“You will want to share the thirty thousand pounds with us?” said Goldstein, feeling now that his men were with him, answering to his brutal jests. “You’ve saved your skin, sir, and your house of Windyhough; and you need a little ready money in your pocket. Well, we shall see.” Sir Jasper was suddenly ashamed of what these men were thinking of him. Sensitive, alert, he gauged the meaning of Goldstein’s insolence, of the troopers’ careless laughter. They fancied this was the stuff the Prince’s gentlemen were made of--to talk loftily one moment, and the next to play the traitor and the coward. They believed, these shock-headed rascals gathered from the foreign kennels, that a gentleman of Lancashire could rate his own life dearer than the Stuart’s, could afterwards accept blood-money. And then, because he knew himself, Sir Jasper shrugged his shoulders, as if to rid them of an evil burden. “We ride forward,” he said, moving from the quarry-face and trotting to the head of the company. “That is so,” said Goldstein, with rough banter; “and remember, sir, that your honour--your Stuart honour--is guarded by one-and-twenty muskets, ready primed.” Again the troopers laughed; and again Sir Jasper’s instinct was to vindicate himself. Then he remembered the dogged patience of another who rode--in safety, so far--at the rear-guard of his army. And he disdained the ill-favoured mob behind him. They went up and down the bridle-track that threaded this white land of hills and cold austerity. It was a track whose every turning was a landmark to Sir Jasper, reminding him of other days. He had ridden it when he went hunting--when he went south to the wooing; when, afterwards, he needed respite from the lap-dog follies of his wife, from the knowledge that his heir was never likely, in this world, at least, to prove himself a man of action. This lane was thick with memories for him; but never, until now, had he ridden it a fugitive. He thought of Derby and the sick retreat. He thought of many might-have-beens, and because the pain of it was so sharp and urgent he gathered up his courage. He held the Faith; he was strong and stubborn; and out of this windy ride to his own home he plucked new resolution.