“You look gay, master,” said Simon Foster, meeting him down the corridor. “Well, it’s each man to his taste; but I shouldn’t have said, like, there was much to hearten a man these days.”
“You’ve not sought in the right place,” laughed the master.
And then Simon grinned, foolishly and pleasantly. For he remembered how he had helped Martha the dairymaid to milk the cows not long ago. “I’m not complaining,” he said, guardedly.
CHAPTER XIII
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.