And out of doors Goldstein was no less impatient. He did not know that he was faced by a garrison so slender; for there is a strength about a house that has shown one bold front to attack, and afterwards gives no hint of the numbers hidden by its walls. Already two were dead, and two badly wounded, from among his company of one-and-twenty; and the rest were hungry, body-sore, and in evil temper. It was no time to force an entry. Better wait till daylight, get his men out of gunshot, and find food for them somewhere in the well-stocked farm-steadings. They got round to the mistals on the west side of the house--moving close along the walls, afraid of every window that might hide a musket--and found Sir Jasper’s well-tended cattle mooing softly to each other as they rattled their stall-chains. The warm, lush smell of the byres suggested milk to Goldstein, and, since stronger drink seemed out of reach, he welcomed any liquor that might take the sharpest edge of hunger from his men. He bade them milk the cows; and into the midst of this tragic happening that had come to Windyhough there intruded a frank, diverting comedy, as the way of life is. Not one of them had milked a cow before, or guessed that Martha had been busy with her pail already; but each thought it a simple matter, needing no more than a man’s touch on the udders. They found a milking-stool abandoned long ago by Martha because one leg was unstable, and one by one they tried their luck. The first who tried was kicked clean off the stool; the next man made a beginning so foolish and unhandy that the roan cow looked back at him in simple wonderment; and Goldstein, a better officer than his men understood, welcomed the laughter and uproar that greeted every misguided effort to fill the milking-pail. They had not laughed once since Derby, these men who were getting out of hand. By and by the sport palled on them; and Goldstein, faced once again by their hunger and unrest, found all his senses curiously alert. From the laithe, next door to the byres, he heard the bleating of sheep in-driven yesterday from the high lands when the weather-wise were sure that snow was coming. “There’s food yonder, lads,” he said sharply. “Drink can wait.” He opened the laithe door, stood back a while from the steam that greeted him--the oily heat of sheep close packed together. The moonlight and the snow filtered in together through the big, open doors as he ran forward, caught a ewe by the neck, and dragged her out. And they dispatched her quickly; for butchery came easy to their hands. A little while after, as Rupert stood at his post by the window overlooking the main door--waiting for something to happen, as of old--he heard a slow, heavy footfall down the corridor. A blurred figure of a man stood in the doorway--for the moon’s light was dim and snowy--and the master could only guess from the square, massive bulk who was this night visitor.