-paths to a highway that was deep in trampled slush. “They were nimble in advance, but retreat will have another tale to tell. We shall catch them to-morrow, or the next day after.”
And Goldstein agreed; but he did not tell all he knew—how he had learned from the Derby townsfolk that the Prince rode far behind his army, attended only by one horseman. Instead, he spoke of the commission he held, as officer in command of a roving troop of cavalry, and asked if he might be free to harass the retreat.
“We ride lighter than your main body, your Highness, and could pick off stragglers as well as bring news of the route these ragged Pretender’s men are taking.”
“Yes, ride forward,” growled Cumberland. “You’ve the pick of my scoundrels with you, Goldstein—hard riders and coarse feeders—they’ll help you pick off stragglers.”
The two men exchanged a glance of understanding. Difference of rank apart, they were brotherly in the instincts that they shared; and his Grace of Cumberland, from his youth up, had had a gift for choosing his friends among those who rode unencumbered by conscience, or pity, or any sort of tenderness. And, as he had said just now, he found them mostly in the kennels.
“One word,” said Cumberland, as the other prepared to ride forward. “There’s no quarter to be given. For the country’s sake—for the safety of the King—we shall make an example of these rebels.”
Goldstein glanced warily at him, to see if he jested and looked for an answering wink. But it pleased the Duke to assume an air which he thought royal.