good deal of feeding, after a night in the open had set a razor-edge to
appetite; and the scouting-party had commandeered a farmer's horse and
gig to bring their booty into camp.
"Who goes there?" snapped the sentries, running to meet this intrusion
on the night's quiet.
"A Mecca, lad," laughed the driver, "bringing fowls and cheese, and good
home-cured bacon--ay, and a little barrel of rum that nearly bounced out
o' the gig when I came to a rutty place in the road."
"'Twould have been a pity to have lost the rum. Where are Blake and
your cousin Nicholas?"
"Oh, following! The gig would not hold us all. As for Blake, he has few
cares in life. Not one to have his heart touched by a woman--he. He
laughs by habit, till you're forced to laugh with him."
*CHAPTER XI.*
*BANBURY CAKES.*
At Oxford, there was expectation threading the routine of Court life.
The fine light of devotion to lost causes--causes lost because they were
ever too high for mean folks' understanding--had cradled this good city.
Chivalry, the clean heart and the ruddy, fervid hope, had built her
wonderland of colleges and groves and pleasant streets. Men of
learning, of passionate fervour for the things beyond, had lived and
died here; and such men leave about the place of their bodily sojourn a
living presence that no clash of arms, no mire of human jealousies, can
overcome.
For this reason, all Oxford awaited the coming of the Metcalfs. They in
the north--men well content, not long ago, to follow field-sports and
the plough--were different in breed and habits from these folk in the
comely city. But, in the matters that touch dull workaday into a living
flame, they were of the same company--men who hoped, this side or the
other of the veil, to see the Standard floating high above life's
pettiness. And, for this reason, Oxford waited the Metcalfs' coming
with an expectancy that was oddly vivid. The gamesters of the Court
wagered heavily as to the hour of their arrival. Grave dons, who
happened to be interested in the mathematics more in favour at the
sister University, drew maps of the route from Banbury to York,
calculated the speed of messengers spurring at the gallop north, and the
return pace of riders coming south on horses none too fresh. These had
recourse to algebra, which seemed only to entangle the argument the
more.
Queen Henrietta Maria and the ladies of the Court made no calculations.
Michael and Christopher were here, big, wind-browned men, who seemed
unaware that they had done anything worth praise; and the Queen, with
her French keenness of vision, her late-learned English view of life,
knew that two gentlemen had come to Oxford, men made in the image of
chivalry, ready to live or die with gallantry.
So the two brothers were spoiled outrageously, until, on the second day,
Kit was despatched alone to Lathom House in Lancashire.
"Take all the quieter byways," said Rupert, as he saw him get to saddle.
"Tell the Lady of Latham to hold out a little longer. And tell her from
me, _Well done_!"
Rupert sighed as he turned away. He was fretting to be at Shrewsbury,
raising his company for the relief of York; but he was kept in Oxford
here by one of those interminable intrigues which had hampered him for
months past. The older men whose counsel the King trusted--Culpepper,
Hyde, and the rest--were jealous of Rupert's conspicuous genius for
warfare. The younger men were jealous of the grace--a grace clean-cut,
not foppish, resolute--which endeared him to the women of the Court. He
was accused of treachery at Bristol, of selling his honour for a sum of
gold; it was said that he dallied here in Oxford for reasons known to
the Duchess of Richmond. No lie was too gross to put in circulation, by
hint, or question, or deft innuendo. Day by day, hour by hour, men were
dropping poison into the King's ear and the Queen's; and at the
Councils, such as this that kept him here just now, he saw across the
table the faces of men obstinately opposed to him. Whatever he
suggested was wrong because he was the spokesman; whatever was in blunt
contradiction to his view of the campaign was applauded. The Duke of
Richmond, his friend and ally, was with him, and one or two younger men
who had no gift of speech in these times of stress. For the rest, he was
alone, a man of action, with his back to the wall in a battle of
tongues.
He carried himself well enough even to-day, when the meeting was more
stormy than usual. His dignity was not a cloak, but an inbred strength
that seemed to grow by contact with adversity.
"So, gentlemen," he said, at the close of the Council, "you have had
your way so far as talk goes. Now I have mine. I hold a commission
from the King to raise forces for the relief of sundry garrisons. I
shall relieve those garrisons in my own way. Meanwhile, you may hold
Councils without number, but I would recommend tennis to you as a
healthier pastime."
They watched him go. "The d--d young thoroughbred!" spluttered
Culpepper. "We'll get a bit between his teeth, one of these days, and
teach him discipline."
Rupert made his way across the High Street, a curious soreness at his
heart. Discipline? He had learned it in his teens--the self-restraint,
the gift of taking blows and giving them with equal zest. But this new
school he was passing through was harsh, unlovely. There was York,
waiting for relief; there was Lathom House, defended with courage
unbelievable by Lady Derby and a handful of hard-bitten men; there were
twenty manors holding out in hope of the succouring cavalry who did not
come; and he was kept here to attend a Council, to listen to veiled
jealousy and derision, when all he asked for was a horse under him and
grace to gather a few thousand men.
As he neared Christ Church, intent on seeking audience of the King, and
stating frankly his own view of his enemies, he encountered Michael
Metcalf crossing hurriedly from a side street.
"Well, sir?" he asked, with a sense of friendship at sight of a man so
obviously free of guile. "Have they done wagering in Oxford as to the
hour your kinsmen ride in?"
"I think the play runs even faster. Some learned dons have brought the
heavy guns of algebra to bear on it, and all the town is waiting for
their answer to the riddle."
"All's topsy-turvy," laughed the Prince. "If dons have taken to giving
the odds on a horserace, where will Oxford end? But you were hurrying,
and I detain you."
Michael explained that the King had commanded his presence at the
Deanery; and the other, after a brief farewell, turned on his heel.
After all, his own business with the King could wait until this reigning
favourite in Oxford had had his audience.
Just across the way was Merton, where the Queen's lodging was. Rupert
had had his fill of disillusion and captivity here in the loyal city; he
was human, and could not hide for ever his heartache to be out and
doing, lest it ate inward with corrosion. He crossed to Merton, asked
for the Queen, and was told that she had gone out a half-hour since to
take the air. The Duchess of Richmond was within, he learned in answer
to a second query.
The Duchess was stooping over a table when he was announced. She added
a few quick strokes to the work she was engaged on, then rose.
"You, my Prince?" she said, with frank welcome. "You come from the
Council? I hoped that you would come. Were they as always?"
"My lord Cottington's gout was at its worst, and he in the same mood as
the disease. Digby's mouth was more like a Cupid's bow than ever, and
he simpered well-groomed impertinences. How I loathe them, Duchess."
"You would."
She turned for a moment to the window, looked out on the May sunlight
and the dancing leaves. All the vigour of their loyalty to the King--her
husband's and her own--all the dreams they had shared of monarchy secure
again, and rebellion trampled underfoot, were summed up in Rupert's
person. He had done so much already; he was resolute to go forward with
the doing, if the curs of scandal and low intrigue would cease snapping
at his heels.
She turned from the window. "My Prince," she said, touching his arm
with the grace that gives courage to a man, "you do well to come here
for sanctuary between the pauses of the battle. If you knew what my
husband says of you, if you guessed the many prayers I send you----"
The keen, happy smile broke through from boyhood's days. "Duchess," he
said very simply, "I am well rewarded. What were you busy about when I
intruded?"
She showed him her handiwork. "One must do something these dull days,"
she explained, "and it was you who taught me this new art of etching. Am
I an apt pupil?"
Rupert looked at the work with some astonishment. The art was in its
infancy, and difficult; yet she had done very well, a few crudities
apart. The etching showed a kingfisher, triumphant on a rock set in
midstream; at its feet lay a half-eaten grayling.
"It is not good art, because it is an allegory," she explained, with the
laughter that had been oftener heard before the troubled days arrived.
"You, my Prince, are the kingfisher, and the grayling the dull-witted
fish named Parliament."
At the Deanery Michael was in audience with the King, whose imagination
had been taken captive by the exploits of the Riding Metcalfs, by the
stir and wonderment there was about the city touching the exact hour of
their coming. Michael, because wind and hazard in the open had bred
him, carried himself with dignity, with a reverence rather hinted at
than shown, with flashes of humour that peeped through the high gravity
of this audience. He explained the wagering there was that York would
be relieved, spoke of the magic Rupert's name had in the north. At the
end of the half-hour the King's face was younger by ten years. The
distrust of his nephew, wearing faith away as dropping water wears a
rock, was gone. Here, by God's grace, was a gentleman who had no lies
at command, no private grudge to serve. It was sure, when Michael took
his farewell, that the commission to raise forces for the relief of York
would not be cancelled.
The King called him back, bade him wait until he had penned a letter.
The letter--written with the sense that his good angel was looking over
his shoulder, as Charles felt always when his heart was free--was a
simple message to his wife. He had not seen her for a day, and was
desolate. He could not spare time to cross the little grove between
this Merton, because he had letters still unanswered but hoped to sup
there later in the day. He was a fine lover, whether of Church, or
State, or the wife who was lavender and heartsease to him; and, after
all, they are three kingly qualities.
He sealed the letter. "You will be so good as to deliver it into the
Queen's hand, Mr. Metcalf; there may be an answer you will bring."
Michael, when he knocked at the gate of Merton, was told the Queen was
abroad. He said that he would wait for her return; and, when the
janitor was disposed to question, he added that he came direct from the
King, and, if he doubted it, he would pitch him neck and crop into the
street. He was admitted; for the janitor, though sturdy, was six inches
shorter.
When he came into the room--that would have been gloomy between its
panelled walls, if it had not been for the sunlight flooding it with
gold and amber--he saw Rupert and the Duchess of Richmond standing near
the window. Sharp, like an east wind from Knaresborough, where he had
marked time by dalliance with pretty women, he heard Miss Bingham's
voice as she bade him, when he came to Oxford, ask Rupert how the
Duchess of Richmond fared.
Michael did not need to ask. With a clean heart and a conscience as
easy as is permitted to most men, he saw these two as they were--loyal
woman helping loyal man to bind the wounds that inaction and the rust of
jealousy had cankered.
"By your leave," he said, "I have a letter for the Queen."
"It will be safe in my hands, Mr. Metcalf."
The Prince was surprised by the other's gravity, his air of perplexity.
"I would trust all I have to you," said Michael, "all that is my own.
But this letter is the King's, and he bade me give it to the Queen
herself. I can do no less, believe me."
"Sir," said Rupert coldly, "you risk your whole advantage here at
Court--make me your enemy for life, perhaps--because you stand on a
punctilio the King himself would not ask from you."
The Duchess watched the faces of these men. Michael had been the
laughter-maker in the midst of disastrous days; his gift of story, his
odd susceptibility to the influence of twenty pairs of bright eyes in a
day, had made him a prime favourite. Now he was as hard and
simple-minded as his brother Christopher. She approved the man in his
new guise.
"I stand on the strict command the King gave me," said Michael quietly.
"Sir, how could a man do otherwise?"
Rupert turned suddenly. "Duchess," he said, "we stand in the presence
of a man. I have tried him. And it always clears the air, after
Councils and what not, to hear the north wind sing. I wish your clan
would hurry to the muster, sir, if they're all as firm as you are for
the King."
An hour later the Queen returned, read the letter, penned a hasty
answer. "Ah, it is so good to see you, Monsieur Metcalf, so good! You
have the laughter ready always--it is so good to laugh! There is--what
you call it?--too much salt in tears, and tears, they fall so quick if
one allows it. Now, you will tell me--before you take my letter--when
does your big company ride in? Some say to-day, others two, three days
later. For myself, I want to see your tall men come. They will make
light the King's heart--and he so _triste_--ah, _croyez-vous_ that he is
_triste_!"
With her quick play of hands and features, her pretty broken English,
the air of strength and constancy that underlay her charm, the Queen
touched Michael with that fire of pity, admiration, selfless love, which
never afterwards can be forgotten. She had bidden him laugh, lest for
her part she cried. So he made a jest of this ride of the Metcalfs
south. He drew pictures, quick, ludicrous pictures, of men calculating
this queer game of six-score men travelling fast as horseflesh could
bring them to the loyal city. He explained that he alone had the answer
to the riddle, because he was unhampered by Christopher's obstinacy on
the one hand, by the grave algebra of dons on the other. All Oxford had
been obsessed by the furious gallop of horsemen north between stage and
stage. They could reach York in fifteen hours. It was the return
journey, of units gathering into companies, of companies resting their
horses when need compelled, that fixed the coming of the White Horses
into Oxford. And the last of these--the one mustered nearest York--was
of necessity the one that guided the hour of coming.
In the north ride, speed and road-dust under the gallop; in the canny
muster toward the south, a pace of tiresome slowness.
"How long since we came in, Christopher and I?" asked Michael.
"Six days," said Rupert. "They's been leaden days for me, and so I
counted them."
"Then look for our folk to-morrow, somewhere between dawn and sunset."
On the northern road, beyond Banbury, there had been a steady muster of
the Metcalfs day by day. Blake, the night-rider, watched the incoming of
these northern men--each day a score of them, big on their white
horses--with wonder and a keen delight. Those already mustered were so
sure of the next day's company; and these, when they rode in, carried
the same air of buoyancy, of man-like hardihood and child-like trust.
A new, big dream was stirring round Blake's heart. Six days ago he had
lain awake and heard two sentries talk of Miss Bingham, of the coquetry
she practised still in Knaresborough, and his old wound had opened. He
had staunched the bleeding with prompt skill; and now his heart was
aching, not for fripperies over and done with, but for the thing that
Oxford was to see, if all went well. He had ridden out to spur the
first Metcalf forward with his message to the north. He would bring
this gallant company into the city--he, small of body, used only to the
plaudits of barn-owls and farmhouse dogs as he galloped over hill and
dale on lonely errands--he would come into the full sunlight of Oxford's
High Street with the stalwarts he had gathered in.
There's no stimulus so fine as a dream nurtured in good soil. Blake
went foraging by day, taking his share of other camp work, too; and,
when his sleep was earned o' nights, he lay watching the stars instead
and pictured this good entry into Oxford. The dream sufficed him; and,
unless a man can feel the dream suffices, he might as well go chewing
pasture-grass with other sleepy cattle.
On the sixth evening, when a grey heat-mist was hiding the sun an hour
before his time, the last of the Metcalfs came in, the old Squire of
Nappa at their head. And Blake put a question to the Squire, after they
had known each other half an hour--a question that none of the others
had known how to answer, though he had asked it often. "We have had
excursions and alarms from Banbury, sir--a few skirmishes that taught
them the cost of too great inquisitiveness--and I asked your folk why we
gathered here, instead of skirting a town so pestilent."
"They did not tell you," chuckled the Squire, "because they could not,
sir. I am used to asking for obedience. My lads learn the reason later
on. But you shall know. I shall never forget, Mr. Blake, that it was
you who brought me in my old age to the rarest frolic I ever took part
in."
He explained, with a jollity almost boyish, that Banbury was notorious
in Northern gossip as a hotbed of disloyalty, its folk ever on the watch
to vex and hinder Oxford. So he proposed to sweep the town as clean as
might be before riding forward.
Soon after dawn the next day, men and horses rested, they set about the
enterprise. The sentry posted furthest north of Banbury ran back to
give word that the camp was astir; the soldiers and townsmen, not
knowing what was in the mind of this company that had been gathering on
its borders these six days past, got to arms and waited. And then they
heard a roar, as it were of musketry, as the Metcalfs gave their
rally-call of "A Mecca for the King!"
There was no withstanding these men. They had more than bulk and good
horses at their service. The steadfastness that had brought them south,
the zeal that was like wine in their veins, made them one resistless
whole that swept the street. Then they turned about, swept back again,
took blows and gave them. The Banbury men were stubborn. They took the
footman's privilege, when matched against cavalry, of trying to stab the
horses; but the Metcalfs loved the white horses a little better than
themselves, and those who made an essay of the kind repented it.
At the end of it Squire Metcalf had Banbury at command. "We can
breakfast now, friends," he said, the sweat streaming from his jolly
face. "I told you we could well afford to wait."
His happy-go-lucky prophecy found quick fulfilment. Not only was the
place rich in the usual good food dear to the Puritans, but it happened
that the wives of the town had baked overnight a plentiful supply of the
cakes which were to give Banbury its enduring fame. "They're good
cakes," laughed the Squire of Nappa. "Eh, lads, if only Banbury loyalty
had the same crisp flavour!"
*CHAPTER XII.*
*PAGEANTRY.*
Oxford was keeping holiday. The Queen, sure that her husband was facing
trouble at too short a range, persuaded him--for her own pleasure, she
asserted--to hold a pageant in a field on the outskirts of the city. It
was good, she said, that well-looking cavaliers should have a chance of
preening their feathers until this dull waiting-time was over--good that
tired ladies of the Court should get away from men's jealousies and
wrangles, and air their graces. So a masque had been written and
arranged within a week, the zest in it running side by side with the
constant expectation of the Metcalfs' coming.
The masque was fixed for twelve o'clock; and, an hour before noon, the
company of players began to ride up the High Street on their way to the
playing field. Mary of Scots passed badinage with a Franciscan friar as
they rode in company; a jester went by, tickling Cardinal Wolsey in the
ribs until the great crowd lining either side the street laughed
uproariously. The day was in keeping with it all--sunlight on the
storied houses, lush fragrance of the lilac, the song of birds from
every branch of every tree.
From up the street there came, sudden as a thunder-clap, the clash of
horses' feet. The masqueraders drew aside, to right and left, with
little heed for wayfarers. And down the lane, bordered thick with
faces, there came a band of men who did not ride for pageantry.
In front of them--he had been thrust into leadership by the Squire of
Nappa, who had guessed his ambition and his dream--rode a little man on
a little, wiry mare. Blood was dripping from a wound on his cheek; his
right arm hung limp. He did not seem to be aware of all this disarray,
but rode as a conqueror might do. The dream sufficed him.
A draper in the crowd, whose heart was bigger than the trade that hemmed
him in, raised a strident cry: "Why, it's little Blake! Wounds over
him, from head to foot--but it's little Blake."
And then Blake's dream came true. To the full he tasted the incense of
men's praise, long worked for, yet unsought. All down the High Street
the running murmur went that Blake was here; and the people saw his
wounds, the gay, courageous smile in answer to their greeting, and their
cheers redoubled.
The pageant-makers, thrust aside by the steady, uncompromising trot of
the Metcalfs, lost their first irritation--forgot the boredom that had
settled on them during these idle days--and raised a cheer as lusty as
the townfolks'. The street was one sunlit length of white horses moving
forward briskly, four by four; the big men on them were white with dust,
and ruddier splashes of the warfare at Banbury showed here and there.
It was as if the days of old were back again, and Northmen riding, with
a single heart and purpose, to a second Flodden. They moved, not as
six-score men, but as one; and when the old Squire drew rein presently,
they, too, pulled up, answering the sharp command as a sword answers to
the master's hand.
"By your leave, sir," said the Squire, "we come in search of Prince
Rupert. Can you direct us to his lodging?"
It happened that it was Digby he addressed--Digby of the soft voice, the
face like a cherub's, and the tongue of an old, soured woman. "I could
not say," he answered. Of all the Cavaliers there, he only was unmoved
by the strength and fine simplicity of these riders into Oxford. "If I
were aware where the Duchess of Richmond is to be found, I could direct
you."
A stormy light came into the Squire's grey eyes. "We have heard of the
Duchess. Her name is fragrant in the North, sir, save where ostlers
gather at the tavern and pass gossip on for gaping yokels."
"Countered, you dandy!" laughed Digby's neighbour. "Grooms in Oxford and
grooms in the North--hey, where's the difference?"
"We shall prove it, sir, at dawn to-morrow," said Digby, his hand
slipping to his sword-hilt.
"Oh, content. I always liked to slit a lie in two, and see the two
halves writhe and quiver."
The Squire of Nappa, looking at these two, guessed where the danger of
the King's cause lay. Men see clearly when heart and soul and purpose
are as one. If two of his own company had offered and accepted such a
duel openly, he would have taken them, one in either hand, and knocked
their heads together, in the interests of discipline. In Oxford, it
seemed usual that private differences should take precedence of the
King's service, and the Squire felt chilled for the first time since he
rode out from Yoredale.
Prince Rupert had shared a late breakfast with the Duke of Richmond and
the Duchess, who was, in heart and soul, a great lady beyond the reach
of paltry malice. Rupert was moody, irritable. He was sick for
pageantry in the doing--gallop of his cavalry with swords glancing on
Roundhead skulls--blows given for the health of the reigning King,
instead of play-acting to the memory of buried monarchs. He was
passionately disdainful of this pageant in which he was to play a part,
though at the moment he was donning mediaeval armour.