Murray grew fidgety. Hot temper he knew, and suavity he knew, but not this subtle mixture of the two. “Thank our good luck for that. They say Heaven guards all fools.” “But more especially all true believers. That is my point. We’re adventurers, Lord Murray, not seasoned troops. We ride by faith, we ride for love of the Prince, of what he stands for--and we have come through odds that cautious generals would shirk--but we are here, in Staffordshire, and the London road, I say, is open to us.” “Well, then, it’s a sermon, after all, you wish to preach. The clergy, my good Sir Jasper, are wiser than you; they preach between four snug walls that shut off this cursed wind.” “Not a sermon,” said Sir Jasper doggedly. “I preach common sense, to one whose faith is dulled by tactics.” Murray lost the bullying air that had carried him fairly well through life. He felt dwarfed, ashamed, by some quality in Sir Jasper that overrode his self-importance and trampled it in the mire. “Sir Jasper,” he asked sullenly, “may I ask you for plain speech? What is your quarrel with me?” “You ask for plain speech? And you’ll not ask Mr. Johnstone to ride out of earshot? No? Then he, too, shall listen to plain speech.” There was a moment’s silence. Murray wondered at the tense, lean carriage of this Lancashire squire, whose loyalty had been a jest among the cynics of the army, but for the others a steady beacon-light. He wondered more that Sir Jasper’s face, grey and lined a while since, was comely now in its heat and youthfulness. “I say--deliberately, my lord--that you’re the Judas in this enterprise. I’m getting old, as I said, and I’ve looked about me during these last days, and I speak of what I know.” His temper cooled suddenly, but not his purpose. There was no pleasure now in lashing Murray--only the need to do his duty, as if he were bidden to shoot a deserter, made up of the same human clay and the same human frailty as he who pressed the trigger. “The Highlanders--the rank and file--you cannot reach. But their leaders, my lord Murray--you know as well as I that you’re at work each day undermining the faith of better men and cleaner-hearted soldiers than yourself. It’s no secret that you wish to retreat----” “To retreat, the better to spring forward,” put in Murray, with half-hearted effrontery. “To _retreat_, I said. The Prince goes forward always. It is his habit. You’ve won many of the Highland chiefs to your side, but the best of them you cannot tempt.” “You are curiously exact in your knowledge of my doings,” sneered Murray. “I made it my business since the day I first set eyes on you at Langton. That is neither here nor there. And yet there are some of us you cannot tempt. The Duke of Perth----” “Yes, he, too, is mediæval,” snarled Murray. “You and he are out of date, Sir Jasper, and I tell you so.” Again young Johnstone laughed, though at heart his sympathy and liking went out to this queer, downright squire from Lancashire.