The Prince, with his shoulders square to the wind, took the salute of men soon to die. And then he drooped a little, as all his race did when they were thinking of the needs of lesser men. “Friends,” he said, lifting his head buoyantly again, “there’s no death—and by and by I shall be privileged to meet you.”
Throughout this march to Derby, and back again to wet Carlisle, there had been no pageantry to tempt men’s fancy. There were none now. A score of soldiers, drenched to the skin, went in at the Castle gateway, and the rain came down in grey, relentless sheets. Prince Charles Edward, as he moved slowly north at the head of his five thousand men, was still fighting the raging toothache that the hardships of the march had brought him. And toothache sounds a wild, disheartening pibroch of its own.
The night passed quietly in Carlisle, and the garrison was grave and business-like, as men are when they stand in face of certain death and begin to reckon up their debts to God.
Colonel Towneley had persuaded Hamilton to get to bed and take his fill of sleep, and had assumed command; and about three of the morning, as he went his round, he came on Rupert, standing at his post. Towneley had the soldier’s eye for detail, and he glanced shrewdly at the younger man.
“You were the first to volunteer with me?” he asked, tapping him lightly on the shoulder. “I remember your tired, hard-bitten face.”
“It was my luck, sir—and I’ve had little until now.”
“You should not be sentrying here. We’ve had no easy march to-day. You had earned a night’s rest.”
“I did not need it. I asked to take my place here.”
Towneley looked him up and down, then tapped him lightly on the shoulder. “By gad! you’ve suffered, one time or another,” he said unexpectedly. “You’re young to have earned that steady voice. Good-night, my lad.”
The next day was quiet in Carlisle, and the only news that came into the Castle was that the Duke of Cumberland still lay at Hesket, awaiting the implements of siege that were slow in reaching him; but the day after he brought his men into the city, and invested the town as closely as his lack of artillery allowed. It was a mistaken move on his part, as the shrewdest of his advisers pointed out to him; but the Duke had answered all wiser counsels with the blunt assurance that he had time to stay and butcher a few rebels here in Carlisle by way of whetting his appetite for the pleasant shambles to come afterwards in Scotland. And those few who were English among his following were aghast at the licence Cumberland allowed himself in speaking of enemies, misguided to their view, but brave and honourable men, content to face long odds.