Again the Prince moved impatiently in saddle. “I am not used to give reasons for my conduct, but you shall have them now, since you persist. My Highlanders, they take a dram to whet their appetite for meals; but if there’s no meal waiting, why, my lord Murray, it is idle to offer them the dram.”
“There’s no fight near at hand, you mean? Your Highness, there are three big battles that I know of—and others, it may be—waiting close about us on this road to London. Give the Highlanders their pipes again. Their appetite needs sharpening if you persist in going forward.”
The Prince glanced at Sir Jasper. “We go forward, I think?” he asked, with a whimsical, quick smile.
“That is our errand,” Sir Jasper answered simply.
“Then, Lord Murray, ride back and bid the pipers play their fill. And I pray that one of your three phantom armies waiting for us on the London road may prove flesh and blood.”
Murray was exact in his calculations. He was not greatly moved by the bagpipes, for his own part, but he knew that they were as necessary as food and drink to the Highlanders, who were the nerve and soul of this army following the forlornest hope. He turned his horse and galloped back.
And presently the footmen’s march grew brisker; jaded riders felt their nags move less dispiritedly under them.
The pipes were singing, low at first, as if a mother crooned to her child up yonder in the misty Highlands. And then the music and the magic grew, till it seemed that windy March was striding, long and sinewy of limb, across the land of lengthening days and rising sap and mating beasts and birds. And then, again, there was a warmth and haste in the music, a sudden wildness and a tender pity, that seemed like April ushering in her broods along the nestling hedgerows, the fields where lambs were playing, the banks that were gold with primroses, and budding speedwell, and strong, young growth of greenstuff. And then, again, from the rear of this tattered army that marched south to win a kingdom for the Stuart, full June was playing round about this wet and dismal Stafford country. The Prince knew it; Sir Jasper knew it. Even Lord Murray, riding far behind was aware that life held more than strategy and halfpennies.
“Dear God, the pipes!” said the Prince, turning suddenly. “D’ye hear them, Sir Jasper?”
“I’m hill-bred, too, your Highness. Could I miss their note?”