“My loyalty is—just loyalty. There’s no change of fashion can alter the clean faith of a man.”
“Your pardon, but was this all you had to say to me? The wind is shrewd, Sir Jasper, and we can discuss loyalty—and punctilio and the duel you are eager for—when we next find an inn to shelter us.”
Murray’s harsh, narrow egotism had seldom shown to worse advantage than now. Since first Sir Jasper rode into Langton Street with the big air about him that simple-minded gentlemen are apt to carry, since Murray had seen the Prince’s welcome, his jealousy had taken fire. It had slumbered during the last days of hardship, but this meeting on the road had quickened it.
“I had more to say, much more,” Sir Jasper answered, quiet and downright. “Again I ask you to bid Mr. Johnstone ride behind.”
“No, by your leave; he has my full confidence. You may speak your mind at once; but be speedy, for I would remind you that this is not midsummer.”
Young Johnstone laughed, as youth will at unlikely times; and the laugh added a fine edge to Sir Jasper’s temper.
“Then, as you’ll have it so, Mr. Johnstone shall be a listener. It is of this Rising I mean to speak—and of your share in it. You are young, Lord Murray, and I am getting old. You’re riding to the warfare you learned in set battles overseas, but we—the Prince, God bless him! and the Highlanders and my good lads from Lancashire—are out on a wider road.”
“You will explain?” drawled Murray.
“D’ye think five thousand of us, ill-armed, can win to London by rules of war and maps and compasses?”
“I did not think from the first we had a chance of reaching London,” snapped the other.