"Welcome, Alastair Maclean," he said. "I heard of you in these parts and hoped for a meeting."
"From whom?"
"One whom you call the Spainneach. He left me this morning to go into Derbyshire."
The name stirred a question.
"Had he news?" Alastair asked. "When I last saw you you prophesied failure. Are you still of that mind?"
"I do not prophesy, but this I say—that since I saw you your chances and your perils have grown alike. Your Cause is on the razor-edge and you yourself may have the deciding."
IX Old England
"Yesterday morning your Prince was encamped outside Carlisle. By now the place may have fallen."
"Who told you?" Alastair asked.
"I have my own messengers who journey in Old England," said Midwinter. "Consider, Captain Maclean. As a bird flies, the place is not a hundred and fifty miles distant, and no mile is without its people. A word cried to a traveller is taken up by another and another till the man who rubs down a horse at night in a Chester inn-yard will have news of what befell at dawn on the Scotch Border. My way is quicker than post-horses. . . . But the name of inn reminds me. You have the look of a fasting man."