There was a dizzying pain in his head, a slackness of the muscles, that
disturbed him, because he had scarce known an hour's sickness until he
left Yoredale to accept shrewd hazard on King Charles's highway.
"How did my friend the donkey come to be with you in the fight?" he
asked, as they rode soberly for home.
"She would not be denied," laughed Squire Mecca. "She made friends with
all our horses, and where the swiftest of them goes she goes, however
long it takes to catch us up. No bullet ever seems to find her."
"Donkeys seldom die," assented Michael. "For myself, sir, I've had the
most astonishing escapes."
When they came to Ripley, and the Squire brought his two sons into the
courtyard, Lady Ingilby was crossing from the stables. She looked them
up and down in her brisk, imperative way, and tapped Christopher on the
shoulder--the wounded shoulder, as it happened.
"Fie, sir, to wince at a woman's touch! I must find Joan for you. Ah,
there! you've taken wounds, the two of you. It is no time for jesting.
The Squire told me you were galloping in search of Rupert."
"So we are," said Christopher. "This is just a check in our stride."
"As it happens, you were wise to draw rein. A messenger came in an hour
ago. The Prince is not in Lancashire, as we had hoped. He is still in
Oxford--I can confirm your news on that head--lighting small jealousies
and worries. Rupert, a man to his finger-tips, is fighting indoor
worries, as if he were a household drudge. The pity of it, gentlemen!"
It was easy to understand how this woman had been a magnet who drew good
Cavaliers to Ripley. Heart and soul, she was for the King. The fire
leaped out to warm all true soldiers of his Majesty, to consume all
half-way men. She stood there now, her eyes full of wonder and dismay
that they could keep Rupert yonder in Oxford when England was listening
for the thunder of his cavalry.
Joan Grant had not heard the incoming of the Metcalfs. She had been ill
and shaken, after a vivid dream that had wakened her last night, and
changed sleep to purgatory. And now, weary of herself, prisoned by the
stifled air indoors, she came through the Castle gate. There might be
battle in the open, as there had been earlier in the day; but at least
there would be fresh air.
Michael saw her step into the sunlight, and he gave no sign that his
heart was beating furiously. Deep under his levity was the knowledge
that his life from this moment forward was to be settled by the
direction of a single glance.
Joan halted, seeing the press of men that filled the street. Then,
among the many faces, she saw two only--Michael's and his brother's.
And then, because all reticence had left her, she went straight to
Christopher's side.
"Sir, you are wounded," she said, simple as any cottage-maid.
For the rest of the day Michael was obsessed by gaiety. Whenever the
Squire began to talk of Rupert, to map out their route to Oxford,
Michael interposed some senseless jest that set the round-table
conference in a roar.
"Best go groom the donkey," snapped the Squire at last. "If ever the
Prince gets York's message, it will be Kit who takes it."
"Kit has the better head. By your leave, sir, I'll withdraw."
"No, I was hasty. Stay, Michael, but keep your lightness under."
That night, when the Castle gate was closed, and few lights showed about
the windows, Christopher met Joan Grant on the stairway. He was tired
of wounds that nagged him, and he needed bed. She was intent on drowning
sleeplessness among the old tomes in the library--a volume of sermons
would serve best, she thought.
They met; and, because the times were full of speed and battle, she was
the cottage maid again. All women are when the tempest batters down the
frail curtains that hide the gentle from the lowly-born. "Was she very
good to see?" she asked, remembering her last night's vision--it had
been more than a dream, she knew.
So Kit, a rustic lad in his turn, flushed and asked what she meant. And
she set the quibble aside, and told him what her dream was. She
pictured Kharesborough--though her waking eyes had never seen the
town--spoke of the gun-flare that had crossed the window-panes
sometimes, while a girl watched beside his pillow.
"I was weak with my wounds," said Kit, not questioning the nearness of
this over-world that had intruded into the everyday affairs of siege and
battle.
"How direct you Metcalfs are! And the next time you are wounded there
will be a nurse, and you'll grow weak again, till your heart is broken
in every town that holds a garrison."
"I leave that to Michael," he said quietly.
All that he had done--for the King, and for the light he had watched so
often in her room at Ripley here--went for nothing, so it seemed,
because he had blundered once, mistaking dreams for substance.
"I thought you were made of better stuff than Michael."
"There's no better stuff than Michael. Ask any Metcalf how he stands in
our regard--easy-going when he's not needed, but an angel on a fiery
horse when the brunt of it comes up. He's worth two of me, Joan."
Again Joan was aware that soldiery had taught this youngster much worth
the knowing during the past months. He was master of himself, not
wayward to the call of any woman.
"We're bidding farewell," she said.
"Yes," said Christopher. "To-morrow we set out for Oxford. Do you
remember Yoredale? Your heart was at the top of a high tree, you said."
"So it is still, sir--a little higher than before."
"By an odd chance, so is mine. I chose a neighbouring tree."
She was silent for a while, then passed by him and down the stair. He
would have called her back if pride had let him.
Then he went slowly up to bed, wondering that some freak of temper had
bidden him speak at random. For an hour it was doubtful whether
tiredness or the fret of his healing wounds would claim the mastery;
then sleep had its way.
"What have I said?" he muttered, with his last conscious thought.
He had said the one right thing, as it happened. Knaresborough had
taught him, willy-nilly, that there are more ways than one of winning a
spoiled lass for bride.
Next day he woke with a sense of freshness and returning vigour. It was
pleasant to see the steaming dishes ready for Michael and himself before
their riding out, pleasant to take horse and hear the Squire bidding
them God-speed, with a sharp injunction to follow the route he had
mapped out for them. But Joan had not come to say farewell.
Just as they started, Lady Ingilby summoned Kit to her side, and behind
her, in the shadow of the doorway, stood Joan.
"She insists that you return the borrowed kerchief," said the older
woman, with a gravity that wished to smile, it seemed.
Kit fumbled for a moment, then brought out a battered bit of cambric
that had been through much snow and rain and tumult. The girl took it,
saw dark spots of crimson in among the weather-stains, and the whole
story of the last few months was there for her to read. The tears were
so ready to fall that she flouted him again.
"It was white when I gave it into your keeping."
Kit, not knowing why, thought of St. Robert's cell, of Knaresborough's
parish priest and the man's kindly hold on this world and the next. "It
is whiter now," he said, with a surety that sat well on him.
The truth of things closed round Lady Ingilby. Her big heart, mothering
these wounded gentry who came in to Ripley, had been growing week by
week in charity and knowledge. It had needed faith and pluck to play
man and woman both, in her husband's absence, and now the full reward
had come.
Quietly, with a royal sort of dignity, she touched Kit on the shoulder.
"The man who can say that deserves to go find Rupert."
While Kit wondered just what he had said, as men do when their hearts
have spoken, not their lips only, Joan Grant put the kerchief in his
hand again. "I should not have asked for it, had I known it was so
soiled. And yet, on second thoughts, I want it back again."
She touched it with her lips, and gave him one glance that was to go
with him like an unanswered riddle for weeks to come. Then she was
gone; but he had the kerchief in the palm of his right hand.
"Women are queer cattle," said Michael thoughtfully, after they had
covered a league of the journey south.
"They've a trick of asking riddles," asserted Kit. "For our part, we've
the road in front of us."
So then the elder brother knew that this baby of the flock had learned
life's alphabet. The lad no longer carried his heart on his sleeve, but
hid it from the beaks of passing daws.
They had a journey so free of trouble that Michael began to yawn,
missing the excitement that was life to him, and it was only Kit's
steady purpose that held him from seeking some trouble by the way. They
skirted towns and even villages, save when their horses and themselves
needed rest and shelter for the night. Spring was soft about the land,
and their track lay over pasture-land and moor, with the plover flapping
overhead, until they came into the lush country nearer south.
When they neared Oxford--their journey as good as ended, said Michael,
with a heedless yawn--Kit's horse fell lame. It was within an hour of
dark, and ahead of them the lights of a little town began to peep out
one by one.
"Best lodge yonder for the night," said Michael.
They had planned to bivouac in the open, and be up betimes for the
forward journey; but even Kit agreed that his horse needed looking to.
Through the warm night they made their way, between hedgerows fragrant
with young leafage. All was more forward here than in the northland they
had left, without that yap of the north-easter which is winter's dying
bark in Yoredale. Peace went beside them down the lane, and, in front,
the sleepy lights reached out an invitation to them through the dusk.
On the outskirts of the town they met a farmer jogging home.
"What do they call the place?" asked Michael.
"Banbury," said the farmer, with a jolly laugh; "where they keep good
ale."
"So it seems, friend. You're mellow as October."
"Just that. Exchange was never robbery. First the ale was mellowed;
then I swallowed ale, I did, and now I'm mellow, too."
With a lurch in the saddle, and a cheery "Good night," he went his way,
and Michael laughed suddenly after they had gone half a mile. "We
forgot to ask him where the good ale was housed," he explained.
In the middle of the town they found a hostelry, and their first concern
was with Kit's horse. The ostler, an ancient fellow whose face alone
was warranty for his judgment of all horseflesh, said that the lame leg
would be road-worthy again in three days, "but not a moment sooner." So
Kit at once went the round of the stable, picked out the best horse
there, and said he must be saddled ready for the dawn.
"Oh, lad, you're thorough!" chuckled Michael, as they went indoors.
"One needs be, with Rupert only a day's ride away."
There was only one man in the "snug" of the tavern when they entered.
By the look of him, he, too, had found good ale in Banbury. Squat of
body, unlovely of face, there was yet a twinkle in his eye, a gay
indifference to his own infirmities, that appealed to Michael.
"Give you good e'en, gentlemen. What are your politics?" asked the
stranger.
"We have none," said Kit sharply.
"That shows your wisdom. For my part--close the door, I pray--I'm a
King's man, and have flown to drink--so much is obvious--for solace.
Believe me, I was never in a town that smelt so strongly of Roundheads
as does Banbury. They meet one in the streets at every turn, and in the
taverns. One might think there was no Royalist alive to-day in
England."
The man's bombast, his easy flow of speech, the intonation now and then
that proclaimed him one of life's might-have-beens, arrested Michael.
"Tell us more, friend," he said lazily.
"Gladly. I need help. I am making a tour, you understand, of the chief
towns of England, staying a day or more in each, until the Muse arrives.
I was ever one to hope; and, gentlemen, by the froth on my pewter-mug, I
swear that many noblemen and gentry will buy my book of verses when it's
all completed."
"So you need our help?" asked Michael, humouring him.
"Most urgently. I have a most diverting ditty in my head, about this
town of Banbury. It runs in this way:
"Here I found a Puritan one
Hanging of his cat on a Monday
For killing of a mouse on a Sunday."
"Good!" laughed Michael. "It's a fine conceit."
"Ah, you've taste, sir. But the trouble is, I find no rhyme to 'Puritan
one.' To find no rhyme, to a poet, is like journeying through a country
that brews no ale. Believe me, it is heartache, this search for a good
rhyme."
"Puri*tane* one--the lilt running that way----"
"I have tried that, too," said the other with sorrow, "and still find no
rhyme."
The door opened sharply, and the landlord bustled in. "Supper is
served, gentlemen. I trust you will not mind sharing it with some
officers of the Parliament quartered here?"
"Nothing would please us better," assented Michael. "Will our friend
here join us, host?"
"Oh, we none of us heed Drunken Barnaby. Leave him to his rhymes, sir."
Yet Michael turned at the door. "I have it, Barnaby," he chuckled.
"Here I found a Puritane one: bid him turn and grow a sane one'--that's
the way of it, man."
"It rhymes," said Barnaby sadly, "but the true poetic fire is lacking.
Leave me to it, gentlemen."
As they crossed the passage Kit drew his brother aside. "Remember what
the Squire said, Michael. We need quiet tongues and a cool head if we're
to find Rupert."
"Youngster, I remember. That was why I played the fool to Barnaby's
good lead. All men trust a fool."
When they came to the parlour, they found a well-filled board, and round
it six men, big in the beam, with big, cropped heads and an air of great
aloofness from this world's concerns; but they were doing very well with
knife and fork. The two Metcalfs answered all questions guardedly; and
all went well until Kit saw a great pie brought in, a long, flat-shaped
affair with pastry under and over, and inside, when its crust was
tapped, a wealth of mincemeat of the kind housewives make at Christmas.
"Michael, this is all like Yoredale," said Kit unguardedly. "Here's a
Christmas pie."
To his astonishment, the Puritans half rose in their seats and glanced
at him as if he had the plague. "There are Royalists among us," said
one.
"What is all this nonsense, friends?" asked Michael, with imperturbable
good temper.
"We call it mince-meat now. None of your Christmases for us, or any
other Masses. None of Red Rome for us, I say. Banbury kills any man
who talks of Masses."
"We've blundered somehow, Kit," whispered Michael nonchalantly.
"Say, do you stand for the King?" asked the Roundhead. "Yes or no--do
you stand for the King?"
[Illustration: "'Say, do you stand for the King?'"]
"Why, yes," said Kit. "Come on, you six crop-headed louts."
This was the end of Kit's solemnity, his over-serious attention to
Prince Rupert's needs. And then they were in the thick of it, and the
weight of the onset bore them down. When the battle ended--the table
overturned, and three of the Roundheads under it--when Kit and Michael
could do no more, and found themselves prisoners in the hands of the
remaining three, the landlord, sleek and comfortable, bustled in.
"I trust there is no quarrel, gentlemen?" he entreated.
"None, as you see," said Michael airily. "We had a jest, host, about
your Christmas pie. They tell me none says Mass in Banbury because the
town is altogether heathen."
So then a blow took him unawares, and when Kit and he woke next day,
they found themselves in the town's prison.
Michael touched his brother with a playful foot. "You blundered, Kit,
about that Christmas pie."
"Yes," said Christopher; "so now it's my affair, Michael, to find a way
out of prison."
But Michael only laughed. "I wish we could find a rhyme to Puritane
one," he said. "It would help that rogue we met last night."
The grey of early dawn stole through the window of the gaol and
brightened to a frosty red as Michael and his brother sat looking at
each other with grim pleasantry. Charged with an errand to bring Prince
Rupert to the North without delay, they had won as far as this
Roundhead-ridden town, a score miles or so from their goal, and a
moment's indiscretion had laid them by the heels.
"Life's diverting, lad. I always told you so," said Michael. "It would
have been a dull affair, after all, if we had got to Oxford without more
ado."
"They need Rupert, yonder in York," growled Kit.
"Ah, not so serious, lest they mistake you for a Puritan."
"It is all so urgent, Michael."
"True. The more need to take it lightly. Life, I tell you, runs that
way, and I know something of women by this time. Flout life, Kit, toss
it aside and jest at it, and all you want comes tumbling into your
hands."
"I brought you into this. I'll find some way out of gaol," said the
other, following his own stubborn line of thought.
The window was narrow, and three stout bars were morticed into the
walls. Moreover, their hands were doubled-tied behind them. All that
occurred to them for the moment was to throw themselves against the
door, each in turn, on the forlorn chance that their weight would break
it down.
"Well?" asked Michael lazily, after their second useless assault on the
door. "High gravity and a long face do not get us out of gaol. We'll
just sit on the wet floor, Kit, and whistle for the little imp me call
Chance."
Michael tried to whistle, but broke down at sight of Kit's lugubrious,
unhumorous face. While he was still laughing, there was a shuffle of
footsteps outside, a grating of the rusty door-lock, and, without word
of any kind, a third prisoner was thrown against them. Then the door
closed again, the key turned in the lock, and they heard the gaoler
grumbling to himself as he passed into the street.
[Illustration: "Without a word of any kind, a third prisoner was thrown
against them."]
The new-comer picked himself up. He was dripping from head to foot; his
face, so far as the green ooze of a horse-pond let them see it, was
unlovely; but his eyes were twinkling with a merriment that won
Michael's heart.
"Sirs, I warned you that Banbury was no good place for Cavaliers. I am
pained to see you here."
Michael remembered the man now--a fellow who had jested pleasantly with
them in the tavern just before they were taken by the Roundheads. "We
forgot your warning, Mr. Barnaby," he said drily, "so we're here."
"I thank you, sir. Drunken Barnaby is all the address they give me
nowadays. Perhaps you would name me Mr. Barnaby again; it brings one's
pride out of hiding."
So then they laughed together; and friendship lies along that road. And
after that they asked each other what had brought them to the town gaol.
"You spoke of Christmas pie, with Puritans about you?" said Drunken
Barnaby. "I could have warned you, gentlemen, and did not. I was
always a day behind the fair. They loathe all words that are connected
with the Mass."
"We have learned as much," said Michael. "For your part, Mr. Barnaby,
how came you here?"
"Oh, a trifle of ale-drinking! My heart was warm, you understand, and I
roved down Banbury street with some song of glory coming for King
Charles. I'm not warm now, but the cool o' the horse-pond has brought
me an astonishing sobriety."
"Then tell us how to be quit of these four walls," snapped Kit, thinking
ever of York and the need the city had of Prince Rupert.
"Give me time," said Drunken Barnaby, "and a little sleep. Between the
forgetting and the waking, some gift o' luck will run my way."
"Luck!" laughed Michael. "She's a good mare to ride."
Barnaby, with his little body and the traces of the horse-pond about
him, had seemed to the gaoler of mean account, not worth the trouble of
tying by the wrists. The rogue sat up suddenly, just as he was falling
off to sleep.
"It is a mistake, my gentles, to disdain an adversary," he said, with
that curious air of his, roystering, pedantic in the choice of phrases,
not knowing whether he were ashamed of himself and all men, or filled
with charitable laughter at their infirmities. "Our friend with the
blue-bottle nose left my hands free, you observe, while yours are bound.
Much water has gone into my pockets--believe me, I shall dislike all
horse-ponds in the future--but the knife-blade there will not have
rusted yet."
With a great show of strategy, still laughing at himself and them, he
drew a clasp-knife from his breeches-pocket, opened it, and cut their
thongs.
"That's half-way on the road to Oxford," laughed Kit, rubbing the weals
about his wrists. "It was kind of you to drink too much ale, Barnaby,
and join us here."
Michael glanced at his young brother. "Humour returns to you," he said,
with an approving nod. "I told you life was not half as serious as you
thought it."
They tried the window-bars, the three of them, but found them sturdy.
They battered the doorway again with their shoulders; it did not give.
Barnaby drew a piece of wire from his pocket, and used great skill to
pick the lock; he might as well have tried to pierce steel armour with a
needle.
"There's nothing to be done to-night, gentles," he said, with a noisy
yawn; "and, when there's nothing to be done, I've found a safe and
gallant rule of conduct--one sleeps. Some day, if I find the Muse
propitious, I shall write an ode to sleep. It is the fabled elixir of
life. It defies all fevers of the daytime; it is the coverlet that
Nature spreads about her tired children. But, gentlemen, I weary you."
"You make me laugh," asserted Michael. "Since I left Yoredale, I've met
none who had your grasp of life."
They settled themselves by and by to sleep, as best they could, on a wet
floor, with the warmth of the new day rousing queer odours from their
prison-house. There was the stealthy tread of rats about their bodies.
It was Barnaby, after all, who was false to his gospel of deep slumber.
At the end of half an hour he reached over and woke Michael from a
thrifty dream of Yoredale and corn yellowing to harvest.
"What is it?" growled Michael.
"I cannot sleep, sir. You recall that, in the tavern yesterday, I
confessed myself a poet. The rhymes I have made, sir, are like the
sands of the sea for multitude. I was never troubled till I came to
Banbury."
"Then journey forward. There are other towns."
"You do not understand me. Towns to be taken by assault, by any rhymes
that offer, do not entice me. It is the hardship of attack that tempts
your true soldier. You will grant me that?"
"I'll grant you anything, Barnaby, so long as you let me sleep on this
wet floor. I dreamed I was lying on a feather-bed."
"But the rhyme? You remember how the poem went: 'Here I found a Puritan
one, hanging of his cat on a Monday, for killing of a mouse on a
Sunday.' A fine conceit, sir, but I can find no rhyme for _Puritan_
one, as I told you."
Kit, for his part, was awake, too, and some jingle of a poem, in praise
of his mistress at Ripley in the north, was heating his brain. But the
lad was learning wisdom these days, and held his peace; there was no
need to bring other men to Joan Grant by undue singing of her praises.
"Believe me, this verse-making is a fever in the blood," protested
Barnaby. "Naught serves until the rhyme is found. It is a madness,
like love of a lad for a maid. There is no rhyme to Puritan."
"Friend," said Michael, "I need sleep, if you do not. Remember what I
said last night. Puri*tane* one--try it that way. Get your man round
to the King's cause, and he becomes a _sane one_."
"But, sir----"
Michael smiled happily. "We have a saying in Yoredale: 'I canna help
your troubles, friend; I've enough of my own.' Take it or leave it at
Puri*tane* one. For myself, I'm going to sleep."
Barnaby sat wrestling with the Muse. His mind, like all men's, was full
of hidden byways, and the most secret of them all was this lane that led
into the garden of what, to him, was poetry. A tramp on life's highway,
a drinker at taverns and what not, it was his foible that he would be
remembered by his jingling verses--as, indeed, he was, centuries after
the mould had settled over his unknown grave.
It might be five minutes later, or ten, that Kit stirred in sleep, then
sat bolt upright. He heard steps on the cobbled street outside, the
turning of a rusty key in the lock. Then the door opened, and he saw
the squat figure of the gaoler, framed by a glimpse of Banbury street,
grey and crimson in the clean light of the new day. Without haste he
got to his feet, stretched himself to the top of his great height, then
went and picked the gaoler up and swung him to and fro lightly, as if he
were a child.