Some proclamation or other was being made at the Cross of Edinburgh.  A trumpet blew and the street was filled with footsteps.

“The laird of Glenfernie,” said the lawyer, “has joined, I hear, Sir John Cope at Dunbar.  It is not impossible that you may have speech together from opposing battle-lines.”  He poured wine.  “My bag of news is empty, Captain Rullock.”

Ian rose from his seat.  His face was gray and twisted, his voice, when he spoke, hollow, low, and dry.  “I must go now to Lord George Murray....  It was all news, Mr. Wotherspoon.  I—­What are words, anyhow?  Give you good day, sir!”

Mr. Wotherspoon, standing in his door, watched him down the stair and forth from the house.  “He goes brawly!  How much is night, and how much streak of dawn?”

* * * * *

Sir John Cope, King George’s general in Scotland, had but a small army.  It was necessary in the highest degree that Prince Charles Edward should meet and defeat this force before it was enlarged, before from England came more and more regular troops....  A battle won meant prestige gained, the coming over of doubting thousands, an echo into England that would bring the definite accession of great Tory names.  Cope and his twenty-five hundred men, regulars and volunteers, approaching Edinburgh from the east, took position near the village of Prestonpans.  On the morning of the 20th of September out moved to meet him the Prince and Lord George Murray, behind them less than two thousand men.

By afternoon the two forces confronted each the other; but Cope had chosen well, the right position.  The sea guarded one flank, a deep and wide field ditch full of water the other.  In his rear were stone walls, and before him a wide marsh.  The Jacobite strength halted, reconnoitered, must perforce at last come to a standstill before Cope’s natural fortress.  There was little artillery, no great number of horse.  Even the bravest of the brave, Highland or Lowland, might draw back from the thought of trying to cross that marsh, of meeting the moat-like ditch under Cope’s musket-fire.  Sunset came amid perturbation, a sense of check, impending disaster.

Ian Rullock, acting for the moment as aide-de-camp, had spent the day on horseback.  Released in the late afternoon, lodged in a hut at the edge of the small camp, he used the moment’s leisure to climb a small hill and at its height to throw himself down beside a broken cairn.  He shut his eyes, but after a few moments opened them and gazed upon the camp of Cope, covering also but a little space, so small were the armies.  His lips parted.

“Well, Old Steadfast, and what if you are there, waiting?...”

The sun sank.  A faint red light diffused itself, then faded into brown dusk.  He rose and went down into the camp.  In the brows of many there might be read depression, uncertainty.  But in open places fires had been built, and about several of these Highlanders were dancing to the screaming of their pipes.  Rullock bent his steps to headquarters.  An officer whom he knew, coming forth, drew him aside in excitement.