“But the price may be too heavy,” protested Sir Jasper.
“You were with the Pretender soon after Derby, on your own confession.”
“With Prince Charles Edward, by your leave,” the other corrected, with the same pleasant smoothness.
“Oh, curse you! what do titles matter? The pretty boy with the love-locks—you were with him, that day we nearly took you both.”
“I was with him, and it was a privilege. Believe me, sir, I have some miles to go, and dusk is coming on. Can I answer any other doubts you have—of my honesty, shall I say?”
Sir Jasper had glanced round, had seen a sheer wall of rock, twenty paces behind him, from which some farmer long ago had quarried the stones for his homestead on the moor above. He had chosen his vantage-ground; and still, through all this talk that gained a few moments by the way, he had only the one, simple-minded plan—to get his back to the wall, and fight single-handed till he dropped, and give his life to earn for his Prince a few more precious moments. He edged his horse backward gently—pretending that it was fidgeting on the curb—and drew near the quarry-face. He thought of Windyhough, of his wife and Rupert, of the free, hard-riding days behind; and then he thought no more of these things, but only of the narrow track of loyalty. It was so that the Lancashire gentry—the strong men among them—had trained themselves to live for the Stuart cause. And, as a man lives, so he finds himself prepared to die.
“You’re the Prince’s watch-dog,” said Goldstein.
“May be. I wish he had a better.”
“He’s somewhere near then.”
“That is vastly probable, sir.” Sir Jasper glanced at the hills again, as if seeking counsel. These men had followed the retreat persistently. If he denied all knowledge of the Prince’s whereabouts, they would spur forward up the main road, would come in sight of that desolate, square-shouldered figure who stood, in his own person, for the strength, the gallantry, the hoping against odds, of this disastrous ’Forty-Five.