Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: "Old Squire Metcalf, as he went out to meet him, broke
into a roar of laughter." (Page 84.)]
THE WHITE
HORSES
BY
HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE
_Author of "Ricroft of Withers," "The Open Road,"
"A Chateau in Picardy," "The Strength of the Hills,"
etc._
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO
1916
To my Sister's Memory
*CONTENTS.*
CHAPTER
I.--WHO RIDES FOR THE KING?
II.--SKIPTON-IN-CRAVEN
III.--SOME MEN OF FAIRFAX'S
IV.--THE LAST LAUGH
V.--THE LADY OF RIPLEY
VI.--HOW MICHAEL CAME TO YORK
VII.--A HALT AT KNARESBOROUGH
VIII.--HOW THEY SOUGHT RUPERT
IX.--THE LOYAL CITY
X.--THE RIDING IN
XI.--BANBURY CAKES
XII.--PAGEANTRY
XIII.--THE LADY OF LATHOM
XIV.--A STANLEY FOR THE KING
XV.--TWO JOLLY PURITANS
XVI.--THE SCOTS AT MICKLEGATE
XVII.--PRAYER, AND THE BREWING STORM
XVIII.--MARSTON MOOR
XIX.--WILSTROP WOOD
XX.--THE HOMELESS DAYS
XXI.--SIR REGINALD'S WIDOW
XXII.--MISS BINGHAM
XXIII.--YOREDALE
*Illustrations*
"Old Squire Metcalf, as he went out to meet him, broke into a roar of
laughter." . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ (Page 84.)
"'You're the Squire of Nappa, sir?' he said."
"'Yes, you can be of service,' he whispered."
"'Say, do you stand for the King?'"
"Without a word of any kind, a third prisoner was thrown against them."
"They saw, too, that his sword was out, and naked to the moonlight."
"'Well, sir?' she asked sharply. 'You rob me of sleep for some good
reason doubtless?'"
"They turned sharply as the door opened, and reached out for their
weapons."
"'We hold your life at our mercy,' said Rupert."
"'Lady Ingilby, come to see whether her husband lives or is dead for the
King.'"
"'If the end of the world came--here and now--you would make a jest of
it.'"
"Her eyes searched eagerly for one only of the company, and disdained
the rest."
*THE WHITE HORSES.*
*CHAPTER I.*
*WHO RIDES FOR THE KING?*
Up through the rich valley known now as Wensleydale, but in those days
marked by the lustier name of Yoredale, news had crept that there was
civil war in England, that sundry skirmishes had been fought already,
and that His Majesty was needing all leal men to rally to his standard.
It was an early harvest that year, as it happened, and John Metcalf, of
Nappa Hall, stood at his garden-gate, watching the sunset glow across
his ripening wheat. There were many acres of it, gold between green
splashes of grass-land; and he told himself that they would put the
sickle into the good crop before a fortnight's end. There was something
about Squire Metcalf--six feet four to his height, and broad in the
beam--that seemed part of the wide, lush country round him. Weather and
land, between them, had bred him; and the night's peace, the smell of
sweet-briar in the evening dew, were pleasant foils to his strength.
He looked beyond the cornfields presently. Far down the road he saw a
horseman--horse and rider small in the middle of the landscape--and
wondered what their errand was. When he had done with surmises, his
glance roved again, in the countryman's slow way, and rested on the
pastures above the house. In the clear light he could see two figures
standing there; one was his son Christopher, the other a trim-waisted
maid. Squire Metcalf frowned suddenly. He was so proud of his name, of
his simple squiredom, that he could not bear to see his eldest-born
courting defeat of this kind. This little lady was niece to his
neighbour, Sir Timothy Grant, a good neighbour and a friend, but one who
was richer than himself in lands and rank, one who went often to the
Court in London, and was in great favour with the King. Squire Metcalf
had seen these two together in his own house, and guessed Christopher's
secret without need of much sagacity; and he was sorely troubled on the
lad's account.
Christopher himself, away at the stile yonder, was not troubled at all
except by a pleasant heartache. He had youth, and Joan Grant beside him,
and a heart on fire for her.
"You are pleased to love me?" she was saying, facing him with maddening
grace. "What is your title to love me, sir?"
"Any man has the right to love," Kit protested sturdily. "He cannot
help it sometimes."
"Oh, granted; but not to tell it openly."
"What else should a man do? I was never one for secrets."
Joan laughed pleasantly, as if a thrush were singing. "You speak truth.
I would not trust you with a secret as far as from here to Nappa. If a
child met you on the road, she would read it in your face."
"I was bred that way, by your leave. We Metcalfs do not fear the
light."
"But, sir, you have every right to--to think me better than I am, but
none at all to speak of--of love. I had an old Scots nurse to teach me
wisdom, and she taught me--what, think you?"
"To thieve and raid down Yoredale," said Kit unexpectedly. "The Scots
had only that one trade, so my father tells me, till the Stuarts came to
reign over both countries."
"To thieve and raid? And I--I, too, have come to raid, you say--to
steal your heart?"
"You are very welcome to it."
"But do I want it?" She put aside her badinage, drew away from him with
a fine strength and defiance. "Listen, sir. My Scots nurse taught me
that a woman has only one heart to give in her lifetime; that, for her
peace, she must hide it in the branches of a tree so high that only a
strong man can climb it."
"I'm good at tree-climbing," said Christopher, with blunt acceptance of
the challenge.
"Then prove it."
"Now?" he asked, glancing at a tall fir behind them.
"Oh, sir, you are blunt and forthright, you men of Nappa! You do not
understand the heart of a woman."
Kit Metcalf stood to his brawny six-foot height. "I'm needing you, and
cannot wait," he said, fiery and masterful. "That's the way of a man's
heart."
"Then, by your leave, I shall bid you good e'en. No man will ever master
me until----"
"Until?" asked Kit, submissive now that he saw her retreating up the
pasture.
She dropped him another curtsey before going up the steep face of the
hills. "That is the woman's secret, sir. It lives at the top of a high
tree, that 'until.' Go climbing, Master Christopher!"
Kit went back to Nappa, in frank revolt against destiny and the blue
face of heaven. There was nothing in the world worth capturing except
this maid who eluded him at every turn, like a butterfly swift of wing.
He was prepared to be sorry for himself until he came face to face with
his father at the garden gate.
"I saw two young fools at the stile," said Squire Metcalf. "I've
watched you for half an hour. Best wed in your own station, Kit--no
more, no less. No Metcalf ever went dandying after great ladies yet.
We've our own proper pride."
Christopher, in spite of his six feet, looked a small man as he stood
beside his father; but his spirit was equal to its stubborn strength.
"I love her. There's no other for me," he said sharply.
The Squire glanced shrewdly at him. "Ah, well," he said at last, "if it
goes as deep as that, lad, you'll just have to go on crying out for the
moon. Sir Timothy has been away in London all the summer--trouble with
the Parliament, and the King needing him, they say. He'd have taken
Miss Joan with him if he'd guessed that a lad from Nappa thought he
could ever wed into the family."
"We've lands and gear enough," protested Kit.
"We have, but not as they count such matters. They've got one foot in
Yoredale, and t'other in London; and we seem very simple to them, Kit."
Shrewd common sense is abhorrent to all lovers, and Kit fell into a
stormy silence. He knew it true, that he felt rough, uncouth, in
presence of his mistress; but he knew also that at the heart of him
there was a love that was not uncouth at all.
The Squire left Kit to fight out his own trouble, and fell to watching
the horseman who was more than a speck now on the landscape. The rider
showed as a little man striding a little mare; both were weary, by the
look of them, and both were heading straight for Nappa Hall. They had a
mile to cover.
"Father, I need to get away from Nappa," said Kit, breaking the silence.
"Ay," said the Squire, with a tolerant laugh, "love takes all men that
way in the first flush of it. I was young myself once. You want to ride
out, lad, and kill a few score men, just to show little Miss Joan what a
likely man o' your hands you are. Later on, you'll be glad to be
shepherding the ewes, to pay for her new gowns and what not. Love's not
all mist and moonshine, Kit; the sturdier part comes later on."
Up the lane sounded the lolopping pit-a-pat of a horse that was tired
out and near to drop; and the rider looked in no better case as he drew
rein at the gate.
"You're the Squire of Nappa, sir?" he said, with a weary smile. "No
weary to ask the question. I was told to find a man as tall as an
oak-tree and as sturdy."
[Illustration: "'You're the Squire of Nappa, sir?' he said."]
"Yet it would have been like seeking a needle in a bundle of hay, if you
hadn't chanced to find me at the gate," the other answered. "There are
six score Metcalfs in this corner of Yoredale, and nobody takes notice
of my height."
"The jest is pretty enough, sir, but you'll not persuade me that there's
a regiment of giants in the dale."
"They're not all of my height--granted. Some are more, and a few less.
This is my eldest-born," he said, touching Christopher on the shoulder.
"We call him Baby Kit, because he's the smallest of us all."
The horseman saw a lad six foot high, who certainly looked dwarfed as he
stood beside his father. "Gad, the King has need of you! Undoubtedly he
needs all Metcalfs, if this is your baby-boy."
"As for the King, the whole six score of us have prayed for his welfare,
Sabbath in and Sabbath out, since we were breeked. It's good hearing
that he needs us."
"I ride on His Majesty's errand. He bids the Squire of Nappa get his
men and his white horses together."
"So the King has heard of our white horses? Well, we're proud o' them, I
own."
The messenger, used to the stifled atmosphere of Courts until this
trouble with the Parliament arrived, was amazed by the downright,
free-wind air the Squire of Nappa carried. It tickled his humour, tired
as he was, that Metcalf should think the King himself knew every detail
of his country, and every corner of it that bred white horses, or roan,
or chestnut. At Skipton-in-Craven, of course, they knew the dales from
end to end; and he was here because Sir John Mallory, governor of the
castle there, had told him the Metcalfs of Nappa were slow to leave the
beaten tracks, but that, once roused, they would not budge, or falter,
or retreat.
"The King needs every Metcalf and his white horse. He sent me with that
message to you, Squire."
"About when does he need us?" asked Metcalf guardedly.
"To-morrow, to be precise."
"Oh, away with you! There's all my corn to be gathered in. I'll come
nearer the back end o' the year, if the King can bide till then. By
that token, you're looking wearied out, you and your horse. Come
indoors, man, and we'll talk the matter over."
The messenger was nothing loath. At Skipton they had given an
importance to the Metcalf clan that he had not understood till now.
This was the end of to-day's journey, and his sole errand was to bring
the six score men and horses into the good capital of Craven.
"I ask no better cheer, sir. Can you stable the two of us for the
night? My little grey mare is more in need of rest than I am."
Christopher, the six-foot baby of the clan, ran forward to the mare's
bridle; and he glanced at his father, because the war in his blood was
vehement and lusty, and he feared the old check of discipline.
"Is it true, sir?" he asked the messenger. "Does the King need us?
I've dreamed of it o' nights, and wakened just to go out and tend the
land. I'm sick of tending land. Is it true the King needs us?"
The messenger, old to the shams and false punctilios of life, was
dismayed for a moment by this clean, sturdy zest. Here, he told
himself, was a cavalier in the making--a cavalier of Prince Rupert's
breed, who asked only for the hazard.
"It is true that the King needs a thousand such as you," he said drily.
"Be good to my little mare; I trust her to you, lad."
And in this solicitude for horseflesh, shown twice already, the
messenger had won his way already into the favour of all Metcalfs. For
they loved horses just a little less than they loved their King.
Within doors, as he followed the Squire of Nappa, he found a warm fire
of logs, and an evening meal to which the sons of the house trooped in
at haphazard intervals. There were only six of them, all told, but they
seemed to fill the roomy dining-room as if a crowd intruded. The
rafters of the house were low, and each stooped, from long habit, as he
came in to meat. Kit, the baby of the flock, was the last to come in;
and he had a queer air about him, as if he trod on air.
There was only one woman among them, a little, eager body, who welcomed
the stranger with pleasant grace. She had borne six sons to the Squire,
because he was dominant and thought little of girl-children; she had
gone through pain and turmoil for her lord, and at the end of it was
thankful for her pride in him, though she would have liked to find one
girl among the brood--a girl who knew the way of household worries and
the way of women's tears.
The messenger, as he ate and drank with extreme greediness, because need
asked, glanced constantly at the hostess who was like a garden flower,
growing here under the shade of big-boled trees. It seemed impossible
that so small a person was responsible for the six men who made the
rafters seem even lower than they were.
When the meal was ended, Squire Metcalf put his guest into the great
hooded chair beside the fire of peat and wood.
"Now, sir, we'll talk of the King, by your leave, and these lusty rogues
of mine shall stand about and listen. What is it His Majesty asks of
us?"
The messenger, now food and liquor had given him strength again, felt at
home in this house of Nappa as he had never done among the intrigues of
Court life. He had honest zeal, and he was among honest men, and his
tongue was fiery and persuasive.
"The King needs good horsemen and free riders to sweep the land clear of
Roundheads. He needs gentlemen with the strong arm and the simple heart
to fight his battles. The King--God bless him!--needs six-score
Metcalfs, on horses as mettled as their riders, to help put out this
cursed fire of insurrection."
"Well, as for that," said the Squire, lighting his pipe with a live peat
from the hearth, "I reckon we're here for that purpose. I bred my sons
for the King, when he was pleased to need them. But I'd rather he could
bide--say, for a month--till we get our corn in. Take our six-score men
from the land just now, and there'll be no bread for the house next
year, let alone straw for the beasts."
The messenger grew more and more aware that he had been entrusted with a
fine mission. This plain, unvarnished honesty of the Squire's was worth
fifty protestations of hot loyalty. The dogged love he had of his lands
and crops--the forethought of them in the midst of civil war--would make
him a staunch, cool-headed soldier.
"The King says you are to ride out to-morrow, Squire. What use to pray
for him on Sabbaths if you fail him at the pinch?"
Metcalf was roused at last, but he glanced at the little wife who sat
quietly in her corner, saying little and feeling much. "I've more than
harvesting to leave. She's small, that wife of mine, but God knows the
big love I have for her."
The little woman got up suddenly and stepped forward through the press
of big sons she had reared. Her man said openly that he loved her better
than his lands, and she had doubted it till now. She came and stood
before the messenger and dropped him a curtsey.
"You are very welcome, sir, to take all my men on the King's service.
What else? I, too, have prayed on Sabbaths."
The messenger rose, a great pity and chivalry stirring through his
hard-ridden, tired body. "And you, madam?" he asked gently.
"Oh, I shall play the woman's part, I hope--to wait, and be silent, and
shed tears when there are no onlookers."
"By God's grace," said Blake, the messenger, a mist about his eyes, "I
have come to a brave house!"
The next morning, an hour after daybreak, Blake awoke, stirred drowsily,
then sprang out of bed. Sleep was a luxury to him these days, and he
blamed himself for indolence.
Downstairs he found only a serving-maid, who was spreading the breakfast
table with cold meats enough to feed twenty men of usual size and
appetite. The mistress was in the herb-garden, she said, and the men
folk all abroad.
For a moment the messenger doubted his welcome last night. Had he
dreamed of six score men ready for the King's service, or was the
Squire's honesty, his frank promise to ride out, a pledge repented of
already?
He found the Squire's wife walking in the herb-garden, and the face she
lifted was tear-stained. "I give you good day," she said, "though
you've not dealt very well with me and mine."
"Is there a finer errand than the King's?" he asked brusquely.
"My heart, sir, is not concerned with glory and fine errands. It is
very near to breaking. Without discourtesy, I ask you to leave me here
in peace--for a little while--until my wounds are healing."
The Squire and his sons had been abroad before daybreak, riding out
across the wide lands of Nappa. Of the hundred odd grown men on their
acres, there was not one--yeoman, or small farmer, or hind--but was a
Metcalf by name and tradition. They were a clan of the old, tough Border
sort, welded together by a loyalty inbred through many generations; and
the law that each man's horse must be of the true Metcalf white was not
of yesterday.
Christopher's ride to call his kinsfolk in had taken him wide to the
boundary of Sir Timothy Grant's lands; and, as he trotted at the head of
his growing company, he was bewildered to see Joan step from a little
coppice on the right of the track. She had been thinking of him, as it
happened, till sleep would not come; and, like himself, she needed to
get out into the open. Very fresh she looked, as she stepped into the
misty sunlight--alert, free-moving, bred by wind and rain and sun. To
Kit she seemed something not of this world; and it is as well, maybe,
that a boy's love takes this shape, because in saner manhood the glamour
of the old day-dreams returns, to keep life wholesome.
Kit halted his company, heedless of their smiles and muttered jests, as
he rode to her side.
"You look very big, Christopher! You Nappa men--and your horses--are
you riding to some hunt?" She was cold, provocative, dismaying.
"Yes, to hunt the Roundheads over Skipton way. The King has sent for
us."
"But--the call is so sudden, and--I should not like to hear that you
were dead, Kit."
Her eyes were tender with him, and then again were mocking. He could
make nothing her, as how should he, when older men than he had failed to
understand the world's prime mystery.
"Joan, what did you mean by 'until,' last night at the stile? You said
none should master you until----"
"Why, yes, _until_---- Go out and find the answer to that riddle."
"Give me your kerchief," he said sharply--"for remembrance, Joan."
Again she resented his young, hot mastery, peeping out through the
bondage she had woven round him. "To wear at your heart? But, Kit, you
have not proved your right to wear it. Come back from slaying
Roundheads, and ask for it again."
Blake, the messenger, meanwhile, had been fidgeting about the Nappa
garden, wondering what was meant by the absence of all men from house
and fields. His appetite, too, was sharpened by a sound night's sleep.
Remembering the well-filled table indoors, he turned about, then checked
himself with a laugh. Even rough-riding gentry could not break fast
until the host arrived.
Presently, far down the road, he heard the lilt of horse-hoofs moving
swiftly and in tune. The uproar grew, till round the bend of the way he
saw what the meaning of it was.
Big men on big white horses came following the Squire of Nappa up the
rise. All who could gather in the courtyard reined up; the rest of the
hundred and twenty halted in the lane. They had rallied to the muster
with surprising speed, these men of Yoredale.
All that the messenger had suffered already for the cause, all that he
was willing to suffer later on, were forgotten. Here were volunteers
for the King--and, faith, what cavaliers they were! And the big men,
striding their white horses, liked him the better because his heart
showed plainly in his face.
The messenger laughed suddenly, standing to the the height of
five-foot-six that was all Providence had given him. "Gentlemen," he
said, with the music of galloping horses in his voice, "gentlemen, the
King!"
The Squire and he, after they had breakfasted, and the mistress had
carried the stirrup-cup from one horseman to another, rode forward
together on the track that led to Skipton. For a mile they went in
silence. The Squire of Nappa was thinking of his wife, and youngsters
of the Metcalf clan were thinking of maids who had lately glamoured them
in country lanes. Then the lilt of hoof-beats, the call of the open
hazard, got into their blood. A lad passed some good jest, till it ran
along the company like fire through stubble; and after that each man
rode blithely, as if it were his wedding-day.
A mile further on they saw a little lady gathering autumn flowers from
the high bank bordering the road. She had spent a restless night on
Kit's account, had he known it, and was early abroad struggling with
many warring impulses. The Squire, who loved Christopher, knew what the
lad most needed now. He drew rein sharply.
"Men of Nappa, salute!" he cried, his voice big and hearty as his body.
Joan Grant, surprised in the middle of a love-dream, saw a hundred and
twenty men lifting six-foot pikes to salute her. The stress of it was
so quick and overwhelming that it braced her for the moment. She took
the salute with grace and a smile that captured these rough-riding
gentry. Then, with odd precision, she dropped her kerchief under the
nose of Kit's horse.
He stooped sharply and picked it up at the end of his pike. "A good
omen, lads!" he cried. "White horses--and the white kerchief for the
King!"
Then it was forward again; and Joan, looking after them, was aware that
already her knight was in the making. And then she fell into a flood of
tears, because women are made up of storm and sun, like the queer
northern weather.
*CHAPTER II.*
*SKIPTON-IN-CRAVEN.*
"It's a pity about that corn o' mine, all the same," said the Squire,
with a last backward thought. "There never was such a harvest year,
since back into the 'twenties."
"There'll be such a harvest year, I trust," laughed Blake, "as will
bring more like you to the King. I would that every dale of the north
gave us a company like yours--men and horses riding as if they'd been
reared together from the cradle. I tell you sir, Prince Rupert would
enrol you all at sight, if there were not more urgent need for you at
Skipton."
"As a plain man to a plain man, what does the King ask of us?" asked the
Squire of Nappa. "Mr. Lambert, you say, is laying siege to Skipton. He
should know better. I knew him as a lad, when he lived out yonder at
Calton-in-Craven, and he had naught in common with these thick-headed
rogues who are out against the King. He's of the gentry, and always
will be."
"He has lost his way in the dark, then," said the other drily. "He's
training his cannon on Skipton Castle as if he liked the enterprise."
"So you want us to ride through Lambert's men and into the castle to
help garrison it?" asked Squire Metcalf, with his big simplicity, his
assurance that the men he led would charge through any weight of odds.
"Heaven save us, no! The governor has enough men to feed already, men
of usual size; your little company would eat up his larder in a week."
"We _have_ fairish appetites," the Squire admitted. "Big sacks need a
lot of filling, as the saying goes. Still, you said the King wanted us,
and we've left a fine harvest to rot where it stands."
The messenger captured a happiness he had not known for many days.
There were no shams about this Squire. In all sincerity he believed
that King Charles had personal and urgent need of him; he asked simply
what it was the King commanded. It was so remote, this honesty, from the
intrigues of those who fought for places in the Court, and named it
loyalty, that the messenger was daunted for a moment.
"You are a big company, sir," he said, turning briskly round in saddle;
"but you seem oddly undivided in loyalty to the King and one another.
Strike one Metcalf, or do him a kindness, and six-score men will repay
in kind. You have the gipsy creed, my friends."
"Ay, we're close and trusty. It seems you know the way of us Nappa
folk, though I never set eyes on you till yesterday."
"It is my business to know men. The King's riders must make no mistakes
these days, Squire." He glanced back along the chattering group of
horse, with quick pride in the recruits he had won from Yoredale.
"You're all well horsed, well armed."
"Why, yes. We heard trouble was brewing up 'twixt King and Parliament,
and we got our arms in order. What else? Folk sharpen sickles when the
corn is ripening."
"And you have these lusty rascals at command--sharp to the word?"
Squire Metcalf smiled, a big, capacious smile. "They've felt the weight
o' my hand lang syne, and know it. My father before me trained me that
way--as you train a dog, no more, no less."
He drew rein and whistled sharply. The horsemen, fifty yards behind,
pressed forward, and the heir of Nappa galloped at their head, drew
rein, saluted his father with sharp precision, and waited for commands.
"Oh, naught at all, Christopher," said the Squire. "This guest of ours
doubted whether I could whistle my lads to heel, and now he knows I
can."
The messenger said nothing. The quiet, hard-bitten humour of these
northerners appealed to him; and Mallory, the governor of Skipton, had
been right when he sent him out to Nappa, sure that the Metcalf clan
would be worth many times their actual number to the Royalists in
Yorkshire.
They came to the rise of the road where Bishopdale, with its hedges of
fast-ripening hazel nuts, strode up into the harsher lands that
overlooked Wharfedale. They rode down the crumbly steep of road, past
Cray hamlet, set high above its racing stream; and at Buckden, half a
league lower down, they encountered a hunting-party come out to slay the
deer. They were too busy to join either party, King's or Parliament's,
and offered a cheery bidding to the Metcalf men to join them in the
chase.
"We're after bigger deer," laughed the Squire of Nappa. "Who rides for
the King?"
Hats were lifted, and a great cheer went up. "All of us," said a grey,
weather-beaten horseman.
"Ay, it seems like it," growled the Squire. "Much good you're doing
Skipton-in-Craven by hunting deer instead of Roundheads."
"Skipton can stand a twelve months' siege. She can whistle when she
needs us, like any other likely lass. There's no need to lose a
hunting-day till Sir John Mallory needs us."
The Squire found his first disillusionment along this road of glamour.
He had thought that a company of picked horsemen, armed for the King and
riding with a single purpose, would have swept these huntsmen into line.
Some few of them, indeed, had ridden forward a little, as if they liked
his message; but the grey-headed horseman, who distrusted all enthusiasm
because long since he had lost his faith in life, brought them sharply
back.
"It will be all over in a week or two, and the crop-heads back in their
kennels. No need to lose a hunting day, my lads."
The white horses, carrying big men, trotted forward, through Starboton
and Kettlewell, where the Danes had raided, wooed, and settled long
before a Stuart came to reign over gentler times. It was not till they
reached Linton, quiet and grey about its clear, trout-haunted stream,
that the Squire of Nappa broke silence.
"I told those hunting gentry that the King needed them, and they
wouldn't hearken. It seems Royalists are deaf these days to the plain
road of honesty."
"They are," said the messenger, with the surprising calm that he had
learned from lonely errands, ridden oftener by night than daytime. "So
are most men and most women. My heart's singing by that token. I'm
bringing in six-score Metcalfs to the King, all as honest as God's
sunlight. My luck is in, Squire."
The Squire would have none of blandishment. He could ride a good horse
or a grievance hard. "They doffed their hats when I named the King," he
growled.
"They did, but not their heart-coverings. If they'd been keen to
ride--why, they'd have ridden, and no child's game of deer slaying would
have stopped them. Skipton is better off without such laggard arms to
help her."
"But the King needs them," said Metcalf stubbornly, "and we showed them
the plain road."
They rode on through Cracoe, where the trees were red-gold in their
pride of autumn, and again the Squire of Nappa broke the silence. "What
does the King ask of us? If it is not to garrison the town----"
"It is a pleasanter occupation. The Governor would change places with
you willingly, Squire. He told me so when mapping out the work for you
men of Nappa. You're well horsed and drilled. You are too strong to be
attacked except in force, and they can spare few men from the assault.
Your business is to patrol the open country, to intercept and harry
Lambert's reinforcements--to come like the wind out of nowhere, and
vanish as suddenly, till the Roundheads learn that Skipton is attacking
and besieged, both at the same time."
"There's one big load off my mind," said Metcalf soberly. "We shall
have the sky over our heads and room for a gallop. I was in mortal fear
of being shut up in Skipton Castle, I own, day in, day out, and never a
wind from the pastures. We were not bred for indoors, we Nappa folk,
and I doubt a month of it would have killed us outright."
The Squire did not understand the fine breadth of strategy that underlay
this plan mapped out for him. But the messenger was well aware of it,
for Sir John Mallory had a soldier's instinct for the detail of
campaign, and he had explained this venture yesterday with what had
seemed a mixture of sagacity and sheer, unpractical romance. Since
spending the night at Nappa, and journeying with the Metcalfs for half a
day, Blake realised the Governor's sagacity more fully. As for
romance--that, too, was vivid enough, but entirely practical. Six-score
men on big white horses were enough to feed the most exacting poet's
fancy; they were sufficient, too, to disturb the thick-headed, workaday
routine of Lambert's soldiery.
They came to Rylstone, fair and modest as a maid, who hides from men's
intrusions. Rylstone, the village beyond praise, bordered by grey
houses and the call of ancient peace--Rylstone, that dalesmen dream of
when their strength has left them for a while and their hearts are
tender.
"She's bonnie," said the Squire of Nappa, checking his horse from old
instinct.
"Yes, she's bonnie," Blake agreed. "Rylstone bred me, and a man should
know the debt he owes his mother."
Then it was forward up the hill again. Blake was thinking of life's
surprises--was picturing the long impatience of his manhood, because he
stood only five-foot-six to his height in a country that reared tall
men. Since then he had learned to pit strength of soul against body
height, and now he was bringing in the finest troop of cavalry that ever
rode the dales. He was content.
As they drew near to the house known as None-go-by, Blake was full of
the enterprise planned out for these jolly Metcalf men. He did not
propose to take them into Skipton, but left-handed into the bridle-track
that led to Embsay. There was news that a company of Fairfax's men was
coming round that way from Otley, to help the Roundhead siege; and he
would have fought a battle worth the while--for a small man, not too
strong of body--if he ambushed the dour rogues with his cavalry brought
out from Nappa.
Yet his well-laid plan was interrupted. All the quiet ways of the
countryside had been thrown into surprising muddle and disorder by this
civil war that had come to range friends of yesterday on opposite sides
of the quarrel.
It should have been market-day, and the road full of sheep and cattle,
sleepy drovers, yeomen trotting on sleek horses. Instead, there was
silence, and the Nappa folk had all the highway to themselves until they
neared the rutty track that joined their own from Thorlby and the
Gargrave country.
A stream of horsemen was pouring down this track--Parliament men riding
from the west to help Lambert with the siege. They rode slowly, and the
Nappa men, as they drew rein and looked down the hill, counted two
hundred of them. Then came three lumbering waggons, each with a cannon
lashed to it by hay-ropes plaited fourfold, and each drawn by a team of
plough-horses that roused Squire Metcalf's envy. Behind the waggons,
more horsemen rode at a foot-pace, till it seemed the stream would never
end.
"Mr. Lambert is needing more artillery, it seems," said Blake drily.
"His anxiety must be great, if three cannon need such a heavy escort."
The Squire of Nappa did not hear him. For a moment he sat quietly in
saddle, his face the mirror of many crowded thoughts. Then suddenly he
raised a shout--one that was to sound often through the Yorkshire
uplands, like the cock grouse's note.
"A Mecca for the King!" he roared, lifting the pike that was as light as
a hazel wand to his great strength of arm.
Blake was at his right hand as they charged. He had only his sword, but
the speed and fury of the battle made him forget that not long since he
had longed for the strength to wield a pike instead, as all the men of
Nappa did.
It was all confusion, speed of white horses galloping down-hill to the
shock, thud of the onset. The Roundhead guard had faced about to meet
this swirling, quick assault. They saw a company of giants, carrying
pikes as long as their own bodies, and they met them with the stolid
Roundhead obstinacy. It was a grim fight, and ever across it rang the
Squire of Nappa's lusty voice.
Between the two companies of Roundhead horsemen were the three
farm-waggons carrying the guns. Those on the Skipton side were trying to
ride uphill to help their comrades; but the din of combat had sent the
plough-horses wild. They were big and wilful brutes, and their screams
rose high above the babel of men fighting for their lives. Then they
bolted, swerved across the road, and brought themselves and all they
carried into the ditches on either side. The cannon, as they fell,
ripped the waggons into splintered wreckage.
Between the fallen horses, through the litter of broken waggons, the men
of Nappa drove what had been the rearguard of the convoy. They picked
their way through the fifty yards of broken ground, lifted their white
horses to the next attack, and charged the second company of Roundheads.
Those of the shattered rearguard who could not draw aside were driven
down pell-mell into their upcoming friends, bringing confusion with
them. And through it all there rang the Squire's voice, with its keen,
insistent cry of "A Mecca for the King!" In that hour the Parliament
men learned that the Stuart, too, had downright servants at command, who
were not made up of dalliance and lovelocks.
The men of Nappa would not be denied. They asked no quarter and gave
none; and they drove the Roundheads--who contested every step with
stubborn pluck--down the hill and up the gentle rise past Skipton
Church, and into the broad High Street that was the comeliest in
Yorkshire. The Castle, with its motto of "Desormais" carved in stone
against the blue autumn sky, looked down on this sudden uproar in the
street; men's faces showed above the battlements, eager with question
and surprise.
The tumult reached Lambert's ears, too, as he stood beside the cannon on
Cock Hill. Knowing that reinforcements were coming over the Lancashire
border, he thought the garrison had made a sortie; and he gave a sharp
command to fire on the Castle as fast as they could load their clumsy
cannon, to bring the sortie party back to the defence. The Roundhead
luck was out altogether, for the first cannon-ball flew high above the
carved motto of "Desormais," and the second, falling short, killed three
of the horsemen who were retreating, step by step, before the Nappa men.
Sir John Mallory, the governor, was one of the men who looked down from
the battlements. He had a zealous heart, and his thirty years of life
had taught him that it was good to live or die for the King. Below he
saw a swarm of giants striding white horses; saw the little messenger he
had sent to Nappa fighting as merrily as any Metcalf of them all; saw
the Roundheads retreating stubbornly. As he watched, a cannon-ball
whistled by, a foot or two above his head, and ruffled his hair in
passing as a sharp wind might do.
"My thanks, Lambert," he said impassively. "One needs a breeze after
long confinement."
Then he went down the slippery stair; and a little later the drawbridge
rattled down, and he rode out with twenty others who were sick from lack
of exercise.
It was a stubborn business. The Roundheads left behind with the
overturned guns, up the Rylstone road, recaptured the courage that no
man doubted, and came driving in at the rear of this pitched battle.
Lambert himself, the increasing tumult coming up to him through the
still, autumn air, got thirty of the besiegers together. They had
ridden in at dawn, and their horses were picketed close at hand. As
they galloped up the High Street, they were met by the weight of their
own retreating friends from Lancashire; and it was now that Lambert
showed the leadership, the power of glamouring his men, which none among
the Roundheads had since Hampden died.
"Friends," he said,--the Quaker instinct in him suggesting that odd form
of address when battle was in progress--"friends, I trust you."
Just that. He had found the one word that is magical to strong men.
They answered him with a rousing shout, and drove up against the King's
men. For a moment even the Nappa riders gave back; but the recoil seemed
only to help them to a fiercer onset. They had both Cavalier speed and
Roundhead weight, these Metcalf men and horses; and Sir John Mallory,
fighting beside them for mastery of the High Street, was aware that
Yoredale had given the King a finer troop of horse than even Rupert
could command.
Across the thick of it Mallory caught Lambert's glance, and an odd smile
played about their lips. The same thought came to both between the hurry
of the fight. Not long ago they had dined together, had talked of the
winter's hunting soon to come, had smoked their pipes in amity. Now
each was thanking God that the shifting issues of the battle did not
bring them sword to sword; for civil war is always a disastrous and a
muddling enterprise.
The glance, and the memories that went to its making, were over in a
second. It was a forward plunge again of King's men meeting Roundheads,
hard to drive. And suddenly there rose a cry keen as winter in the
uplands and strong as sun at midsummer.
"Now, Metcalfs," roared the Squire of Nappa, "into the standing
corn--and God for the King, say I!"
Into the standing corn they went, and it was open flight now down the
length of Skipton Street. Time after time Lambert strove to rally his
men, using oaths that had not been taught him by the Quakers, but the
retreat swept him down, carrying him with it. A great gentleman,
whichever side he took in this fierce quarrel, was learning for the
first time the sickness of defeat.
The Nappa men were only turned from pursuing the enemy into the teeth of
the guns on Cock Hill by Mallory, who rode forward sharply, reined about
and fronted them.
"Gentlemen of Yoredale," he said, quiet and persuasive, "the King does
not command you to be blown to bits up yonder. He has other need of
you."
"I like to sickle the whole field once I make a start," said Squire
Metcalf.
"Ay, but there's a biggish field in front of you. You'll need to sleep
between-whiles, Squire."
When they turned to ride up the High Street again, the Squire, among all
this muddle of wounded Metcalfs, and horses that were white and crimson
now, saw only a little man slipping from the saddle of a little mare.
He rode up in time to ease his fall, and afterwards felt the man's
wounds gently, as a woman might. And the tears were in his eyes.
"It's Blake, the messenger, and God knows I'm sorry. He fought like the
biggest rogue that ever was breeked at Nappa."
"His soul's too big for his strength," said Mallory, with his
unalterable common sense. "He'll just have to lie by for a while."
"There's naught much amiss, save loss o' blood, may be. We'll get him
to the Castle gate, and then--why we'll just ride up the Raikes and
spike those cannon lying in the ditch."
"You're thorough, you men of Nappa," said Mallory, with a sudden laugh.
"Men have to be, these days," the Squire answered soberly. "If a body
rides for the King--well, he rides for the King, and no two ways about
it."
Kit drew apart from the turmoil, and searched for the kerchief Joan
Grant had dropped in front of his horse, away in Yoredale yonder. It
was white no longer, but reddened by a wound that he had taken. And
quietly, in the stillness that comes after battle, he knew that he was
to follow a long road and a hard road till he was home again. It was
better--in his heart he knew it--than dallying at country stiles, sick
with calf-love for a maid too high above him.
"You look happy, lad," said the Squire, as he drew rein beside him.
"I'm climbing a tree, sir, a big tree. There's somebody's heart at the
top of it."
"Ay, Miss Joan's," growled Squire Metcalf. "Well, go on climbing, lad.
You might have chosen worse."
*CHAPTER III.*
*SOME MEN OF FAIRFAX'S.*
Joan Grant, when she bade Christopher climb a high tree if he sought her
heart, had not told him that she was taking a journey. When afterwards
she waved a farewell to him, as he rode out with his kinsfolk, she had
given no hint that she, too, was following adventure on the morrow.
The day after the Metcalfs, a hundred-and-twenty strong, journeyed to
serve King Charles, she set out on a more peaceful quest. Her aunt,
Lady Ingilby of Ripley, had commanded this favourite niece of hers--all
in my lady's imperious, high-handed way--to join her in the widowhood
that her husband's absence with the Royal army enforced on her. Her own
father was somewhere in Oxfordshire with the King, her brothers with
Prince Rupert, and in their absence Lady Grant had decided that her
daughter must obey the command.
"I was always a little afraid of my sister of Ripley," she explained, in
her pretty, inconsequent way. "She would not forgive me if I kept you
here; and, after all, the roads may not be as dangerous as one fancies.
You must go, child."
Joan took the road with some pomp. All the younger men had gone with
the master to the wars; but her chaise was guarded by two old
menservants who had pluck and good pistols, if no great strength to
fight pitched battles; and she had her maid Pansy with her in the
chaise.
"Do you know, mistress, what I found at the gate this morning?" asked
the maid, as they went through the pleasant vale of Wensley.
"I could not guess, Pansy."
"Why, a stirrup-iron. Horseshoes are lucky enough, but a
stirrup-iron----"
Joan laughed eagerly; she had the country superstitions close at heart,
because she, too, was a daleswoman. "There's a knight riding somewhere
for me, Pansy."
"Knights are as knights do," said the other, with the Puritan tartness
ingrained in her. "For my part, I'll hope he's better than most men.
It's not asking much."
"In the doldrums, girl? I shall have to train you. It's easier to
laugh, than cry--that's the true Royalist faith."
Pansy--half maid, half confidante, and altogether spoiled--began to
whimper. "It's easy to laugh, with all the road in front of you, and a
riding knight ahead. I've no man to think of, and that leaves a woman
lonesome-like."
"It is not for want of suitors," said Joan, humouring her maid as good
mistresses do. "You had your choice of the dalesmen, Pansy."
Pansy bridled a little and shifted her headgear to a more becoming
angle. "Ay, but they're rough." Her speech relapsed into the
mother-tongue she had tried often to forget. "A lass that kens more
doesn't mate with the li'le bit less. She has her pride."
The mistress did not answer, but fell into a long reverie. What was
true of the maid was true of herself. Young Kit Metcalf, riding for the
King, was just "the li'le bit less," somehow. She had a regard for him,
half real and half fanciful; but he seemed shut off from her by some
intangible difference that was not uncouthness, but something near to
it. He was big and forthright, and shocked her daintiness.
They went through the pleasant dale. In Wensley village they met a
waggon coming home with corn, ingathered for the threshing. All down
the valley men were reaping in the fields. The land yielded its
produce, and folk were gathering it as if no blight of civil war had
fallen about the land. This, too, disturbed Joan Grant. She had
pictured her journey to Ripley as one long road of peril--a battle to
every mile, and danger's swift excitement scudding on before her.
"There's no war at all, Pansy," she said fretfully, watching mile after
tranquil mile go by. "They gather in their corn, and the peace is
undisturbed."
"We should be thankful for the mercy," said the maid austerely.
"Oh, we should, girl, but we're not. Undoubtedly we are not thankful."
At Skipton, the day before, there had been battle enough, as the Riding
Metcalfs knew. When the fight was ended, and they had spiked the guns
lying wide across the highway of the Raikes, they gathered for the
forward ride. A hundred-and-twenty of them had ridden out, and not one
was missing from their number, though half of them were carrying wounds.
Old Metcalf--"Mecca," as his kinsfolk had the name--rounded up his
company. "The Governor tells me, lads, that a company of Fairfax's men
are coming through. We've to go wide of Skipton and ambush them."
Battle sat finely on the man. He had no doubts, no waywardness. He was
here for the King, to take orders from those placed above him, and to
enforce them so far as his own command went.
"A Mecca for the King!" roared Christopher, the six-foot baby of the
flock.
The cry was to sing like a northern gale through the Yorkshire
highlands; and now the running uproar of it drifted up the Raikes as
they came to the track that led right-handed down to Embsay village.
Down the pasture-lands they went, and through the small, grey township,
and forward on the road to Bolton Abbey. Half between Bolton and Long
Addingham they met a yeoman jogging forward at a tranquil trot.
"Why, Squire Metcalf, it's a twelve-month and a day since we set eyes on
each other," he said, reining up. "Are you riding for Otley market?"
"Ay," said Metcalf, with a dalesman's wariness. "Is there aught stirring
there, Demaine?"
"Nay, nowt so much--not enough to bring all your Nappa men with you,
Squire. Maybe it's men you're seeking, instead of ewes and cattle."
"Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't."
"Well, if it's men you're seeking, you'll find 'em. I overtook three
hundred of Fairfax's soldiery just setting out from Otley."
"Oh, you did? Were they horsed?"
"No, they were going at a sharp marching pace. They were a likely set o'
lads to look at--thick in the beam, but varry dour of face. I take no
sides myself in this business of King and Parliament. I only say,
Squire, that a nod's as good as a wink in troubled times."
"Thanks, Demaine," said the Squire of Nappa.
"Nay, no need. Neighbour knows neighbour, and good day to ye."
The whole intimacy of the dales was in that brief greeting--the
freemasonry that ran like quicksilver in between the well-laid plans of
ambitious generals. Fairfax had sent three hundred of his men to
strengthen Lambert's attack on Skipton Castle. A country squire and a
yeoman met on the highway and talked a while, and there was an ambush in
the making.
"Hi, Christopher!" said the Squire, beckoning the lad to his side.
"Ride forward on the Otley road till you see those men of Fairfax's.
Then turn about and gallop."
Kit saluted gravely, as he or any Metcalf of them would have saluted if
the chief bade them ride through the Fiery Gate. His wounds smarted as
he rode for Otley, and he relished the keen pain. He was young, with
his eyes to the stars, and suffering for the King's sake was haloed by
romance.