“Lord Murray ails me,” snapped the other. “He’s like a pestilence among us.”
“You’re precise. He is a pestilence. If we could persuade Marshal Wade--or George--to take him as a gift, why, we’d reach London sooner. Give away a bad horse, if you can’t sell him, and let him throw the other man--there’s wisdom in the old saws yet.”
“I’m ashamed, Demaine,” said Sir Jasper, turning suddenly. “You gave Maurice sound advice just now, when he was headstrong and asking for a battle as children cry for toys. And yet it was I who needed your reproof.”
And then he told of his meeting with Lord Murray on the road, of the fury that he could not check, of the duel in the wood. His tale was told so simply, with such diffidence and surety that he had been in the wrong, that Squire Demaine laughed gently.
“There’s nothing to your discredit, surely, in all this,” he said--“except that you spared the Prince’s evil-wisher. Gad! I wish my blade had been as near Murray’s heart. I----”
“You would have done as I did. We know each other’s weaknesses, Demaine--that is why our friendship goes so deep, may be. You’d have done as I did. We relent--as soon as we are sure that we have proved our case--have proved it to the hilt.”
So then Squire Demaine blustered a little, and denied the charge, then broke into a laugh that was heard far back along the line of march.
“Squire’s found his hunting-laugh again,” said one Lancashire yeoman to his neighbour.
“Aye. We need it, lad,” the other answered. “There’s been no hunting these last days.”
The Squire himself rode silently beside his friend, then turned in saddle. “Yes, we relent,” he said, with his happy-go-lucky air. “Is that our weakness, Royd--or our strength?”
“I do not know.” Sir Jasper’s smile was grave and questioning. “The devil’s sitting on my shoulders and I do not know. A week since I’d have said that faith----”
“Aye, faith. We hold it fast--we know it true--but, to be honest, I’ve lost my bearings. I’d have dealt more gently with Maurice if I’d not shared his own longing for a fight.”
“Faith is a practical affair.” Sir Jasper was cold and self-reliant again, as when he had fought with Murray in the wood. “When the road is at its worst, and sleet blows up from the east, and we ask only to creep into the nearest ditch, and die as cowards do--when all seems lost. Demaine--surely, if faith means anything at all, it means----”