guardian of the little door set in the main gateway, opened and peered
out into the flood of moonlight. Lady Ingilby came running, with Joan
Grant, to learn the meaning of the uproar; alarms and sharp assaults had
been frequent since the Metcalfs left to find Prince Rupert.
"Why, 'tis Elizabeth, my lady," laughed William--"Elizabeth, the snod,
li'le donkey we grew so fond of."
"Give her supper and a warm bed for the night," said Lady Ingilby. "The
luck comes home at last."
"But does it?" asked Joan Grant, a pitiful break in her voice. "We have
lain warm abed while Kit was nursing his wounds on the open moors----"
"True, girl. He'll be none the worse for it. Lovers have a trick of
coming home, like their four-footed kindred."
She would listen to no further trouble of Joan's, but patted Elizabeth's
smooth ears, and talked to her, and fed her. The wife of a strong man,
and the mother of strong sons, is always tender with four-footed things.
*CHAPTER XVI.*
*THE SCOTS AT MICKLEGATE.*
Michael was in high spirits as he rode for York with Christopher. He
wore Puritan raiment, and it was troublesome to keep his steeple-hat
safely on his head; but the wine of adventure was in his veins, and
clothing mattered little.
"Once into York, my lad," he said, breaking a long silence, "and we
shall get our fill of turmoil. There'll be sorties and pitched battle
when Rupert comes."
Kit was always practical when he had his brother for companion. "We are
not into York as yet. What plan have you, Michael?"
"My usual plan--to trust to luck. She's a bonnie mare to ride, I tell
you."
"But the papers we took from the three Roundheads in the tavern--we had
best know what they pledge us to."
"The Prince was right, after all. He said that you would steady me. It
is odd, Kit, but it never entered my daft head to look at the papers; it
was enough that they were our passport."
They drew rein, and Michael ran his eye down the papers. "They say that
Rupert is marching fast for the relief of York--that will be no news to
them by this time--that the Prince has inflicted disastrous reverses on
their cause, at Bolton and by relieving Lathom House, and that, at any
cost of life, York must be reduced before his coming. Oh, my lad, how
all this plays into Rupert's hands!"
There was only one weakness in Michael's gay assurance that all was
speeding well. When they reached the outposts of the enemy's lines,
their way led them, as it chanced, to that quarter of the city which the
Scots beleaguered. Their garb, Michael's peremptory demand that the
sentry should pass them forward to the officer in command, backed up by
showing of his papers, had their effect. It was when they found
themselves in the presence of five Parliament officers, seated at a
trestle table ill supplied with food, that they began to doubt the
venture.
"Who are these?" asked one of the five, regarding the strangers with
mingled humour and contempt.
"They were passed forward by the sentry, Captain. That is all I know."
"Who are they?" laughed a young lieutenant. "Why, Puritans, both of
them, and preachers, too, by the look of their wearing-gear. It needs
no papers to prove that."
Michael was always steadied by surprise. They had garbed themselves so
carefully; they were acknowledged as friends of the Parliament cause; he
was at a loss to understand the chilliness of their reception.
"Puritans undoubtedly," he said, with a hint of his old levity, "but
we've never been found guilty of the charge of preaching."
Captain Fraser glanced through the papers, and his air of rude
carelessness changed. "This is of prime importance. By the Bruce,
sirs, the Parliament has chosen odd-looking messengers, but I thank you
for the bringing of your news."
Within ten minutes the Metcalfs were ushered into the presence of a
cheery, thick-set man, who proved to be Leslie, the general in command
of the Scots. He, too, read the papers with growing interest.
"H'm, this is good news," he muttered. "_At any cost of life_. That
leaves me free. I've been saying for weeks past that famine and
dissensions among ourselves will raise the siege, without any
intervention from Prince Rupert. Your name, sir?" he asked, turning
sharply to Michael.
Michael, by some odd twist of memory, recalled Banbury and the name of a
townsman who had given him much trouble there. "Ebenezer Drinkwater, at
your service."
"And, gad, you look it! Your face is its own credential. Well, Mr.
Drinkwater, you have my thanks. Go seek what food you can find in
camp--there may be devilled rat, or stewed dog, or some such dainty
left."
Kit, who did not share his brother's zest in this play of intrigue, had
a quick impulse to knock down the general in command, without thought of
the consequences. The insolence of these folk was fretting his temper
into ribbons.
"Come, brother," said Michael, after a glance at the other's face. "We
can only do our work, not needing praise nor asking it. Virtue, we are
told, is in itself reward."
A gruff oath from Leslie told him that he was acting passably well; and
they went out, Kit and he, with freedom to roam unmolested up and down
the lines.
"What is your plan?" asked Kit impatiently.
"We must bide till sundown, and that's an hour away. Meanwhile, lad, we
shall keep open ears and quiet tongues."
They went about the camp, and everywhere met ridicule and a hostility
scarcely veiled; but there was a strife of tongues abroad, and from many
scattered drifts of talk they learned the meaning of the odd welcome
they had found. The Scots, it seemed, had found the rift grow wider
between themselves and the English who were besieging York's two other
gates. The rift had been slight enough when the first joy of siege, the
hope of reducing the good city, had fired their hearts. Week by week
had gone by, month after month; hunger and a fierce drought had eaten
bare the countryside, and hardships are apt to eat through the light
upper-crust of character.
The Metcalfs learned that the dour Scots and the dour Puritans were at
enmity in the matter of religion; and this astonished them, for they did
not know how deep was the Scottish instinct for discipline and order in
their Church affairs. They learned, too--and this was voiced more
frequently--that they resented the whole affair of making war upon a
Stuart king. They had been dragged into the business, somehow; but ever
at their hearts--hearts laid bare by privation and ill-health--there was
the song of the Stuarts, bred by Scotland to sit on the English throne
and to grace it with great comeliness.
It was astounding to the Metcalfs, this heart of a whole army bared to
the daylight. There had been skirmishes, they heard, between Lord
Fairfax's men and the Scots. The quarrel was based ostensibly on some
matter of foraging in each other's country; but it was plain that the
Scots were glad of any excuse which offered--plain that they were more
hostile to their allies than to the common enemy. Then, too, there was
mutiny breeding among the soldiery, because their scanty pay was useless
for the purchase of food at famine prices.
"We must find a way in," said Michael by and by. "The garrison should
know all this at once. They could sortie without waiting for the
Prince's coming."
The Barbican at Micklegate was too formidable an affair to undertake.
What Michael sought was some quieter way of entry. They had reached the
edge of the Scottish lines by now. The clear, red light showed them
that odd neck of land bounded by Fosse Water and the Ouse, showed them
the Castle, with Clifford's Tower standing stark and upright like a
sentry who kept watch and ward. Within that neck of land were Royalists
who waited for the message, as lovers wait at a stile for a lady
over-late.
"We _must_ win in," said Michael.
"Well, brothers," said a gruff voice behind them, "are you as sick to
get into York as we are? You're late come to the siege, by the well-fed
look of you."
"Just as sick," assented Michael cheerfully. "By the look of you, you're
one of Lord Fairfax's men at Walmgate Bar. Well, it is pleasant to be
among good Puritans again, after the cold welcome given us by the Scots
at Micklegate."
So then the trooper talked to them as brother talks to brother. Within
five minutes they learned all that the English thought of their Scottish
allies, and what they thought would not look comely if set down on
paper.
Michael warmed to the humour of it. The man with the heart of a
Cavalier and the raiment of a Puritan hears much that is useful from the
adversary. He told of their late errand, the safe delivery of their
papers, and the contents. He explained--confidentially, as friend to
friend--that he had an errand of strategy, and must get into York before
sundown. Was there any quiet way of entry?
"Well, there's what they call a postern gate nigh handy," said the
trooper, with the burr in his speech that any Wharfedale man would have
known. "D'ye hear the mill-sluice roaring yonder? Though it beats me
how she can roar at all, after all this droughty season."
"It has been a dry time and a dreary for our friends," put in Michael,
with unctuous sympathy.
"Drear? I believe ye. If I'd known what war and siege meant, the King
might have bided at Whitehall for ever--Star Chamber taxes or no-- for
aught I cared. At first it rained everything, save ale and victuals;
and then, for weeks on end, it droughted. There's no sense in such
weather."
"But the cause, friend--the cause. What is hardship compared with the
Parliament's need?"
"Parliament is as Parliament does. For my part, I've got three teeth
aching, to my knowledge, and other-some beginning to nag. You're a
preacher, by the look o' ye. Well, spend a week i' the trenches, and
see how it fares with preaching. There's no lollipops about this cursed
siege o' York."
Kit could only marvel at his brother's grave rebuke, at the quietness
with which he drew this man into talk--drew him, too, along the bank of
Fosse Water till they stood in the deafening uproar of the weir.
"There's the postern yonder," said the trooper--"Fishgate Postern, they
call it. Once you're through on your errand, ye gang over Castle Mills
Brigg, and the durned Castle stands just beyond."
Michael nodded a good-day and a word of thanks, and hammered at the
postern gate. A second summons roused the sentry, who opened guardedly.
"Who goes there?" he asked, with a sleepy hiccough.
Kit thrust his foot into the door, put his whole weight against it, and
only the slowness of rusty hinges saved the sentry from an untimely end.
"You can talk well, Michael, but give me the doing of it," he growled.
Kit gripped the sentry, neck and crop, while Michael bolted the door.
Then they pushed their captive across Mills Bridge, and found themselves
in the evening glow that lay over St. George's Field. For a moment they
were bewildered. The roar of the mill-sluice had been in their ears so
lately that the quietness within York's walls was a thing oppressive.
The sounds of distant uproar came to them, but these were like echoes
only, scarce ruffling the broad charity and peace of the June eventide.
They could not believe that eleven thousand loyalists, horse and foot,
were gathered between the city's ramparts.
The sentry, sobered by the suddenness of the attack and Kit's rough
handling, asked bluntly what their business was. "It's as much as my
skin is worth, all this. Small blame to me, say I, if I filled that
skin a trifle over-full. Liquor is the one thing plentiful in this
cursed city. What is your business?"
"Simple enough," said Michael. "Go find my Lord Newcastle and tell him
two Puritans are waiting for him. They are tired of laying siege to
York, and have news for his private ear."
"A likely tale!"
"Likelier than being throttled where you stand. You run less risk the
other way. What is the password for the day?"
"Rupert of the Rhine," said the other sullenly.
"That's a good omen, then. Come, man, pluck your heart out of your
boots and tell Lord Newcastle that we knocked on the gate and gave the
counter-sign. Tell him we wait his pleasure. We shall shadow you until
you do the errand."
The sentry had a gift of seeing the common sense of any situation. He
knew that Newcastle was in the Castle, closeted with his chief officers
in deliberation over the dire straits of the city; and he went in search
of him.
Newcastle listened to his tale of two big Puritans--preachers, by the
look of them--who had found entry through the postern by knowledge of
the password. "So they wait our pleasure, do they?" said Newcastle
irascibly. "Go tell them that when my gentlemen of York go out to meet
the Puritans, it will be beyond the city gates. Tell them that spies
and informers must conform to their livery, and come to us, not we to
them. If they dispute the point--why, knock their skulls together and
pitch them into Castle Weir."
"They are big, and there are two of them, my lord."
A droll Irishman of the company broke into a roar of laughter. The
sentry's face was so woebegone, his statement of fact so pithy, that
even Newcastle smiled grimly. "Soften the message, then, but bring them
in."
To the sentry's astonishment, the two Puritans came like lambs at his
bidding; and after they were safely ushered into the Castle dining-hall,
the sentry mutely thanked Providence for his escape, and went in search
of further liquor. As a man of common sense, he reasoned that there
would be no second call to-night at a postern that had stood
un-challenged for these three weeks past.
Michael, when he came into the room, cast a quick glance round the
company. He saw Newcastle and Eythin, and a jolly, red-faced Irishman,
and many others; and memory ran back along the haps and mishaps of
warfare in the open to a night when he had swum Ouse River and met just
this band of gentlemen at table. He pulled his steeple-hat over his
eyes and stood there, his shoulders drooping, his hands crossed in front
of him.
"Well," demanded Newcastle, his temper raw and unstable through long
caring for the welfare of his garrison. "If we are to discuss any
business, you may remove your quaint head-gear, sirs. My equals
uncover, so you may do as much."
"Puritans do not, my lord," Michael interrupted. "What are men that we
should uncover to them?"
"Men circumstanced as we are have a short way and a ready with cant and
steeple-headed folk."
"Yet the password," insisted the other gently. "_Rupert of the Rhine_.
It has a pleasant sound. They say he is near York's gates, and it was we
who brought him."
The Irishman, thinking him mad or drunk, or both, and irritated beyond
bearing by his smooth, oily speech, reached forward and knocked his hat
half across the room.
"Oh, by the saints!" he roared; "here's the rogue who came in last
spring, pretty much in the clothes he was born in, after swimming Ouse
River--the jolly rogue who swore he'd find Rupert for us."
"At your service, gentlemen--as dry as I was wet when we last
encountered. Will none of you fill me a brimmer?"
Lord Newcastle, if something raw in experience of warfare and its
tactics, was a great-hearted man of his world, with a lively humour and
a sportsman's relish for adventure. He filled the brimmer himself, and
watched Michael drain half of it at one thirsty, pleasant gulp. "Now
for your news," he said.
"Why, my lord, I pledged the Metcalf honour that we'd bring Rupert to
you, and he lies no further off than Knaresborough."
"Good," laughed the Irishman. "I said you could trust a man who swore
by the sword he happened not to be carrying at the moment."
"And your friend?" asked Newcastle, catching sight of Christopher, as he
stood moving restlessly from foot to foot.
"Oh, just my brother--the dwarf of our company. Little, but full of
meat, as our Yoredale farmers say when they bring small eggs to market.
To be precise, Kit here is worth three of me. They call him the White
Knight in Oxford."
So Kit in his turn drank the heady wine of praise; and then Michael,
with swift return to the prose of everyday, told all he knew of Rupert's
movements, all that he had learned of the famine and dissension outside
the city gates.
"The Prince bade you all be ready for the sortie when he came," he
finished. "For my part, I think we might sortie now and save him the
trouble of scattering these ragabouts."
"Ah, life's a droll jade," murmured the Irishman. "We fancied they were
doing fairly well out yonder, while we were cooped up here like chickens
in a pen. Will you give me the sortie, my lord? The light's waning
fast."
"Ay, lead them, Malone," laughed Newcastle. "I shall be glad to give
mettled colts their exercise."
The sentry at the Mills postern gate was suffering evil luck to-night.
He had scarcely settled himself on his bench inside the gate, a tankard
of ale beside him, and a great faith that the odds were all against his
being disturbed twice in the same evening, when there came a splutter of
running feet outside and a knocking on the door. Memory of the earlier
guests was still with him, sharpened by the sting of aches and bruises.
"No more gentle Puritans for me," he growled. "They can knock as they
list; for my part, I'm safer in company with home-brewed ale."
He listened to the knocking. Drink and his rough experience of awhile
since, between them, brought a coldness to his spine, as if it were a
reed shivering in some upland gale.
Then warmth returned to him. A voice he knew told him of what had
happened outside York, and insisted that its bearer should bring the
good news in.
"Why, Matthew, is it only thee?" asked the sentry, his mouth against the
spacious keyhole.
"Who else? Open, thou durned fool. My news willun't bide."
Lord Newcastle had scarcely given consent to the sortie, when the sentry
came again to the dining-chamber, pushing in front of him a lean, ragged
figure of a man who seemed to have found a sudden shyness, until Michael
burst into a roar of laughter. "Here's a gallant rogue! It was by his
help I won into York last spring. Sutler, I thank you for the donkey
purchased from you."
"Is she well, sir?" asked the other eagerly. "I aye had a weakness for
the skew-tempered jade."
"Come, your news?" snapped Newcastle.
"It's this way, gentles. I can talk well enough when I'm selling
produce for the best price it will fetch--and prices rule high just now,
I own--but I'm shy when it comes to talking wi' my betters."
"Then put some wine into your body," laughed Malone. "It's a fine
remedy for shyness."
"And thank ye, sir," said the rogue, with a quiet, respectful wink.
"I'm aye seeking a cure for my prime malady."
"Well?" asked Newcastle, after the cup was emptied.
"It tingles right down to a body's toes, my lord--a very warming liquor.
As for what I came to say, 'tis just this. I'm for the King myself. I
never could bide these Parliament men, though I sell victuals to 'em. I
come to tell ye that there's no siege of York at all."
He told them, in slow, unhurried speech, how news had come that Rupert
lay at Knaresborough, how the Parliament men had gone out to meet him on
the road to York, glad of the chance of action, and trusting by weight
of numbers to bear down the man who had glamoured England with the
prowess of his cavalry.
Confusion followed the sutler's news. Some--Newcastle himself among
them--were eager to send out what men they could along the Knaresborough
road to aid Rupert. Others insisted that the cavalry, men and horses,
were so ill-conditioned after long captivity that they could not take
the road to any useful purpose. A sharp sortie, packed with excitement,
was a different matter, they said, from a forced march along the
highway.
When the hubbub was at its loudest, another messenger came in. The
Prince sent his compliments to Lord Newcastle, and had taken his route
by way of Boroughbridge, "lest the enemy should spoil a well-considered
plan," that Goring was with him, that they might look for him between
the dusk and the daylight. The messenger added that the Prince had his
good dog Boye with him, and he knew that the hound carried luck even in
fuller measure than his master.
"Ah, the clever head of the man!" said Malone. "I never owned that
quality myself. He'll be meaning to cross Swale by way of Thornton
Brigg, and all as simple as a game of hide-and-seek."
It was not quite so simple. An hour later word came that Rupert had
encountered a strong force of Parliament men at the Brigg. They were
guarding a bridge of boats that stretched across the Swale; but Rupert
had scattered them, and still pressed forward.
Throughout York the contagion spread--the contagion of a fierce unrest,
a wild thanksgiving, a doubt lest it were all a dream, too good to take
real shape and substance. For this they had longed, for this they had
suffered hunger and disease--hoping always that Rupert of the Rhine
would come on a magic horse, like some knight of old, to their relief.
And he was near.
The watch-towers were crowded with men looking eagerly out into the
gloaming; but a grey mist shrouded all the plain beyond the walls.
Women were sobbing in the streets, and, when asked their reason by some
gruff passer-by, explained that they must cry, because joy hurt them so.
And then, after long waiting, there came a shouting from the mist
outside, a roar of horsemen and of footmen. And they knew the good
dream had come true at last.
There is a grace that comes of hero-worship:--grace of the keen young
buds that burst in spring. It knows no counterfeit.
Rupert was here. Privation was forgotten. Wounds became so many lovers'
tokens, and the world went very well with York.
"As God sees me, gentlemen," said Lord Newcastle to those about him, "I
take no shame to bend my knees and thank Him for this gallant business."
A message came from Rupert. He would camp outside the walls that night,
and would be glad if my Lord Newcastle and his friends would come to him
on the morrow. "We shall breakfast--if any is to be had--a little
late," the message ended. "My men have had a forced march."
"Ay, always his men and their needs," laughed Malone, the Irishman.
"What a gift he has for leadership."
When the morrow came, Michael and Kit were astonished that Lord
Newcastle bade them join the few officers he took with him to meet the
Prince outside the walls.
"It was you who brought him to us, gentlemen," he explained, with a
cheery nod. "We hold you in peculiar honour."
The meeting itself was unlike Kit's hot-headed pictures of it, framed
beforehand. Prince Rupert, straight-shouldered and smiling, was
obviously dead weary. His body was that of a usual man, but his head
and heart had been big enough to guide some thousands of soldiers who
trusted him from Oxford to the plain of York; and none goes through that
sort of occupation without paying the due toll. His eyes were steady
under the high, wide brows; but the underlids were creased and swollen,
and about his mouth the tired lines crossed and inter-crossed like
spider's webs. Only Boye, the hound, that had gathered superstition
thick about his name, was true to Kit's dream of the meeting; and Boye,
remembering a friend met at Oxford, came and leaped up to lick his hand.
"Homage to gallantry, Lord Newcastle," said Rupert, lifting his hat.
"The defence of York goes beyond all praise."
"It was well worth while," said Newcastle, and got no further, for his
voice broke.
"The day augurs well," went on the other by and by. "I like to fight in
good weather. Wet clothes are so devilish depressing."
"But the siege is raised, your Highness. All York is finding tattered
flags to grace your welcome in."
"They are kind, but flags must wait. We propose to harry the retreat."
"The retreat," said Eythin quietly, "is so ready for civil war among
itself that we should be well advised to leave it to its own devices."
Michael, with the eye that saw so much, caught a glance of challenge
that passed from Eythin to the Prince. And he guessed, in his random
way, that these two were enemies of long standing. He did not wonder,
for he had met few men whom he misliked as he did Eythin.
"Indeed," put in Newcastle, in great perturbation, "we are very rusty.
Our men and horses are cramped for want of exercise and food."