Murray strode forward impatiently, turned back, regarded the other with an evasive glance. It was plain that, whatever was his errand down Derby’s rainy main-street, he brought a harassed mind to it. “You may be proved, sir, sooner than you think. Suppose this Rising failed. Suppose we were crushed like a hazel-nut between these three converging armies; suppose the Prince were taken, and we with him, would you stand on Tower Hill and say the dawn was coming?” “My lord Murray,” the other answered gravely, “we none of us know, until the hour, whether our courage will prove equal to our needs. But I say this. If I’m the man I’ve drilled myself to be, if I can keep my eyes clear as they are now--I will stand with you on Tower Hill, and you will know that the dawn is very near to me.” “Gad, sir, you’re tough!” growled Murray. Piety had shown to him till now as a dour, forbidding thing that made fools or fanatics of men. He had not understood--though the Highlanders should have taught him so much--that it could be instinct with romance, and warmth, and well-being, making endeavour and sacrifice a soldier’s road to the steep hilltops of the certain dawn. “I’ve need to be,” said Sir Jasper, with the same unalterable simplicity. “There are too many weak-kneed folk with us.” There was a pause, and he looked Murray in the face as he had done just before their duel in the wood. “You go to the Prince’s Council?” he went on. “Well, since you’ve guessed as much--yes.” “And you will air your knowledge of arithmetic--will argue that all’s lost already according to the known rules of warfare. No, you need not disclaim. We know your mind. My lord, I am in command only of a ragged company from Lancashire, and not privileged to share your Council. But I ask you to listen to a plain gentleman’s view of this adventure. We follow no known rules, save that the straight road is the readiest. We have one thought only--of advance. There is the London road open to us, and no other, and God forgive you if you sound the note of retreat that will ruin all.” “My good Sir Jasper, my mind was made up long ago. The world’s as it’s made, and battle is a crude reckoning up of men, and arms, and odds----”