“Nay, I married her,” said the Highlander, with a gravity complete and childlike. “She changed her mind in a week, and we’d a bonnie wooing; and since then she’s led me the de’il’s own dance ower dyke and ditch. And I used to get up to the hills and play the pipes, all by my lone among the whaups and eagles, and wish myself unwedded. And then the Prince called me, and I had to follow; and ’twas then I knew I loved her very well.” He paused for a moment to glance into the mirror which, to him, was the pool in Skye where the rowans waved above the stream. “And now I’m missing her, and the pipes go skirling, skirling, and there’s no man at all to fight with. It’s thirsty I am to whet my claymore for a while, and then get home again to the de’il’s dance Jock Sinclair’s lass has waiting for me up in Skye.” Sir Jasper, by and by, rode back in search of his own company of horse, and his thoughts ran hither and thither. This Highlander, with the eyes and the sinewy, lean shoulders that any man or woman might approve, this passionate and simple child who went down the highway hugging his mirror because it brought Skye and the wooingtide to mind--he was no more to these Midlands than a savage from the northern wilds. “They feed on English babies”--the lie set abroad by agents of a king who doubted his own cause, the lie repeated by a lazy, unkempt woman at the village ford, was chilling Sir Jasper now, though not long ago he had chidden the Prince for the same fault. It was in the breed of him to hate a lie at sight as healthy men loathe vermin. And yet they were powerless to meet this stealthy mode of warfare, because the Prince’s men, with all their faults, were accustomed only to the open fight and honest tactics. Then, little by little, Sir Jasper sought for the cause of all this unrest and unhappiness that was dogging the steps of an army that had fought Prestonpans, that had taken Carlisle, that had marched through half England with a security which in itself was triumph. They were heading straight for London. The men, undaunted by forced marches, were in keen fighting temper, asking constantly for the enemy to show himself. Fortune was with them; the glow of old allegiance was with them. Each league they covered was so much added proof to the waverers that they followed a winning cause. And yet somehow a chill was settling on them all, a cold, intangible distrust. Sir Jasper felt it against his will. The Prince was feeling it.