This sudden news of his total defeat and downfall was therefore a heavy blow, since it turned the whole forces of the Government upon ourselves.
'Have you the news from a trusty source ?' asked Decimus Saxon, after a long silence.
'It is beyond all doubt or question,' Master Stephen Timewell answered.
'Yet I can well understand your surprise, for the Duke had trusty councillors with him.

There was Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth--' 'All talk and no fight,' said Saxon.
'And Richard Rumbold.' 'All fight and no talk,' quoth our companion.

'He should, methinks, have rendered a better account of himself.' 'Then there was Major Elphinstone.' 'A bragging fool!' cried Saxon.' 'And Sir John Cochrane.' 'A captious, long-tongued, short-witted sluggard,' said the soldier of fortune.

'The expedition was doomed from the first with such men at its head.

Yet I had thought that could they have done nought else, they might at least have flung themselves into the mountain country, where these bare-legged caterans could have held their own amid their native clouds and mists.