As they advanced the roads were better peopled, market folk for the most part returning from Derby, and now and then parties of young men who cried news to women who hung at the corners where farm tracks debouched from the highway. In all these folk there was an air of expectancy and tension natural in a land on the confines of war. The three travellers bettered their pace. "In an hour," Midwinter told them, "we reach the Ashbourne road and so descend on Derby from the north." As the minutes passed, Alastair's excitement grew till he had hard work to conform his speed to that of his companions. He longed to hasten on—not from anxiety, for that had left him, but from a passion to see his Prince again, to be with comrades-in-arms, to share in the triumph of these days of marvel. Somewhere in Derby His Highness would now be kneeling at mass; he longed to be at his side in that sacrament of dedication.
Then as they topped a ridge in a sudden clearing of the weather a noble spire rose some miles ahead, and around it in the flat of a wide valley hung the low wisps of smoke which betokened human dwellings. It did not need Midwinter's cry of "All Saints" to tell Alastair that he was looking at the place which held his master and the hope of the Cause. By tacit consent the three men spurred their beasts, and rode into a village, the long street of which ran north and south. "'Tis the high road from Ashbourne to Derby," said Midwinter. "To the right, sirs, unless you are for Manchester and Scotland."
But there was that about the village which made each pull on his bridle rein. It was as still as a churchyard. Every house door was closed, and at the little windows could be seen white faces and timid eyes. The inn door had been smashed and the panes in its front windows, and a cask in the middle of the street still trickled beer from its spigot. It might have been the night after a fair, but instead it was broad daylight, and the after-taste was less of revelry than of panic.
The three men slowly and silently moved down the street, and the heart of one of them was the prey of a leaping terror. Scared eyes, like those of rabbits in a snare, were watching them from the windows. In the inn-yard there was no sign of a soul, except the village idiot who was playing ninepins with bottles. Midwinter hammered on a back door, but there was no answer. But as they turned again towards the street they were aware of a mottled face that watched them from a side window. Apparently the face was satisfied with their appearance, for the window was slightly opened and a voice cried "Hist!" Alastair turned and saw a troubled fat countenance framed in the sash of a pantry casement.
"Be the salvages gone, gen'lemen?" the voice asked. "The murderin' heathen has blooded my best cow to make their beastly porridge."
"We have but now arrived," said Alastair. "We are for Derby. Pray, sir, what pestilence has stricken this place?"
"For Derby," said the man. "Ye'll find a comfortable town, giving thanks to Almighty God and cleansin' the lousiness of its habitation. What pestilence, says you? A pestilence, verily, good sir, for since cockcrow the rebel army has been meltin' away northwards like the hosts o' Sennacherib before the blast of the Lord. Horse and foot and coaches, and the spawn o' Rome himself in the midst o' them. Not but what he be a personable young man, with his white face and pretty white wig, and his sad smile, and where he was the rebels marched like an army. But there was acres of breechless rabbledom at his heels that thieved like pyots. Be they all passed, think ye?"
The chill at Alastair's heart turned to ice.
"But the Prince is in Derby," he stammered. "He marches south."
"Not so, young sir," said the man. "I dunno the why of it, but since cockcrow he and his rascality has been fleein' north. Old England's too warm for the vermin and they're hastin' back to their bogs."