Then, little by little, Sir Jasper sought for the cause of all this unrest and unhappiness that was dogging the steps of an army that had fought Prestonpans, that had taken Carlisle, that had marched through half England with a security which in itself was triumph. They were heading straight for London. The men, undaunted by forced marches, were in keen fighting temper, asking constantly for the enemy to show himself. Fortune was with them; the glow of old allegiance was with them. Each league they covered was so much added proof to the waverers that they followed a winning cause. And yet somehow a chill was settling on them all, a cold, intangible distrust. Sir Jasper felt it against his will. The Prince was feeling it.
Sir Jasper had set out on this enterprise with a single aim; but already his view of it was muddied a little by the politics, the jealousies, the daily friction that creep into the conduct of all human ventures. He could not stand far off, as yet, from the bigness and simplicity of the dreams he had nursed at Windyhough. Up yonder on the moors, as he mapped out the campaign, it had been a gallop against odds, a quick battle, death on the field, or a ride into London to see the Stuart crowned with fitting pomp and thanksgiving. And instead, there had been these days and days of marching at a foot pace, without a chance skirmish to enliven them—days spent in ploughing through roads fetlock-deep in mud, with the east wind harrying them like a scolding tongue, days spent in watching the leaders of the Highland clans drifting each day nearer to the whirlpool of unrest that revolved about Lord Murray.
The men who passed Sir Jasper, as he rode back to join his company, were awed by the sheer fury in his face. He did not see them. Kilted men on foot met him, and Lowlanders in tattered breeks, riding nags as rough-coated as themselves. And some from the pick of Scotland’s chivalry glanced at him for a nod of recognition, and saw him looking straight ahead with murder in his eyes.
Sir Jasper was in the mood that, now and then, had frightened his wife up yonder on the moors of Lancashire. He had kept the Faith. He had given up wife and bairns and lands if things chanced to go astray. And there was one man in this Rising who was the traitor in their midst. Scholarly, yet simple in his piety, Sir Jasper was in the thick of that stormy mood which hillmen know—a mood pitiless and keen as the winds bred in the hollows of the wintry moor, a mood that goes deeper than training, and touches, maybe, the bedrock of those stormy passions known to the forefathers of the race when all the heath was lit with feuds.
It was now that good luck found Sir Jasper. There was an empty stretch of road in front of him. He was alone with the black mood that he hated—the mood he could not kill; and the bitter wind was finding out the weak places in a body not too young. And then round the bend of the highway rode Lord Murray; and Sir Jasper felt a little stir of gladness, as if the wind had shifted to a warmer quarter.
Murray was unaccompanied, save for his aide-de-camp—a careless, pleasant-faced youth of twenty, Johnstone by name, who was destined afterwards to write a diverting and boyishly inaccurate account of a campaign whose shallows only, not its depths, were known to him.
“Of all men, I’ve hoped most to meet you, my lord Murray,” said Sir Jasper, drawing rein. “Your friend can ride apart; I’ve much to say to you.”
Murray, too, drew rein, glanced hard and uncivilly at Sir Jasper, and turned with a smile to his aide-de-camp. “The Lancashire manner is curt, Mr. Johnstone,” he said. “What is this gentleman’s name again? He joined us at Langton, I remember, and his Highness was pleased to overdo the warmth of his greeting. It is a way the Prince has, and it answers well enough with the women, to be sure.”
“My name is Jasper Royd,” broke in the other, his temper at a smooth white heat, “and it is entirely at your service after this campaign is ended. I permit no man to sneer at his Highness, and you’ll give me satisfaction later.”
Lord Murray took a pinch of snuff, smiled again behind his hand at Johnstone. “There’s something—what shall I say, sir?—something old-fashioned in your loyalty, though it sits well enough on you, if ’twere a play we acted.”