bide till we're through with this rough work. Moonshine is pretty
enough when the day's over, but the day is just beginning."
They rode by way of Tockwith village, long and straggling, and forward
over a heath studded thick with gorse and brambles, and set about with
black, sullen wastes of bog.
Squire Metcalf, for all his hardihood, was full of superstition, as most
folk are who have good wits and healthy souls. A little wind--of the
sort named "thin" in Yoredale--blew over Marston Moor, chilling the warm
sunlight.
"There's a crying in the wind," he said, turning to Kit, who was riding
at his bridle-hand. "I trust it's sobbing for the end of all foul
traitors to the King."
*CHAPTER VI.*
*HOW MICHAEL CAME TO YORK.*
They crossed the moor, and so, through Long Marston, made forward on the
York road till they reached a hamlet three miles from the city. Here
they captured a shepherd, known to the country speech as "an old,
ancient man," who was driving a flock of ewes from a neighbouring
pasture. They asked him if he knew anything of the to-and-froing of the
Parliament troops.
"I've seen a moil o' horsemen scummering out to York for three days
past. But they asked me no questions, and so I asked them none.
Reckoned they were riding to a hunt. Gentlefolk must fill up their
time, one way or another."
"But, man," snapped old Metcalf, "d'ye live so close to York and not
know there's war between King and Parliament?"
"Nay. I've been tending sheep. Have they fallen out, like, King and
Parliament? Well, let 'em fratch, say I. I'm a simple man myself, with
ewes to tend."
Squire Metcalf broke into that big laugh of his that seemed to set the
world to rights. "Forward, Mecca lads!" he said. "We've ewes to tend
ourselves; but, bless you, this shepherd brings a wind from Yoredale to
us."
A half-mile further on they met a company of Fairfax's horse, foraging
for meat and drink. There were fifty of them, and the Metcalfs went
through them like a sickle cutting through the bearded corn. Ten were
killed, and they let all but one of the retreating forty go. From him,
before they freed him, they learned that it was unwise to venture
further than a mile on the York road, unless they wished to try
conclusions with outposts of the Scots at Micklegate.
"One of us must find a way into York Castle," said the Squire, calling a
council of war about him.
It was part of the man's downrightness, his faith that Providence was
kind to every stark adventure, that he was able to make the forlorn hope
seem a deed already done.
"_I_ claim the venture, sir," said Michael, with his unalterable
smoothness and the air of one who jests. "Kit, here, has had his share
already."
"Well, well, 'twill keep you out of mischief for a while. Get you from
saddle, Michael. Steal into York as privily as may be, and ask my Lord
Newcastle what service six-score Metcalfs can do him in the open. We
shall be waiting for you, here or hereabouts, when you return."
Michael, as he trudged along the road, overtook a tall fellow who walked
beside a donkey-cart piled high with vegetables. "I'll buy that donkey,
friend," he said, "and all your cart holds, and the clothes you stand up
in."
"For how much?" asked the countryman, stolidly indifferent to all except
the call of money.
Michael took a guinea from his pocket, and watched cupidity brighten in
the rascal's eyes as another coin was added. Then they went aside into
a little wood beside the road, exchanged clothes there, and the bargain
was complete.
"Clothes make a difference," chuckled the countryman. "Here's thee,
looking as gaumless a lad as ever brought produce into camp; and here's
me, the gentleman fro' my head to my riding-boots. All I need is to
steal a horse; then I shall be the gentleman quite. I knew the feel o'
stirrups once, before I drank away a snug little farm and had to take to
the road."
Something in the man's voice, something in his sturdy height, the
devil-may-care acceptance of life as it was, roused Michael's interest.
"You sell your wares to the Roundhead army?" he asked sharply.
"Ay, but that doesn't say I hold wi' them. I've my living to earn, and
sell in any market."
"Have a care, man. You're for the King, I fancy, apart from trade. And
how do you know that I'll not take you by the ear and lead you into camp
for a traitor to the Commonwealth?"
The rogue looked up and down the road. "There's none to come in between
us," he laughed. "I care never a stiver on which side you be. I'm for
the King, and always was; and, if you say nay, we can fight it out here
with our fists. We're much of a height and girth."
This was the sort of wayfaring that tickled Michael's humour. "My lad,"
he said, between one break of laughter and the next, "it would be a pity
for two King's men to fight. Go back a mile along the road to Ripley,
and find a company of rascals as big as you and me. When they ask your
errand, say 'A Mecca for the King,' then tell them that I've sent you
with the news that all speeds well."
"This is fair dealing?" said the countryman, after a puzzled silence.
"Take it or leave it. We Metcalfs never trust by halves."
The other clapped his hand suddenly into Michael's. "That's a bargain,"
he said. "I'd liefer join your company than sell cabbages to these
durned Cropheads."
The donkey was waiting patiently in the road until they had settled
their differences. When the new master put a hand on the bridle and
urged her forward, the brute lashed out a hind leg and scarred his leg
from knee to heel.
"Ah, there, be gentle!" laughed the rogue who was wearing Michael's
clothes. "My name's Driver--Will Driver, at your service--and I allus
said--said it to gentle and simple, I did--that, though I'm named
Driver, I willun't be druv." He came and patted the brute's face,
talked to its elemental obstinacy, praised some qualities that only he
could find to praise. "There, mister! She willun't be druv. Treat her
kindly. That's the password. Don't drag her bridle, thinking she's
going to gallop for the King. You're no horseman now--just a sutler
bringing his wares to camp."
Michael, out of the harum-scarum years behind, had learned one good
thing at least--the gift to pick up sound advice when he found the rare
type of man who was fit to give it.
On the road to York his patience was sorely tried. It was easier to lead
a squad of cavalry than this crude ass that dragged a cart of garden
produce. He tried cajolery of Will Driver's kind, but had no gift for
it. He tried force. Nothing served, until it occurred to him to turn
her, by sheer strength, with her face to Ripley. She turned instantly
about, with her face to York, and thereafter the going was quick and
pleasant.
"Women have taught me something, after all," chuckled Michael, as they
went forward.
When he came into the lines, he found a press of soldiery about him.
They were ravenous, and ate raw cabbages from his cart as if they were
beef-steaks.
Michael had not known what hunger meant until he saw the faces of these
Roundheads who were beleaguering York. He went among them with ears
open, heard that they had eaten bare the fat lands round about, until no
food was left. However it was faring with the garrison behind the city
walls, it was certain that the besiegers were thin and mutinous from
lack of food.
When his wares were sold, he went up and down the camp, the simplest
countryman that ever brought a donkey-load to market; heard of the
dissensions among the leaders; knew, once for all, that the Puritans,
with all their dour talk of heaven waiting for those who denied all joy
in life, were much as usual men are--needing food and liquor, and
finding a grim temper when ale and victuals were denied them. He
brushed shoulders with a thickset, rough-faced officer, who hurried by
on some business connected with the siege, and was astonished when he
learned that so plain a man was no other than Oliver Cromwell, of whose
genius for warfare and hard blows all Yorkshire had been talking lately.
Later in the day, too, he saw Cromwell's Ironsides, and their hefty,
rugged air roused a wild impulse in him. If only they would pick
six-score of their number, and ride out to battle with the Metcalf clan,
what a fight would be in the doing!
He was losing himself in a daydream, when a musket-ball, fired from the
city wall, whizzed so close to his cheek that he put a hand up, thinking
he had taken a wound. So then he took his cart to the rear of the camp,
got the donkey out of harness and picketed it. The soldiery were
digging trenches or taking their ease, some reading Bibles, others
passing lumbering jests with the women who attend on every camp. He
passed among them unheeded, and went the round of York, seeking some way
of entry. He saw none, till in the dusk of the April evening he found
himself on the river-bank near the grey old bridge. With all his random
handling of life, Michael had this in common with the Riding
Metcalfs--he answered always to the high call of trust. He was pledged
to his folk to make an entry somehow into York, and pass on his message.
One way or another he must do it.
As he stood there, the lap-lap and gurgle of the river began to thread
itself into his thoughts. There must be some road into York--that was
the burden of Ouse river's song. And then the thing grew clear. The way
into York was here beside him. He doffed coat and boots, dived in, and
came up to the top of the roaring current just under the grey bridge.
The stream was strong, but so were his arms, thickened by plough-work,
field-sports, and many swims in the deep pool of Yore that lay beneath
his home at Nappa. He struck out for the left bank, found it, stepped
up the muddy foreshore. When he gained the roadway up above, a sentry
came bustling through the April moonlight and challenged him.
"A Mecca for the King goes here!" laughed Michael, in high good spirits
after his battle with the river.
"That's not the password," said the other, fingering his pike.
"It's all you'll get, friend. I seek my Lord Newcastle."
The sentry, his wits none too sharp at any time, was bewildered by this
huge man who had come dripping from the river, this man who talked of
the King and my Lord Newcastle. As he halted, Michael rushed forward
and snatched his pike from him.
"My lord's lodging--where is it?" he asked, with his big, easy-going
air. "Your pike in return for the news. And, by the word of a Mecca,
I'll come back and drown you in the river if you lie to me."
The sentry began to surmise that this man was not human, but a ghost
risen from the stream that flowed over many dead. Moreover, it was
death to him to-morrow if he were found without his weapon at the change
of sentry. So he directed Michael to the house where Lord Newcastle was
lodged, took the pike in his hands again, and spent a chilly vigil by
the river until relief came from his duty for the night.
Michael pressed forward through the streets and byways until he found
the house he sought. A sentry was on guard here, too. He answered the
challenge by running sharply in, closing with his man, and putting him
into the street. Then he opened the door, and, after he had barred it
behind him, went down a wide passage, and heard voices from a chamber on
the right. He pushed open that door also, and the men who were holding
a council of war within glanced up in sheer astonishment. They saw a
giant of a man standing there without boots or coat, Ouse river running
down him in little runnels that made pools about the bees-waxed floor.
Lord Newcastle was the first to recover. He glanced across at Michael
with a scholarly, quiet smile. "Your errand?" he asked.
"I carry a message from the Riding Metcalfs to the garrison of York,"
answered Michael, forgetting all his disarray.
"A damp sort of message," hazarded Newcastle.
"I had to swim under York bridge to bring it; and, after that, two
sentries challenged me. Will you listen, gentlemen, when I tell you
that I'm for the King? Or will you, too, challenge me?"
Truth is a clean sword-blade that always makes a road in front of it.
They knew him for a man who had no lies or secrecies about him; and
Newcastle, with his quick sympathy, suggested that he should drink a
bumper to counteract the chill of Ouse river before giving them his
message.
"By your leave, not till my errand is done," said Michael, with that
random laugh of his. "When I get near a bumper, I have a trick of
forgetting many things."
They laughed with him, as men always did; and with the same easy air, as
if he jested, he told them of the Riding Metcalfs, of their readiness to
carry messages or to serve the garrison in any way in the open country
wide of York. Before his coming there had been high words, dissensions,
warring plans of campaign; this talk of six-score men, zealous for the
King, united in their claim to serve beleaguered York in any way that
offered, brought a breath of fresh air into the council-chamber. It was
Newcastle who first found voice.
"Go find Rupert for us," he said.
"Ay, find Rupert," echoed the others, with a hum of sharp agreement.
"We're shut up here in York," went on Newcastle, "and all the news we
have is hearsay, brought in by messengers as greatly daring as yourself.
Some of them say Prince Rupert is with the King at Oxford, some that
he's busy in Lancashire, raising sieges there. We know not where he is,
but you must find him."
Michael reached down to touch his sword-belt, but found only the wet
breeches he had borrowed from the sutler. "On the sword I do not carry,
gentlemen, I pledge one or other of the Metcalfs to bring Rupert to
you."
A jolly, red-faced neighbour of Lord Newcastle's glanced across at
Michael. "Ah, there's the Irish blood in your veins, God bless you!
Who but an Irishman could have swum the Ouse and then pledged faith on
the hilt of a sword he left behind him?"
"Bring Rupert to us," insisted Newcastle. "Tell him that the mere news
of his coming would put heart into the garrison--that his presence would
light a fire among our famine-stricken folk. I dined on a tough bit of
horseflesh to-day, and was glad to get it."
"We'll bring Rupert to you," said Michael.
When they pressed him to take a measure of the wine that was more
plentiful, for a week or so to come, than food, Michael glanced down at
his disarray. "I would borrow decent raiment before I pledge His
Majesty. Indeed, I did not guess how ashamed I am to be wearing such
rough gear."
They found him a suit, and the Irishman, in a storm of liking for this
man, buckled his own sword on the messenger. "That's the sword you'd
have sworn by, sir, if you hadn't left it behind," he explained, with
entire gravity.
Michael lifted his glass to the King's health, and drained it at a gulp.
Responsibility always made him thirsty. He drained a second measure;
but, when the Irishman was filling a third for him, he checked his hand.
"My thanks, but I must get out of York at once, I shall need a clear
head for the venture."
"Friend, you've done enough for one day," urged Newcastle. "Sleep here
to-night."
"My folk are waiting for me," said Michael, with grim persistence.
When they asked how he proposed to make his way out of a city surrounded
on all sides, he said that he would return as he came--by water. He
added, with a return of his old gaiety, that he preferred this time to
ride river Ouse like a horse, instead of swimming in deep waters.
"There are boats in York?" he said. "I know the way of oars, and
there's a moon to light me."
"You're the man to send in search of Rupert," laughed Newcastle.
"Undoubtedly we must find a boat for you."
A half-hour later Michael was rowing swiftly up the Ouse. Twice he was
challenged from the banks; once a pistol-ball went singing over his
head. He reached the bridge, was nearly wrecked against a pier--the
eddies of the current were troublesome--and came through that peril into
the moonlit beauty of the open country. He was challenged now by
Roundhead sentries, and a shot or two went playing dick-duck-drake
across the water. He rowed on, and suddenly, across the stillness, a
donkey brayed.
Michael, left alone with Nature, was yielding to the call of
superstition in his blood. He remembered that luck had come with buying
of a sutler's donkey, and would not leave the brute to the tender
mercies of the soldiery. He turned his boat for the right bank,
grounded her in the sloping bed of sand, and pushed her out again into
the stream--lest the Roundheads found a use for her--and went cheerfully
in the direction of the braying. The whole procedure was like the man.
He was right, perhaps, to trust luck always, for he had known no other
guidance from the cradle.
Guided half by the music of her voice, half by recollection of the spot
where he had picketed her, he found the donkey. Two hundred yards or so
behind he heard the restless clamour of the besieging camp. In front
was the open country.
In the moonlight Michael and the donkey regarded each other gravely. "I
came back for you, old sinner," he explained.
The brute seemed to understand him, and put a cool snout into his hand.
"I had a thought of riding you," went on Michael, pursuing his heedless
mood, "but consider the stride of my legs. We'll just have to jog
forward on our six feet, you and I."
Michael had a sound knowledge of any country he had trodden once, and
came without mishap or loss of route to the clump of woodland where his
people waited for him. Old Squire Metcalf, as he went out to meet him,
broke into a roar of laughter.
"Here's Michael and one of the company he's wont to keep."
"True, sir," assented Michael. "Look after this friend of mine; she has
had little to eat to-day, and I begin to love her."
For an hour they could not persuade him to tell them what he had learned
in York. All his kinsmen's misunderstanding of him in old days--their
distrust of the one man among them, except Christopher, who asked more
than the routine of every day--came to a head. He was like the donkey
he had brought back from York--answerable to discipline, if it came by
way of sympathy and quiet persuasion.
The Squire understood this scapegrace son of his better than he thought.
"There, you'll bear no grudge, lad," he said, with quick compunction. "I
only jested."
There was a look in Michael's face that none of them had seen there in
the old days. "Was it a jest, sir?"
"A jest. No more."
"Then I'll tell you what I learned at York. The Roundheads have eaten
bare the countryside. Their leaders are at variance. Within the city
the garrison is eating horseflesh, and little of that. Lord Newcastle
bade me give you the one message. Find Rupert, and bring him here to
raise the siege. That is the message."
"Then we've work to do," said the Squire.
"_I_ have work to do," put in Michael peremptorily. "I took the hazard,
sir. See you, the business would be noised abroad if six-score of us
went galloping across to Lancashire, or to Oxford, wherever he may be.
I pledge myself to find Rupert and to bring him."
"Since when did you find gravity?" asked the Squire testily.
Then Michael laughed, but not as he had done of yore. "Since I found my
comrade and bought her for two guineas, with some market produce thrown
into the bargain. Our folk will see to the welfare of this donkey, sir?
She's our luck."
An hour later, as he was getting to horse, he saw Christopher come
through the clump of woodland.
"What did you learn in York, Michael?" he asked.
"What you'd have learned, if you had not been up the hill to see if you
could catch a glimpse of Ripley Castle," said Michael, roughened by a
sharp gust of jealousy. "Ah, the guess goes home, does it? How does it
fare with Mistress Joan?"
"Oh, very well, the last I heard."
"And it fares very well with me. I go to bring Rupert from the West--to
bring Rupert. Ah, your face reddens at the thought of it!"
Kit was lost in one of his high day-dreams. All that he had heard of
Rupert--the tales hard-fighting men, simple and gentle, told of him--had
been woven into a mantle of romance that separated the Prince Palatine
from those of common clay. And Michael had the venture.
The elder brother fought a private battle of his own. Then something in
Kit's eager, wistful face--some recollection, maybe, of old days in
Yoredale--conquered his jealousy. "I should ride the better for Kit's
company," he said, turning to the Squire. "Give him to me for the
journey."
"As you will," growled Richard. "He'll be out of the worst o' harm, at
any rate. Ladies' eyes are pretty enough in times of peace, but they
don't match with war."
Every Metcalf of them all, save Kit himself, laughed slily. They had
forgotten sundry backslidings of their own, in Ripley here and on the
many journeys they had taken. And then Michael and his brother rode
out, not knowing which way led to Rupert, but following the setting sun
because it led them westward.
"Nobody seems to know, even in Ripley, that catches most news, where the
Prince is. We'd best make for Lancashire."
Kit was already at his dreams again. "I care not," he said cheerily,
"so long as we find him in the end."
"D'ye think he wears a halo, lad?" snapped Michael.
"Not for you to see, perhaps."
"Ah, a neat counter! Not for my blurred eyes, eh? Kit, you've been
reading fairy-lore with Mistress Joan."
So they went forward into the red of the gloaming, and each was busy
with the self-same dream--to find Rupert, and to remember Joan Grant.
*CHAPTER VII.*
*A HALT AT KNARESBOROUGH.*
Nothing happened along the road as Michael and his brother rode forward
on their haphazard errand. All was made up of an English
April--primroses in the hedgerows, bleating of lambs and fussy ewes,
wayfaring farmer-folk about their lands.
They had decided to seek Rupert in Lancashire, and their best road
westward lay through Knaresborough, and so forward by way of Skipton and
the good town of Colne.
"The game grows dull," grumbled Michael. "We had primroses and lambs in
Yoredale till I wearied of them. I thought Blake promised war and blows
when we rode out to Nappa."
"The swim into York and the return--they were not enough for you?"
"I yawned so much in Yoredale," said the other, with his careless laugh.
"There's much leeway to make up, babe Christopher."
As they neared Knaresborough, Michael felt his heart beat again. The
sun was free of clouds, and shone full on a town beautiful as a man's
dreams of fairyland. At the foot, Nidd River swirled; and from the
stream, tier on tier, the comely houses climbed the steep cliff-face,
with trees and gardens softening all its outline. It was a town to live
at ease in and dream high dreams, thought Kit, until the wind of a
cannon-ball lifted his hat in passing.
"Ah, we begin to live," said Michael. "Your hat is doffed to the King,
God bless him!"
At the turn of the road they found a sortie from the garrison hemmed in
by fifty odd of Fairfax's dour Otley men. So Michael raised a shout of
"A Mecca for the King," and Kit bellowed the same cry. The Fairfax men
thought an attack in force had come; the sortie party--twenty of them,
and all wounded--found new hope, and, when that affair was done, the
Metcalfs rode with their new friends through the gateway of the town.
"I give you great thanks, gentlemen," said young Phil Amory, the leader
of the sortie, as the drawbridge clashed behind them. "But for you,
there'd have been no Knaresborough for us again."
"Oh, we happened to ride this way," laughed Michael. "Life is like
that. And I'm devilish hungry, since you remind me of it."
"Sir, I did not remind you. We are trying to forget our stomachs."
"You have tobacco in the town?" asked Michael anxiously. "Good! It's
better than a meal. I smoked my last pipeful yesterday."
"Good at the fight and the pipe," said Amory. "I like you, sir."
So they came in great content--save for three of the company, whose
wounds bade them grumble--to the slope that led them to the Castle
gateway, and were met here by a handful of friends who were riding to
relieve them. The ladies of the garrison ran down from the battlements,
and Kit was dizzied by the adulation shown him by the women. They had
bright eyes, these ladies, and a great longing for hero-worship in and
between the tiresome hardships of the siege. Michael was at home on the
instant; battle and ladies' favours had always been his hobbies. But Kit
drew apart and remembered Mistress Joan, and a mantle of surprising
gravity was draped about him.