“Well, either way, it’s laughable. The Elector bars their way at Finchley with ten thousand men; it sounds formidable, Goldstein, eh? but we know what a rotten nut that is to crack. And I could not overtake them; they march with such cursed speed; and poor old Marshal Wade, supposed to be converging from the north, is always a week late for the fair. They held the cards; and, Goldstein, are you jesting when you say that they’ve retreated?” “I never jest, your Grace. Derby is empty, I say; and it is not my place to suggest that you order boot-and-saddle to be sounded.” “No,” snarled Cumberland, facing round on this officer whom he was wont to kick or caress, according to his mood. “No, Goldstein, it is not your place. Your place? You’d be housed in the kennels if you had your proper lodgings. I rescued you from that sort of neighbourhood, because you seemed to have the makings of a soldier in you.” “They’ll retreat with speed, as they advanced. The wind’s in the feet of these Highlanders,” said Goldstein stubbornly. “We shall catch them up. To-day I’ve much to do, Goldstein--an assignation with the miller’s buxom daughter, a mile outside the camp; she’s waiting for me now.” “She’ll wait, sir, till your return. You have that gift with women.” Cumberland stirred lazily, got to his feet. He was pleased by this flattery that was clumsy as his own big, unwholesome body. “She’ll wait, you think? Well, let her wait. Women are best trained that way. There, Goldstein, I was only jesting. You broke the good news too sharply. They’ve retreated? Say it again. Oh, the fools these Stuarts are! I must drink another measure to their health.” A little later the whole Hanoverian army moved north. Cumberland was keen and happy, because he saw butchery and renown within his grasp. Through days and weeks of hardship over sloppy roads he had hunted the Stuart whom he loathed, had found him constantly elude pursuit. And now, it seemed, his hour of triumph was at hand. And triumph, to his Grace of Cumberland, meant always, not pardon of his enemies, but revenge. “They leave us a plain track to follow,” he said to Goldstein as, near midday, after riding slantwise from their camp to strike the northern road, eight miles north of Derby, they came from muddied bridle-paths to a highway that was deep in trampled slush. “They were nimble in advance, but retreat will have another tale to tell. We shall catch them to-morrow, or the next day after.” And Goldstein agreed; but he did not tell all he knew--how he had learned from the Derby townsfolk that the Prince rode far behind his army, attended only by one horseman. Instead, he spoke of the commission he held, as officer in command of a roving troop of cavalry, and asked if he might be free to harass the retreat. “We ride lighter than your main body, your Highness, and could pick off stragglers as well as bring news of the route these ragged Pretender’s men are taking.”