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.