Goldstein, knowing this, drew them up in line. And first he stormed at them, without avail; for they were harder swearers than himself, and missed that crisp, adventurous flow of tongue which comes to gentlemen-officers at these times. So then, seeing them mutinous and like to get further out of hand the more he stormed, he grinned pleasantly at them. “My orders from the Duke,” he said, “are to capture the Pretender, dead or alive, before he gets back to Scotland. There’s thirty thousand pounds on his head. He rides alone behind his army, as you heard just now, and we shall share the plunder.” The appeal went home this time, for Goldstein knew his men. They bivouacked that night four miles wide of Macclesfield, in Cheshire, and the next day--the sun showing his face at last through tattered, grey-blue clouds--they came in sight of the Stuart army. They had crossed by a bridle-track which, from a little knoll, gave them a view of the long, straight highway that stretched, a grey, rain-sodden ribbon, between the empty fields. They saw kilted men go by, and horsemen riding at a foot pace; and they heard the pipes that could not anyway be still, as they played that air of “The Flowers of the Forest” which was both dirge and battle-song. And Goldstein, somewhere under the thick hide he carried like a suit of armour, was stirred by the strength and forlornness of it all. He saw great-hearted men go by, shoulders carried square against retreat, and, in some crude, muddled fashion, he understood that they were of fibre stronger than his own. He sat there in saddle, moodily watching the horse and foot go by. There was no chance as yet to pick off stragglers, for the army kept in close order; yet Goldstein waited after the last company had ridden by--they chanced to be the MacDonald clan--as if he looked for some happening on the empty road below. And presently, while his men began to fidget under this inaction in the rain, two horsemen came round the bend of the highway. The Prince and Sir Jasper were riding together still, but were talking no longer of the Rising and retreat. Instead, they were laughing at some tale the Prince had lately brought from France; and Sir Jasper was bettering French wit by a story, rough and racy and smelling of the soil, which he had heard at the last meet of hounds in Lancashire before he set out on this sterner ride. For women, when they are heart-sick, find ease in rending characters to shreds, especially sister-women’s; but men need the honest ease of laughter, whether the jest be broad or subtle. “Sir Jasper,” said the Prince, “you’re vastly likeable. When I come to my own, you shall dine with me and set the table in a roar. Meanwhile--a pinch of snuff with you.”