He was not alone. It was an open secret that, behind the closed doors of the Council Chamber, men were deciding whether retreat or advance should be the day’s marching-order. Discipline was ended for awhile. The Highlanders could not rest in their lodgings, but stood about the streets in crowds, or in little knots, seeking what make-believe Derby town could give them of the free air and the big, roomy hills that, in gladness or in sorrow, were needful to them as the food they ate. The townsfolk, stirred from their sleepiness by all this hubbub of tattered, rain-sodden men who were bent on some errand dimly understood, mixed with the soldiery, and asked foolish questions, and got few answers, because the most part of the army spoke only Gaelic. The whole town, though men’s voices were low and hushed, was alive with that stress of feeling which is like a brewing thunderstorm. Men gathered into crowds, saying little, affect each other, till each feels in his own person the sum total of his neighbour’s restlessness; and for that reason armies yield suddenly to a bewildering panic, or to a selfless courage that leads to high victories in face of odds. The wind swept down the streets of Derby. The rain was tireless. It did not matter. To Sir Jasper--to the men of Lancashire, and the Highlandmen who were old to sorrow of the hills--there was nothing mattered, save the news for which they waited. And the time dragged on. And still the Council doors were shut. Then, late in the afternoon, Lord Murray came out, and walked up the street, with half a dozen of his intimates beside him. And, a little later, Lochiel came out, alone, and, after him, the Duke of Perth, alone. And Sir Jasper, standing near the Council Chamber, knew at a glance which side had won the day. Last of all--a long while after, so it seemed to Sir Jasper--the Prince crossed the threshold, stood for a moment, as if stunned, with the rain and the spiteful wind against his cheek. He was like one grown old before his time--one bent and broken up by some disaster that had met his manhood by the way. Then, as Lochiel had done when he went down the street to this unhappy Council, the Prince lifted his head, squared his shoulders to the wind, and stepped out between the silent bystanders as if life were a jest to him. So then Sir Jasper was sure that retreat was the order of the day; was sure, too, that his Prince had never shown so simple and conspicuous a gallantry as he did now, when he moved through the people as if he went to victory, not to a heartache that would last him till he lay, dead and at peace, beside his Stuart kinsmen. At dawn of the next day the retreat began. It was a red dawn and stormy, though the rain had ceased, and the wisp of a dying moon was lying on her back above the dismal housetops.