"No," said the Duchess. "There could have been no pageantry without
you. Believe me, it is good for us to have action, if only in the
playing--it lights dull days for us."
Rupert strode up and down the floor with his restless, long-legged
stride. "I'm to figure as Richard the Crusader," he said, tired of
himself and all things. "I ask you, friends, do I show like a
Crusader?"
"Your temper of the moment does not, but a man's past goes with him,"
she broke in, with her soft, infectious laugh. "Of all the King's
gentlemen I know, my husband here, and you, stand nearest to the fine
crusading days. To please us both, you will play your part?"
Rupert was beyond reach of blandishment. There was a fire from the
over-world about him; men and women grew small in the perspective, and
only the vigour and abiding zeal he had for the King's service remained
to guide him, like a taper shining through a night of trouble.
"Friends," he said, simply as a child, "I had a dream last night. I
dreamed that prayers were answered at long last, and that the sea rode
into Oxford--a gallant sea, creamed with white horses riding fast."
"How should that be?" laughed the Duke. "It was a tired man's dream."
"It was more," said Rupert sharply. "It was a true vision of the days
to come. I tell you, the white horses rode into Oxford like a crested
sea. I knew they came to help me, and I grew tired of pageantry." He
smiled at his own gravity, and reached out for his Crusader's sword.
"Come," he broke off, "Coeur de Lion should be punctual to the tryst."
They came into the High Street, the three of them; and Rupert checked
his horse with a thrill of wonderment. Not until now had he guessed
what the strain of these last idle days had been. He saw the gallant sea
ride into Oxford, as in his dream--saw it ride down to meet him, creamed
with white horses moving at the trot. He was a free man again.
And then the crowd's uproar ceased. They saw Rupert, their idol, spur
forward sharply, saw the company of Metcalfs halt as one man when their
Squire drew rein.
"You are the Metcalfs, come from York, I think," said Rupert. Ten years
seemed lifted from him in a moment. "Gentlemen, we've waited for you.
The King will make you very welcome."
"We came to find Prince Rupert," said the Squire of Nappa, uncovering,
"and, God be thanked, I think we've found him. You are like my picture
of you."
The Squire's errand was accomplished. By hard stages, wakefulness o'
nights, banter or the whiplash of his tongue by day, he had brought
these high-mettled thoroughbreds into Oxford. It was a relief to take
orders now, instead of giving them.
"Sir, they're asking for pageantry in Oxford," said the Prince, "and, by
Richard Coeur de Lion, they shall have their fill. Permit me to command
your troop."
The Duchess, not for the first time, was surprised by the
right-to-be-obeyed that Rupert carried with him. Instinctively the
Metcalfs made a lane between their sweating horses, and she found
herself riding through the pleasant reek of horseflesh until they came
to the end of this long avenue of men.
Rupert was himself again--no longer an idler, exchanging growls with
enemies in Council, but a man, at the head of the finest cavalry even
his proved judgment had encountered so far. When they came to the
pageant field, he bade them dismount and do as they pleased for an hour;
at the hour's end they were to be ready and alert.
When the King arrived by and by with his Queen, a great wave of loyalty
went put to greet them. However it fared with his shifting fortunes, he
was here among friends, and knew it. The knowledge was heartening; for
Charles had gone through bitter struggle to keep an unmoved face when
all he loved seemed racing to disaster.
The pageant moved forward; but the crowd was lukewarm until Richard the
Crusader came, and then they went mad about the business.
"How they love him!" said the King, his face flushed with pleasure.
The Queen touched him on the arm as only wives do who have proved their
men. "And you--how the good city loves you! To have captured Oxford's
heart--ah, will you not understand how big your kingdom is? In
London--oh, they are shopkeepers. In Oxford there is the great heart
beating. Gain or loss, it does not matter here."
When the Crusading scene was ended, and while some affair of royalty
granting a Charter to dull-witted burgesses was in the playing, Rupert
came to the King's side. "There's a modern episode to follow, sir, if
you are pleased to watch it."
"Ah, no!" pleaded the Queen, with her pretty blandishment. "It would be
a pity, Rupert, to be less than Coeur de Lion. The armour fits you like
a glove."
"I think you lived once in those days, Rupert of the fiery heart,"
laughed the King; "but no man thrives on looking back. Go, bring your
modern mummers in!"
Rupert brought them in. He doffed his mediaeval armour somewhere in the
background of the field, and donned the raiment he liked better.
"Are you ready, Metcalfs?" he asked, pleasantly.
With the punctilio that was part of the man, he insisted that the Squire
of Nappa should ride beside him at the head of this good company. They
thundered over the field, wheeled and galloped back. It was all oddly
out of keeping with the pageantry that had gone before. In playing
scenes of bygone centuries men gloss over much of the mud and trouble of
the times; but here were six-score men who had the stain of present
traffic on them.
The King himself, grave and reticent since the troubled days came,
clapped hands as he watched the sweeping gallop, the turn-about, the
precision of the troop when they reined in and saluted as if one man had
six-score hands obeying the one ready loyalty. But the Queen grew
pitiful; for she saw that most of these well-looking fellows carried
wounds and a great tiredness.
"What is this scene you play?" asked the King.
"Sir, it is the Riding Metcalfs, come to help me raise recruits for the
relief of York. Coeur de Lion died long ago, but these Northmen are
alive for your service."
"My thanks, gentlemen," said Charles. "By the look of you, I think you
could relieve York without other help."
Rupert pressed home his point. "Grant us leave, sir, to go wide through
Lancashire and raise the siege of Lathom first. My Lord Derby was here
only yesterday, after long travel from the Isle of Man."
The Queen, knowing how persistently Lord Derby had been maligned, how
men had poisoned the King's mind against him, caught Rupert's eye and
frowned at him. His nimble wit caught the challenge and answered it.
"Sir," he said, with the swiftness and assurance of a cavalry attack,
"remember Lady Derby there at Lathom. She has held out for weary
months--a woman, with a slender garrison to help her--has held out for
the honour of the Stuart. Give me my Metcalfs, and other troops to
raise, and grant us leave to go by way of Lathom House."
The King smiled. "I thought you a fighter only, Rupert. Now you're an
orator, it seems. Go, rescue Lady Derby; but, as you love me, save
York. There are only two cities on the map to me these days--York and
Oxford. The other towns count loss and gain, as tradesmen do."
Long stress of misunderstanding, futile gossip of courtiers unemployed,
dripping poison into the King's mind, were swept away. "As God sees me,
sir, I ride only for your honour. The Metcalfs ride only for your
honour."
"Ah, Coeur de Lion," laughed the King, "have your own way of it, and
prosper."
At Lathom House, three days ago, there had been a welcome addition to
the garrison. Kit Metcalf--he of the sunny smile, because he loved a
maid and was not wedded to her whimsies yet--had ridden to the outskirts
of the house, had dismounted, left his horse to roam at large, and had
crept warily through the moonlight that shone on sleeping men and
wakeful sentries. On the left of the moat, near the rounded clump of
sedge that fringed its turning, he saw two sentries chatting idly
between their yawns.
"It's a poor affair, Giles, this of keeping awake to besiege one woman."
"A poor affair; but, then, what could you look for from an officer of
Rigby's breed? Sir Thomas Fairfax had no liking for the business.
We've no liking for it."
Kit ran forward through the moonlight, gripped them with his right hand
and his left--neither hand knowing just what the other was doing--and
knocked their skulls together with the strength given him by Providence.
They tumbled forward over the brink of the moat, and Kit himself dived
in.
When he came to the water's top again, he swam quietly to the further
bank, then went in great tranquillity up the grassy slope that led him
to the postern gate, and was surprised when he was challenged sharply.
Remembering what he had gone through for the Stuart, he thought, in his
simple country way, that comrades of the same breed would know him, as
dog knows brother-dog, without further parley. When he was asked who
went there, his temper fired, though the wet of his crossing should have
damped its powder.
"A Mecca for the King, you wastrel! Have you not heard of us?"
"By your leave, yes," said the sentry, with sudden change of front.
"All Lancashire has heard of you. What is your business here?"
"To see Lady Derby instantly."
He was passed forward into the castle, and a grey-headed man-servant
came to meet him. Again he said curtly what his business was.
"It is out of question, sir," the man protested. "My lady has had three
sleepless nights. She gave orders that she should not be roused till
dawn, unless, indeed, there was danger from the enemy."
Kit was headstrong to fulfil his errand to the letter. "Go, rouse her!"
he said sharply. "I come from the King at Oxford, and my news cannot
wait."
*CHAPTER XIII.*
*THE LADY OF LATHOM.*
All folk, even grey and pampered servants, obey the ring of true command
in a man's voice; and after Kit had waited for what seemed a week to his
impatience, a great lady came down the stair and halted at a little
distance from him, and looked him up and down. Her face was lined with
trouble; there were crows'-feet about her eyes; but she was dressed
fastidiously, and her head was erect with challenge.
"Well, sir?" she asked sharply. "You rob me of sleep for some good
reason, doubtless. Sleep? You could have asked no dearer gift. But the
King himself commands, you say?"
[Illustration: "'Well, sir?' she asked sharply. 'You rob me of sleep for
some good reason doubtless?'"]
Kit faced her ill-temper, and she liked him for it.
"My lady," he said, "Prince Rupert bids me tell you that he comes your
way, for the relief of Lathom. He bids me tell you that Lathom House
has lit a fire of loyalty from one end to the other of your county."
"So Rupert comes at last?" she asked eagerly.
"As soon as he can gather forces. Meanwhile, he sends me as his deputy,
and that's one more sword-arm at your service."
Again she looked him up and down; and smiled. "I like big men. They
help to fill this roomy house I'm defending for my husband and the
King--for the King and my husband, I should say, if I were not a better
wife than courtier."
Kit, for his part, could not take his eyes away from her. Two women of
the breed he had seen before, and two only--the Queen, with courage
gloved by French, disarming courtesy, and the downright mistress of
Ripley Castle. As Lady Derby stood there, the traces of her twelve
months' Calvary were apparent, because she had been roused suddenly from
sleep, and pride had not asserted full control as yet. Under her tired
eyes the crows'-feet showed like spiders' webs; her face was thin and
drawn; and yet there was a splendour about her, as if each day of each
week of hardship had haloed her with grace. She was, in deed as in
name, the great lady--so great that Kit felt dwarfed for a moment. Then
his manhood returned, in a storm of pity to protect this woman.
"Go sleep again," he said. "I was wrong to rouse you with my news."
She laughed, low and pleasantly, like a breeze blowing through a
rose-garden. "I slept with nightmares. You are forgiven for rousing me
with news that Rupert comes."
Then she, too, saw how weary this Riding Metcalf was, and touched him on
the arm with motherly admission of his tiredness. "You need food and
wine, sir. I was thoughtless."
The grey old servant, standing like a watch-dog on the threshold, caught
her glance, and came in by and by with a well-filled tray.
"Admit that we are well-provisioned, Mr. Metcalf. The siege has left
some niceties of the table lacking, but we do well enough."
She nibbled at her food, intent on keeping his riotous appetite in
countenance. By the lines in his face, by the temperate haste with
which he ate and drank, she knew him for a soldier older than his years.
"Tell me how it sped with your riding from the North?" she asked.
"It went bonnily--a fight down Skipton Raikes, and into the
market-place. Then to Ripley, and running skirmishes; and, after that,
the ride to Oxford. I saw the King and Rupert, and all the prayers I
ever said were answered."
"Oh, I'm tired here, waiting at home with gunshots interrupting every
meal. Tell me how the King looked."
"Tired, as you are--resolute, as if he went to battle--and he bade me
give you the frankest acknowledgment of his regard."
"Ah, he knows, then--knows a little of what we've done at Lathom?"
"He knows all, and Rupert knows."
On the sudden Lady Derby lost herself. Knowledge that the King praised
her, sheer relief that the Prince was marching to her aid, came like
rain about her, breaking up the long time of drought. Then she dried
her eyes.
"I, too, have fought," she explained, "and have carried wounds. Now,
sir, by your leave, are you rested sufficiently? Well, then, I need you
for a sortie by and by."
From the boy's laughter, his sharp call to attention, she knew again
that he was of the soldier's breed.
"Weeks ago--it seems years by now--this Colonel Rigby who besieges us
planted a mortar outside our gates. Our men sallied and killed many,
and brought the mortar in."
"Good," said Kit. "I saw it as I came through the courtyard, and
wondered whether you or they had put it out of action."
"My folk put it out of action. And now they've brought up another
mortar. We dare not let it play even for a day on crumbling walls.
There's to be a sortie within the hour. One of my officers is dead, and
two are wounded. Sir, will you lead a company for me?"
"Luck always comes my way," assented Kit.
"But you do not ask what strength you have to follow you?"
"What strength you can give me. I am at your service."
When Lady Derby mustered all she could spare from her slender garrison,
Kit found himself the leader of twenty men, some hale enough, others
stained with the red-rust that attends on wounds.
"Friends," he said, "the moon is up, and there's light enough to guide
us in the open."
They liked him. He wasted no speech. He was mired with travel of wet
roads, and his face was grey and tired, but they knew him, for they had
seen other leaders spur them to the hazard.
Some went out through the main gate of Lathom, and waited under shadow
of the walls. Others joined them by way of little doors, unknown to the
adversary. They gathered, a battered company, led by officers half
drunk with weariness, and ahead they saw the moonlight shining on the
mortar, reared on its hillock.
Beyond the hillock a besieging army of three thousand men slept in
security, save for the hundred who kept guard about the mortar. These
five-score men were wakeful; for Colonel Rigby--a weakling cloaked in
self-importance--had blustered round them an hour ago, had assured them
that Lady Derby was the Scarlet Woman, known otherwise as Rome, and with
quick invective had threatened them with torture and the hangman if they
allowed this second mortar to go the way its predecessor had taken weeks
ago. He had sent an invitation broadcast through the countryside, he
explained, bidding folk come to see the mortar play on Lathom House
to-morrow.
Through the dusk of the moonlight Kit and the rest crept forward. Quick
as the sentry shouted the alarm, they were on their feet. They poured
in a broadside of musketry at close range, then pressed forward, with
swords, or clubbed guns, or any weapon that they carried. It was not a
battle, but a rout. In ten minutes by the clock they found themselves
masters of the field. The mortar was theirs, and for the moment they
did not know what to do with it. From behind came the sleepy roar of
soldiery, new-roused from sleep by the retreating guardians of the
mortar, and there was no time to waste.
One Corporal Bywater, a big, lean-bodied man, laughed as he touched Kit
on the arm. "Had a wife once," he said. "She had her tantrums, like
yond mortar--spat fire and venom with her tongue. I cured her with the
help of a rope's end."
Bywater, remembering the previous escapade, had lashed two strong ropes
about his body, in readiness for this second victory. The cordage, as
it happened, had saved him from a death-wound, struck hurriedly by a
Parliament man. He unwrapped it now with a speed that seemed leisurely.
Rigby's soldiery, from the moonlit slopes behind, buzzed like a hornet's
nest. There was indeed no time to waste.
Christopher Metcalf was not tired now, because this hazard of the Lathom
siege had captured his imagination. His soul was alert, and the
travel-stained body of him was forgotten. Captain Chisenhall detached
fourteen of the sortie party to drag the mortar into Lathom House. The
rest he sent forward, raised a sudden shout of "For God and the King!"
and went pell-mell into the first of Rigby's oncoming men. Though on
foot, there was something of the dash of cavalry in this impetuous
assault, and for a while they drove back the enemy; then weight of
numbers prevailed, and Kit, his brain nimble, his heart singing some old
pibroch of the hills his forefathers had tilled, entrenched his men on
the near side of the earthworks Rigby had built to protect his mortar.
There was some stark, in-and-out fighting here, until the Roundheads
began to deploy in a half circle, with intent to surround Kit's little
company. Then he drew back his men for a score yards, led a last
charge, and retreated to the Lathom gateway in time to see the mortar
dragged safely into the main courtyard.
When the gate was closed, and Kit came out of the berserk madness known
as war, he saw the Lady of Lathom in the courtyard.
"But, indeed, sir, you've done very well," said she, moving through the
press of men to give him instant greeting.
"It was pastime." Kit's voice was unsteady yet, his head swimming with
the wine that drips, not from red grapes, but from the sword that has
taken toll of human life. "We brought the mortar in."
"You did, friends. Permit me to say good-night. I have need to get to
my knees, thanking God that he sends so many gentlemen my way."
After she was gone, and the men were gathered round the peat fire in the
hall, Kit was aware that he was at home. All were united here, as the
Metcalfs were united. Private jealousies were lost in this need to
defend Lathom for the King. Captain Chisenhall was here, stifling a
yawn as he kicked the fire into a glow, Fox, and Worrall and Rawstorn,
and others whose faces showed old with long service to this defence of
Lathom--the defence that shone like the pole star over the descending
night that was to cover kingship for a while.
They asked news of the Riding Metcalfs; and that, in turn, drew them to
talk of Lathom's siege. They told him of Captain Radcliffe, who had led
twelve sorties from the house, and had spread dismay among the enemy
until they feared even the whisper of his name.
"I was never one for my Lady Derby's prayerful view of life," said
Rawstorn, his gruff voice softening, "but Radcliffe was on her side.
He'd slip away before a sortie, and we knew he was praying at the altar
of the little chapel here. Then he would come among us, cracking a
jest; but there was a light about his face as if the man were
glamoured."
"I know that glamour, too," said Kit, with his unconquerable simplicity.
"There's a cracked bell rings me in on Sabbath mornings to our kirk in
Yoredale."
"What do you find there, lad?" asked a rough elder of the company.
"Strength undeserved, and the silver sheen of wings."
So then they were silent; for they knew that he could fight and
pray---two qualities that men respect.
It was the big-jowled elder who broke the silence. "Say, laddie, can you
drink?" he growled.
"A bucketful, if I'm not needed on this side of the dawn."
Comfort of the usual kind might be lacking here at Lathom, but the
cellar was well filled. And Kit, as the wine passed round, learned the
truth that comes from unlocked tongues. They talked of the siege, these
gallants who had kept watch and ward; they told how Lady Derby had
trained her children not to whimper when cannon-shot broke roughly into
the dining-hall; they told how Captain Radcliffe, his head erect, had
gone out for the thirteenth sortie, how they had warned him of the
ill-omen.
"Oh, he was great that day," said Rawstorn. "'If I were Judas, I should
fear thirteen,' said he. 'As the affair stands, I'm stalwart for the
King.' He was killed in an attack on the east fort; and when we sortied
and brought his body in, there was a smile about his lips."
Little by little Christopher pieced together the fragments of that long
siege. Lady Derby's single-mindedness, her courage and sheer charm,
were apparent from every word spoken by these gentlemen who drank their
liquor. The hazards of the men, too--the persistent sorties, the
give-and-take and pathos and laughter of their life within doors--were
plain for Kit to understand. At Oxford and elsewhere there had been
spite and rancour, jealousy of one King's soldier against another. Here
at Lathom there was none of that; day by day of every month of siege,
they had found a closer amity, and their strength had been adamant
against an overpowering force outside their gates.
Kit learned much, too, of Colonel Rigby, who commanded the attack. A
hedge-lawyer by training--one who had defended night-birds and skulkers
of all kinds--he had found himself lifted to command of three thousand
men because Sir Thomas Fairfax, a man of sound heart and chivalry, grew
tired of making war upon a lady. Rigby enjoyed the game. He cared never
a stiver for the Parliament, but it was rapture to him to claim some
sort of intimacy with the titled great by throwing cannon-balls and
insults against my Lady Derby's walls.
"As for Rigby," said the man with the big jowl, "I wish him only one
thing--to know, to the marrow of him, what place he has in the thoughts
of honest folk. Mate a weasel with a rat, and you'll get his breed."
Captain Chisenhall, who had been pacing restlessly up and down the hall,
halted in front of Kit. "It was a fine device of yours, to entrench on
this side of their own earthworks. I never had much head myself, or
might have thought of it. But, man, you're spent with this night's
work."
"Spent?" laughed Kit. A sudden dizziness took him unawares, and their
faces danced in a grey mist before his eyes. "I was never more
wide-awake. D'ye want another sortie, gentlemen? Command me."
With that his head lolled back against the inglenook. He roused himself
once to murmur "A Mecca for the King!" then slept as he had done on
far-off nights after harvesting of hay or corn in Yoredale.
"There's a game-pup from over the Yorkshire border among us," laughed
Chisenhall. "Let him sleep. Let me get up to bed, too, and sleep. Of
all the toasts I ever drank--save that of the King's Majesty--I like
this last bumper best. Here's to the kind maid, slumber, and good night
to you, my friends."
The next morning, soon after dawn, Kit stirred in sleep. Through the
narrow mullions great, crimson shafts of light were stealing. A thrush
outside was recalling bygone litanies of mating-time. Sparrows were busy
in the ivy. It was so like Yoredale and old days that he roused
himself, got to his feet, and remembered what had chanced last night.
He had slept hard and truly, and had profited thereby. His bones were
aching, and there was a nagging cut across his face; for the rest, he
was ready for the day's adventure.