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.”