His aide-de-camp looked on. Johnstone was unused to the tumults that beset older heads; and he had made a hero of this man who had been defeated—a little more than defeated—at his own game of swordcraft. And he was puzzled because Murray did not curse his fortune, or bluster, or do anything but stand, hilt to the ground, as if he were in a dream.
It was all quick in the doing. Murray got himself in hand, shrugged his shoulders, searched for his snuff-box. “This is all very dismaying, Mr. Johnstone,” he drawled. “I said from the start that we were forgetting every rule of warfare in this mad Rising. And yet—to be honest, Sir Jasper is something near to what I dreamed of before the world tired me—he’s very like a man, Mr. Johnstone. And there are few real men abroad these days.”
Sir Jasper himself, as he rode back into the highway, was in a sad and bitter mood. He had spoken his mind, had fought and won the duel he had welcomed, and reaction was telling heavily on him just now. After all, he had done more harm than good by this meeting with Lord Murray. Private quarrels, carried as far as this had been, were treasonable, because they weakened all the discipline and speed of an attack against the common enemy. Moreover, a man of Murray’s temper could never understand how serviceable it is to admit defeat, and forget it, and go forward with the business of the day; he would plant the grudge, would tend and water it, till it grew from a sapling into a lusty, evil tree.
He drew rein as he came through the ill-found bridle-track into the open road. Scattered men, on horse or on foot, passed by him; for the fight in the wood had been brief, and an army of five thousand takes long to straggle over slushy, narrow highways. And then Sir Jasper’s face grew cheery on the sudden. A company, in close and decent order, rode into view. He saw Lancashire faces once again—his son’s, and Squire Demaine’s, and Giles the bailiff’s, and fifty others that he knew by heart.
They met him at the turning of the way, drew up, saluted him. And Sir Jasper found his big, spacious air again, because he was at home with men who knew his record—with men reared, like himself, within sight of Pendle’s round and friendly hill.
“We’re full of heart, lads from Lancashire,” he said, taking the salute as if he led a pleasant partner out to dance the minuet. “By gad! we’re full of heart, I tell you,” he broke off, with sharp return to his habit of command. “The London road is open to the Prince; there are three armies chasing us, so I’m told, but they seem to shun close quarters. Lancashire men, I’m old, and all my bones are aching—and yet I’m gay. Giles, your face is sour as cream in thunder weather; Maurice, though you’re my son, you look lean and shrivelled, as if the wind had nipped you; is it only the old men of this Rising who are full of heart?”
“We’re spoiling for a fight, sir,” said Maurice, with a boy’s outspoken fretfulness, “and instead there’s only this marching through dull roads, and no hazards to meet us——”
“No heroics, you mean,” broke in Squire Demaine, who was riding close beside Maurice. “See you, my lad, this is open war,” he went on—gruffly, because he, too, was weary of inaction. “And war is not the thing the ballads sing about. It’s not crammed with battles, and all the ladies watching, ready with tears and lollipops for the wounded; it’s a bleak affair of marching, with little porridge and less cream to it—until—until you’re sick from hunger and fatigue. And then the big battle comes—and it sorts out the men from the weaklings. And that is war, I tell you.”
Sir Jasper reined up beside him, and the two older men rode forward, and the interrupted march moved stolidly again along the road to London—pad of hoofs, slush of tired footmen through the sleety mire, whinnying of dispirited horses and murmur of round Lancashire oaths from the farmers who had left plough and fieldwork behind them, as they thought, and were finding the like dour routine on this highway where no adventures met them.
“You heartened our men just now—and, gad! they needed it,” said Squire Demaine, as they trotted out of earshot. “But you carry a sad face, old friend, for all that. What ails you?”