THE RIDING IN
SIR JASPER, sure of his mare, had ridden hard toward Windyhough. He
had promised, in good faith, that he would lead Captain Goldstein on
the road, but he had not passed his word that he would ride at the
pace of heavy cavalry. He heard the bullets singing, right and left
and overhead, after Goldstein’s call to fire; but the lean, hill-bred
mare was going swiftly under him, and it was only five miles home to
Windyhough. There had been a sharp pain in his left shoulder, a stab
as if a red-hot rapier had pierced him, in the midst of the crackling
musket-din behind him; but that was forgotten.
The mare galloped forward gamely. She was untouched, save for a bullet
that had grazed her flank and quickened her temper to good purpose.
Sir Jasper’s spirits rose, as the remembered landmarks swept past him
on the wind. His mind, his vision, his grip on forward hope, were
singularly clear and strong. This was his holiday, after the sickness
of retreat.
He had gained a mile by now. His pursuers, riding jaded horses,
were out of sight and hearing behind the hump of Haggart Rise. He
remembered, once again, the Prince’s figure, riding solitary on the
Langton road; and he was glad that these one-and-twenty louts were
being led wide of their real quarry. And then he forgot the Stuarts,
and recalled his wife’s face, the tenderness he had for her, the peril
he was bringing north to Windyhough. Behind him was Captain Goldstein,
of unknown ancestry and doubtful morals, and with him a crowd of
raffish foreigners, who would follow any cause that promised licence
and good pay.
Sir Jasper saw the danger plainly. He was thinking, not of the
Prince’s honour now, but of his wife’s. He knew that he must win
to Windyhough. And still his spirits rose; for this was danger,
undisguised and facing him across the sleety, rugged hills he loved.
Windyhough had stout walls, and powder and ball, and loopholes facing
to the four points of the compass; Simon Foster would be there, and
Rupert could pull a trigger; it would be in the power of this little
garrison to hold the house, to pick off, one by one, this company of
Goldstein’s until the rest took panic and left it to its loneliness.
It was a hazard to his liking, and Sir Jasper’s face was keen and ruddy
as he clattered down and up the winding track. He was a short mile now
from Windyhough, and he eased his mare because she showed signs of
trouble.
“We’ve time and to spare, lass,” he muttered, patting her neck. “No
need to kill you for the Cause.”
And then--from the midst of his eagerness and hope--a sickness crept
over the horseman’s eyes. His left shoulder was on fire, it seemed;
and, glancing down, he saw dimly that his riding-coat was splashed with
crimson. The mare, feeling no command go out across the reins, yielded
to her own weariness, and halted suddenly. Sir Jasper tried to urge her
forward; but his hand was weak on the bridle, and the grassy track, the
hills, the flakes of sleet, were phantoms moving through a nightmare
prison.
He had come to the gate of Intake Farm, and the farmer--Ben Shackleton
by name--was striding up the road to gather in some ewes from the
higher lands before the snow began to drift in earnest.
“Lord love you, sir!” he said nonchalantly, catching Sir Jasper as he
slid helplessly from saddle. “Lord love you, sir, you’re bleeding like
a pig!”
“It’s nothing, Ben.” Even now Sir Jasper kept his spacious contempt of
pain, his instinct to hide a wound as if it were a crime. “Help me to
horse again. My wife needs me--needs me, Ben.”
Then he yielded to sheer sickness for a moment; and Ben Shackleton, who
was used to helping lame cattle, grew brisk and business-like. “Here,
William!” he called to a shepherd who was slouching in the mistal-yard.
“Come lend a hand, thou idle-bones! Here’s master ta’en a hurt, and
he’s a bulkier man than me. We’ve got to help him indoors to the
lang-settle.”
Sir Jasper, by grace of long training, was able to keep his weakness
off for a space of time that seemed to him interminable. He saw
Windyhough at the mercy of these ragabouts of Goldstein’s--saw his wife
standing, proud, disdainful, pitiful, while they bandied jests from
mouth to mouth.
“It’s nothing, Ben, I tell you!” he muttered testily. “Help me to
saddle.”
He staggered forward, tried to mount, fell back again into Ben’s arms.
And still he would not yield. And then at last he knew that Windyhough
would not see him to-day, if ever again; and the pity he had for his
wife, left defenceless there by his own doing, was like a knife cutting
deep and ceaselessly into his living flesh.
He was in torment, so that his wound, save that it hampered him, seemed
a trivial matter. To Ben Shackleton and the shepherd all passed in a
few minutes; they did not guess how long the interval was to Sir Jasper
between this going down to hell and the first ray of hope that crossed
the blackness.
Sir Jasper passed a hand across his eyes. If only he could understand
this sudden hope, the meaning of it--if his wits were less
muddled--there was a chance yet for Windyhough. Then he remembered
Rupert--his son, to whom he had told a fairy-tale of gunpowder and
ball, and the defence of the old house--and a weight seemed lifted
from him. He recalled how he had said to the boy’s mother that Rupert
was leal and stubborn at the soul of him, however it might be with
his capacity for every-day affairs. He smiled, so that Ben and the
shepherd, looking on, thought that he was fey; for he was thinking how
weak in body he himself was, how, like Rupert, he had only his leal
soul to depend upon.
Then, for the last time before he surrendered to the weakness that was
gripping him in earnest, he had a moment of borrowed vigour. “Ben,” he
said, in the old tone of command, “you’ve your horse ready saddled?”
“Aye, sir!” answered the other, bewildered but obedient.
“Ride hard for Windyhough. There’s a troop of the enemy close behind.
Gallop, Ben, and tell my son”--he steadied himself, with a hand on the
shepherd’s shoulder--“tell him that he must hold the house until I
come, that I _trust him_, that he knows where the powder is stored. Oh,
you fool, you stand gaping! And there is urgency.”
“I’m loath to leave you, Sir Jasper----”
“You’ll be less loath, Ben,” broke in the other, with a fine rallying
to his shattered strength, “if I bring the blunt side of my sword about
your ears.”
So Ben Shackleton, troubled and full of doubt, got to horse, following
that instinct of obedience which the master had learned before he
taught it to his men, and rode up the windy track. Sir Jasper, when he
had seen him top the rise and disappear in the yellow, dreary haze,
leaned heavily against the shepherd.
“Now for the lang-settle, since needs must,” he said, with a last bid
for gaiety. “I can cross the mistal-yard, I think, with a little help.
So, shepherd! It heaves like a ship in storm; it heaves, I tell you;
but my son out yonder--my son at Windyhough--oh, the dear God knows,
shepherd, that I taught him--taught him how to die, I hope!”
They crossed the mistal-yard, blundering as they went; and somehow the
shepherd got Sir Jasper into the cheery, firelit house-place, and on to
the lang-settle. Ben Shackleton’s wife was baking an apple-pasty when
they came in, and glanced up. If she felt surprise, she showed none,
but wiped the flour from her arms with her apron, and crossed to the
settle. She looked at Sir Jasper as he lay in a white and deathlike
swoon, and saw the blood oozing from his wounded shoulder.
Shackleton’s wife was quick of tongue and quick of her hands. “Take thy
girt lad’s foolishness out o’ doors, William!” she snapped. “I know how
to dress a wound by this time, or should do, seeing how oft Shackleton
lames himself by using farm-tools carelessly. Shackleton has a gift
that way.”
The shepherd passed out into the windy, cheerless out-o’-doors. He
knew the mistress in this humour, and preferred a chill breeze from
the east. As he crossed the mistal-yard he saw a company of horsemen,
riding jaded nags; and they were grouped about Sir Jasper’s mare, that,
too tired to move, was whinnying for her absent master.
“Hi, my man!” said Goldstein. “Whose mare is this?”
“Sir Jasper Royd’s,” the shepherd answered. His voice was low and
pleasant, as the way of Lancashire folk is when they prepare to meet a
bullying intrusion.
“Then he’s here?”
“No,” said the shepherd, after picking a straw from the yard and
chewing it with bucolic, grave simplicity. “No. Sir Jasper changed
horses here, and rode for Windyhough.”
“How far away?”
The shepherd thought of Sir Jasper, lying yonder on the lang-settle. He
was touched, in some queer way, by the master’s gallantry in the dark
hour of retreat. He was so moved that he was brought, against his will,
to tell a lie and stick to it.
“Oh, six mile or so, as the crow flies--more by road,” he said
nonchalantly. “Ye’d best be getting forrard, if ye want to win there by
nightfall.”
Goldstein mistook this country yokel’s simplicity for honest dullness.
Men more in touch with the Lancashire character had done as much before
his time, especially when horse-dealing was in progress on market
days. “You look honest, my man,” he said, stooping to slip a coin
into William’s hand. “Tell me what sort of road it is from here to
Windyhough.”
“Well, as for honest,” said the other, with the vacant grin that was
expected of him, “I may be honest as my neighbours, if that be much to
boast of; and it’s a terrible ill-found road, for sure. Best be jogging
forrard, I tell ye.”
“It’s cursed luck, men,” said Goldstein, spurring his horse into the
semblance of a trot; “but we’re hunting big game this time. A mile or
two needn’t matter. There’s the Pretender at Windyhough, remember, and
a nice bit of money to be earned.”
The shepherd watched them over the hilltop, then glanced at the piece
of silver lying in his palm. There was so much he might do with this
money--might buy himself a mug or two of ale at the tavern in the
hollow, just by way of changing the crown-piece into smaller coin--and
he was “feeling as if he needed warming up, like, after all this plaguy
wind.”
He glanced at the coin again, with a wistfulness that was almost
passionate. Then he spat on it, and threw it into the refuse from the
mistal lying close behind.
“Nay, I’ll have honest ale, or none,” he growled, and crossed quietly
to the house, and stood on the threshold, looking in.
He saw Shackleton’s wife bending over Sir Jasper, who lay in a swoon so
helpless and complete that it was like a child’s sleep--a sleep tired
with the day’s endeavours, yet tranquil and unfearful for the morrow’s
safety.
“Oh, it is thee, is’t?” said Shackleton’s wife, facing round. “Well,
he’s doing nicely--or was, till ye let in all this wind that’s fit to
rouse a body from his grave.”
“Well-a-day, mistress,” said the shepherd, with a pleasant grin, “if
that’s your humour, I’m for the mistal-yard again. It’s rare and quiet
out there.”
“Nay, now,” she said, glancing up with sharp, imperious kindliness.
“Shut t’ door, lad, and sit thee down by th’ peats, and keep a still
tongue i’ thy head. I wouldn’t turn a dog out into all this storm
that’s brewing up. And, besides, Sir Jasper’s mending. I’d doubts of
him at first; but he’s sleeping like a babby now. We’ll keep watch
together, till Shackleton comes home fro’ his ride to Windyhough. He’ll
not be long, unless the maids there ’tice him to gossip and strong ale.”
“I might smoke, mistress--just, like, to pass the time?”
“Aye, smoke,” snapped Shackleton’s wife. “Men were always like bairns,
needing their teething-rings, in one shape or another.”
“Better than spoiling their tempers,” said the shepherd. And he lit his
pipe from a live peat, and said no more; for he was wise, as men go.