Midwinter by John Buchan

The night was growing colder, and the moon in her first quarter was sinking among heavy woolpack clouds. The Spainneach's whisper had been enough for Alastair, who in his sojourn at the Sleeping Deer had made himself familiar with the neighbourhood, after the fashion of a campaigner who may soon have to fight in it. The road led them past the silent hostelry, and then left the vale and struck over a succession of low ridges to another, where a parallel stream of the hills broadened as it neared the lowlands. The men did not spare their horses, and, as the hooves clattered on the bare ribs of rock which crossed the track sparks like wildfire flew behind them.

Alastair's mood was as dark as the weather. The sight of Claudia, babbling of her lover, had for a moment converted him to Johnson's view. In a fine impulse of quixotry he had ridden from Brightwell, his purpose vague towards Sir John Norreys but determined in the service of the lady. If her love was pledged irrevocably to a knave and fool, then be it his business to keep the said knave from greater folly, and see that disillusion did not shatter a gentle heart. For a little he felt the glow of self-conscious worth, and the pleasant melancholy which is born of approving self-pity.