“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.”