the gallop. His crashing charge drove back the Roundheads twenty paces,
and no more. They were of good and stubborn fibre, and the loss of
Cromwell bade them fight with sullen hardihood. At the end of, it might
be, fifteen minutes they had regained a foot or two of their lost
ground, and Cromwell, getting his wound bandaged at the thatched cottage
up above, asked another wounded Roundhead, who came for the like
succour, how it fared.
"As may be," growled the other. "If so thou'rt not dead, as we fancied,
get down and hearten them."
"I've a thick throat, and the pike took the fleshy part," said Cromwell,
with a deep, unhumorous laugh. "I'll get down."
He mounted with some difficulty. Pluck cannot always conquer in a
moment great loss of blood and weakness of the body. Once in the
saddle, his strength returned to him; but he rode down too late.
Rupert's men had followed their old tactics, had retreated again to gain
speed for the onslaught, and were driving the enemy before them in hot
pursuit.
Cromwell, after narrow escape of being ridden down by his own folk,
after vain efforts to rally them again, found himself alone. The wound
in his throat was throbbing at its bandages. The rain ran down him in
rivulets, and the world seemed filled with thunder and the cries of men.
Word reached him that Eythin, too, had broken through, and that all
Parliament men were bidden to save themselves as best they might. And
so he left the field; and the sickness of defeat, more powerful than
body-sickness, caught him as he neared the smithy, this side of Tockwith
village. A farm-lad, returning from selling a cow at Boroughbridge,
found him in the roadway, fallen from his horse, and carried him into
the smithy-house. They tended his wound. Within an hour his lusty
strength of purpose came to his aid. He asked for meat and ale, and
said he must get ready for the road. He was known by this time; but
even the blacksmith, Royalist to the core of his big body, would not
hinder his going. A man of this breed must be given his chance, he
felt.
"After all," he muttered, watching Cromwell ride unsteadily down the
moonlit road, "they say Marston Moor has lost Yorkshire to the
Parliament for good and all. Some call him Old Noll, and othersome Old
Nick--but he'll do little harm i' these parts now, I reckon."
"A soft heart and a big body--they go always fools in company," said his
goodwife. "I'd not have let him go so easy, I."
"Ay, but ye wod, if I'd been for keeping him. Ye're like a weather-cock,
daft wife. When I point south, thou'st always for veering round to
north--or t'other way about, just as it chances."
Cromwell rode back toward Marston, to find his men. He was kin to
Rupert in this--disaster or triumph, he must find those who needed him.
At the end of a half-mile he met a rider cantering up the rise. The
moonlight was clear and vivid, after the late storm, and the rider
pulled his horse up sharply.
"The battle is ours, General, and I've my Lord Fairfax's orders for
you."
"The battle is ours?" demanded Cromwell gruffly. "I do not understand."
"None of us understand. Fairfax was three miles away, sleeping in a
farmstead bed-chamber, when we roused him with the news. It was
Leslie's men who broke their centre and drove round Rupert's flank. The
thunder was in all our brains, I fancy."
Cromwell laughed. All his austerity, his self-pride warring against the
humility he coveted, were broken down, as Rupert's cavalry had been.
"Then it's for the siege of York again?" he asked.
"Fairfax says the risk is too great. The Moor is full of our dead, and
we're not strong enough. He bids you get your men together and hold
Ripley, going wide of Knaresborough--which is a hornet's nest--until
further orders reach you. That is my message, General."
"Good," said Cromwell, tightening the bandage round his throat. "Where
are my men?"
He found them--those who were left--in scattered companies. And a lusty
roar went up as they saw him ride through the moonlight, swaying on the
thick farm-cob that carried him.
"It's fourteen miles to Ripley, lads, but we'll cover it."
On Marston Moor the Royalists had pursued their advantage to the full.
Rupert's men and Eythin's had run wild on the ridge-fields up above.
And Leslie saw his chance. With his Scots he charged down on the White
Coats, weakened by siege before the fight began. They kept their
pledge; their coats were dyed with crimson martyrdom--and so they died
to a man, resisting Leslie's charge.
Leslie himself paused when the work was done. "They were mettled
thoroughbreds," he said huskily. "And now, friends, for the ditch that
Rupert leaves unguarded."
It was so, in this incredible turmoil of storm and fight and havoc, that
the battle of Long Marston was lost to the King. Rupert, getting his
men in hand at long last, returned to face another hand-to-hand
encounter. With the middlewing past sharing any battle of this world,
the affair was hopeless. Rupert would not admit as much. The Metcalfs,
a clan lessened since they joined in evensong an hour ago, would not
admit it. To the last of their strength they fought, till all were
scattered save a few of them.
Down the rough lane past Wilstrop Wood--a lane pitted deep with
ruts--the Royalists fled headlong. And at the far side of the wood,
where the lane bent round to a trim farmstead, there was a piteous
happening. A child, standing at the gate in wonderment at all the
uproar and the shouting, saw a press of gentry come riding hard, and
began to open the gate for them, bobbing a curtsey as the first horseman
passed. He did not see her. Those behind did not see her, but,
pressing forward roughly--pressed in turn by those behind--the weight of
them was thrust forward and broke down the gate.
After their passing a woman came from the farmsteading, eager to go out
and see how it had fared with her husband, a volunteer for Rupert.
Under the broken gate she found a little, trampled body; and all her
heart grew stony.
"Lord God," she said, "Thou knows't men make the battles, but the women
pay for them."
On Marston Moor the Squire of Nappa had found his coolness return when
it was needed most. The Prince, and he, and Christopher, their horses
killed under them long since, had just won free of a hot skirmish at the
rear of their retreating friends, and were left in a quiet backwater of
the pursuit.
"Best get away," he said. "You're needed to see to the aftermath of
this red harvest."
His sturdy common sense had struck the true note. Rupert had had in
mind to die fighting, since all else was lost. And now the little,
fluting note of trust came to him through the havoc. He was needed.
They came, these three, to the clayey lands--wet and sticky to the
feet--that bordered Wilstrop Wood. The storm, tired of its fury, had
rent the clouds apart with a last soaking deluge, and the moon shone
high, tender as a Madonna yearning to bring peace on earth.
A fresh pursuit came near them, and they turned into a field of
flowering beans on their left. They heard the pursuit go by. Then they
heard a litany of pain come out from Wilstrop Wood, where wounded
Cavaliers had taken refuge. And from Marston Moor there was the
ceaseless crying--not good to hear--of horses that would never again, in
this world, at least, find the stride of a gallop over open fields.
To these three, hidden in the bean-field, came an odd detachment from
the pity and the uproar of it all. Nothing seemed to matter, except
sleep. The heat, and rain, and burden of that bitter hour just ended
were no more than nightmares, ended by this ease of mind and body that
was stealing over them. It was good to be alive, if only to enjoy this
pleasant languor.
The Squire of Nappa laughed sharply as he got to his feet. "At my age,
to go sleeping in a field of flowering beans! As well lie bed-fellow
with poppies. D'ye guess what I dreamed just now? Why, that I was
crowned King in London, with Noll Cromwell, dressed as Venus, doing
homage to me."
"Ah, don't rouse me, father," grumbled Kit. "I'm smelling a Yoredale
byre again, and hear the snod kine rattling at their chains."
But Rupert, when at last he, too, was roused, said nothing of his dream.
It had been built of moons and Stardust--made up of all the matters he
had lost in this queer life of prose--and he would share it with no man.
When they got to the pastures again--blundering as men in drink might
do--the free, light air that follows thunder blew about their wits. It
was Rupert who first spoke. He remembered that men in flight were
trusting him, were needing a leader.
"Friends," he said, "I'm for York. Do you go with me?"
The noise from Wilstrop Wood, the cries from the Moor, grew small in the
hearing as they made their way to a speck of light that showed a
half-mile or so in front. Two farm-dogs sprang out on them when they
reached the farmstead; but the fugitives knew the way of such, and
passed unhindered.
"Are ye fro' Marston, gentles?" asked the farmer, limping out to learn
what the uproar was about. "Ay? Then how has the King sped?"
"We are broken," said Rupert simply.
"Well, I'm sorry. Step in and shelter. Ye'd be the better for a meal,
by the look o' ye. 'Tis the least I can do for His Majesty, seeing my
two rheumy legs kept me fro' riding to his help."
"Have you three horses we can borrow, friend?"
"Nay, I've but two. You're welcome to them; and they're sound-footed,
which is more than their master can say of himself."
While they snatched a meal of beef and bread, Christopher glanced at the
Prince. "I know my way on foot to Ripley, and they may need me there,"
he said.
"The fields will be packed with danger, lad. Run at my stirrup, till by
good luck we find a third horse on the road to York."
"Let him be," growled the old Squire. "There's a lady lives at Ripley.
Lovers and drunkards seldom come to harm, they say."
"Ah, so!" For a moment there was a glow of tenderness in Rupert's
sombre eyes. "It is good to hear the name of lady after the late
happenings. Get forward, sir, and guard her."
Christopher saw them get to horse and take the track that led to York.
Then he fared out into the moonlit pastures, took his bearings, and
headed straight for Ripley. The distance was less than twelve miles by
the field-tracks; but, by the route he took, it was slow to follow. The
clay-lands were waterlogged by the late storm; the hedges to be broken
through were high and thorny; but these were not the greatest of his
troubles. It had been no velvet warfare, that hour's fight on the Moor.
Constantly, as Kit went forward, he heard a groan from the right hand or
the left, and stayed to tend a wounded comrade. There was peril, too,
from horses roaming, maddened and riderless, in search of the masters
they had lost.
The first two miles were purgatory, because Kit's heart was young, and
fiery, and tender, because he felt the sufferings of the wounded as his
own. The flight, on this side of the Moor, went no further; and for the
rest of the journey he had only trouble of the going to encounter. He
came late to Ripley Castle; and the sentry who answered to his knocking
on the gate opened guardedly.
"Who goes?" he asked.
"Christopher Metcalf, sick with thirst and hunger."
The door was thrown open suddenly. In the ill-lighted hall he saw Ben
Waddilove, the old manservant of the Grants, who had ridden--long since,
when last year's corn was yellowing to harvest--in charge of Mistress
Joan.
Marston Moor was forgotten. The troubles of the day and night were
forgotten, as sunlight dries the rain. Kit was a lover. "How is the
mistress, Ben?" he asked.
"Oh, her temper's keen and trim. Mistress Grant ails naught. I suppose
Marston's lost and won? Well, it had to be, I reckon. Who brought the
news to Ripley, think ye?"
"I couldn't guess, you old fool."
"Oh, may be old--but not so much of a fool, maybe. He's in yonder,
closeted wi' Lady Ingilby in the parlour. I kenned him at first sight
by the lap of his ugly jaw. Come hitherto on the tips of your toes,
Master Christopher."
The parlour door stood open, and within Kit saw a scene of such amazing
oddity that he did not know whether he watched tragedy or comedy in the
doing. The hearth was red with crackling logs. At the far end of the
table sat Lady Ingilby, a cocked pistol lying close to her right hand;
seated opposite her was a thick bulk of a man, with a rusty bandage tied
round his neck; between them were four candles, burning with a tranquil
flame.
"So you come, Mr. Cromwell, to quarter yourself here?" Lady Ingilby was
saving.
"I do, madam."
"You come alone, knowing we are a house of women and of wounded men?
Oh, the courage of you! And even our wounded have left us--not one of
them so crippled but the news of Rupert's coming spurred him on to
Marston."
"The news of Rupert's going will comfort them, maybe," growled Cromwell.
"He thrashed you handsomely. Oh, we have the news! First, a runner
came, telling how Lord Fairfax and the leader of the Ironsides had left
the field."
Cromwell's quick temper took fire. "You claim a woman's privilege----
"No, my pistol's. We talk as man to man. I say that we have the news.
And then a second runner came and told us Leslie's Scots had won the
battle. And we sorrowed, but not as if it had been you who claimed the
victory."
The man was dead weary; but her scorn, quiet and assured, roused him.
"Am I so hated, then, by your side of this quarrel?"
"Hated? That is a little word."
"Good! Any wayside fool can be loved--it takes a man to earn hatred."
"A man of sorts--granted. You will tell me, Mr. Cromwell, what your
purpose was in coming to this house. My husband may be lying dead on
Marston Field. Perhaps you came, in courtesy, to distract my grief."
"I came because Lord Fairfax bade me," said Cromwell bluntly. "We have
no courtesy in Rutland, as you know. Mere folly must have bidden me
leave my men outside, lest they intruded on you over-roughly."
"How many of them did Rupert leave you for a guard?" She was aware of
an unexpected courtesy in the man's voice. It seemed no more than
smooth hypocrisy.
"A few within call. They are not gentle."
"Nor I. As man to man--I stand for the husband who may return or may
not--we are here, we two. You have a body of surprising strength, but
it is I who hold the pistol. Believe me, Mr. Cromwell, I have learned
your proverb well; I trust in Providence and keep my powder dry."
Christopher, watching them from the dusk of the passage, turned away.
It did not seem that Lady Ingilby needed him. Yet he turned for a last
glance--saw Cromwell's head fall prone on his hands. Weariness had
captured him at length. The mistress of Ripley sat with upright
carriage, seeing dream-pictures in the glowing fire of logs; and some
were nightmares, but a silver thread ran through them--the knowledge
that, whether he lived or lay dead, she had her husband's love.
"She bested him, and proper," chuckled Ben Waddilove. "When he came in,
he looked like a man who might well go to sleep for good and all. We'll
hope as much--and I was ever a prayerful man, as men go."
At the turn of the passage, where a lamp was smoking evilly, Kit saw a
ghost come with unsteady step to meet him--a comely ghost, in white,
fleecy draperies, a ghost that carried a sputtering candle. After
Marston, and the carnage, and the desolate, long journey from the Moor
to Ripley here, Christopher was ripe to fancy all beauty an illusion.
It was only when he saw the red-brown hair, falling disordered about the
whiteness of her gown, that his eyes grew clear.
"So you have come?" asked Joan Grant. "I did not summon you."
"Is that true, Joan?"
She would not meet his glance. "Why should I summon you?"
"Oh, that's for you to know. As we lay in the bean-field--the Prince,
and father and I--you came and whispered."
"I travelled far, then, and must have galloped home at speed."
Old Waddilove, who knew his world, moved down the passage noisily. "For
my part," he said, talking to himself, and thinking he only murmured, "I
allus said like mun wed like, choose what pranks come between. They're
fratching already, and that's a good sign. A varry good sign. There
was niver two folks fit for wedlock till they've learned how to fratch.
It clears their heads o' whimsies."
The draughty passage seemed full of Ben's philosophy. They could hear
nothing else, except the steady swish of thunder-rain outside. And Joan
laughed, because she could not help it.
There was no concealment then. Laughter opens more doors than the high
gravity that lover-folk affect.
"My dear, you know that you came," said Kit.
"I know that I lay awake, sick with terror for you. I saw you
fighting--oh, so gallantly--saw Rupert steal, a broken man, into a field
of flowering beans, with only the Squire and you to guard him. And then
I fell asleep--as if the bean-scent had stifled me, too--and I
dreamed----"
"Well, Joan?"
"That you were hindered, somehow. That you came to great honour and
forgot me."
"And that troubled you?" said Kit adroitly.
"Oh, till I woke! Then it seemed to matter little. My heart sits on the
top of a high tree, Master Christopher, as I told you long ago."
All that he had fancied in the gaining seemed lost, all that the
suffering and long anxiety of war had taught him. She was dainty,
elusive, provocative, just as she had been in Yoredale, before her
baptism of fire.
"Then why were you sick with terror for me?" he asked, as if
downrightness served as well with women as with men.
"Why? Because, perhaps, it is rather cold in the tree-tops, and a heart
comes down now and then for a little warmth. I shall bid you
good-night, sir. You're in need of rest, I think."
"Joan," he said, "I love you very well."
She halted a moment. The light from her candle showed Kit a face made
up of spring-time in a northern lane. Long battle, long abstention from
a glimpse of her, brought the old love racing back at flood. And yet it
was a new love, deepened and widened by the knowledge gained between the
riding out from Yoredale and the stark misery of Marston Moor.
"You will let me go," she said at last. "Is it a time for ease of
heart, when our men are dead, or dying, or in flight? They have told me
how it sped at Marston--and, Kit, what of the King, when the news goes
spurring south to him?"
What of the King? Their own needs--for one caress, one taste of
happiness amid the rout--went by. Their loyalty was not a thing of
yesterday; its roots lay thick and thrifty in soil centuries old.
"God forgive me," said Christopher. "I had forgotten the King."
*CHAPTER XIX.*
*WILSTROP WOOD.*
At four of the next morning Lady Ingilby's vigil was ended. There came
a Parliament man to the gate of Ripley, asking urgently for General
Cromwell. When he was admitted to the dining-chamber, he saw Cromwell
with his head still prone upon the table--saw, too, the grim figure of a
lady, who turned to level a pistol at his head.
"Your errand?" asked Lady Ingilby.
"With General Cromwell. He is needed at Long Marston."
"They are welcome to him. He's not needed here."
Cromwell shook himself out of sleep. "Who asks for me?" he said,
getting to his feet.
For the moment he thought he was tenting in the open, with only one eye
and ear closed in sleep before the next day's march began. Then he
glanced round the parlour, saw Lady Ingilby's grim, contemptuous face.
When the Parliament man had whispered his message, word for word,
Cromwell, with grim irony, thanked his hostess for the night's
hospitality, and asked if he were free to take the road.
"None more free. On the road, sir, you will meet the democracy whom you
befriend--will meet your equals."
Humour had some hiding place in Cromwell's soul, after all. As they
passed out, the messenger and he, he laughed quietly. "She's of
Rupert's breed. They'd make good Parliament men, the two of them, if we
could persuade them to our side of the battle."
Lady Ingilby opened the parlour window, listened till Cromwell's sharp
command had brought his troopers into line, and heard them go on weary
horses down the street. Then she went to the hall, in search of cloak
and hood, and encountered Christopher.
"Good morrow, Mr. Metcalf," she said, after the first start of surprise.
"One of your clan always comes when I'm most in need of you. My
husband--does he lie dead on Marston Moor?"
"He was alive when we broke Cromwell's Ironsides, for I heard his cheery
shout. After that Leslie routed us, and--I do not know."
"He may be alive, you think?"
"Why not? I shared the trouble with him, and I'm here."
Impetuous, strong for the deed, and strong for yielding to emotion
afterwards, she came and touched him on the shoulder. "My thanks--oh,
indeed, my thanks. Only to fancy him alive is peace to me. I need
you," she added briskly. "You will take charge of my women-folk here,
until I return from--from an errand of mercy."
"Let me take the errand."
"Ah, but you could not. Only I can do it. Sir, is it no welcome change
for you to tend helpless women? You have had your holiday at Marston."
"It was a queer merry-making."
"But your wounds show to the public eye--wounds of honour. You carry
the red badge of knighthood, sir, while I have only a few more grey
hairs to show for all these months of waiting."
"You cannot go alone," he protested. "The roads will be full of raffish
men."
"The roads must be as they will. For my part, I have to take a journey.
Come, saddle me a horse, sir, by your leave. My grooms were all out
with the King's party yesterday."
When they crossed to the stables, a shrill cry of welcome greeted them;
and, for all the gravity of what was past, Kit could not check a sudden
laugh. "Why, 'tis Elizabeth, the good ass that helped Michael into
York! We thought to have lost her somewhere between this and Lathom
House."
Elizabeth came and licked Kit's face; even if he were not Michael, the
master well-beloved, he was at least near the rose. And then Kit pushed
her aside; it was no time for blandishment.
There were two horses only, left behind because unfit for battle. They
looked oddly lonesome, with the six empty stalls beside them stretching
out into the lights and shadows thrown by the lantern.
"A man's saddle," said Lady Ingilby briskly. "You'll find it in the
harness chamber yonder."
Kit, when the livelier of the two horses was ready, understood why she
had chosen a man's saddle. It carried a holster; and into this, after
looking at the priming and uncocking it with masculine precision, she
slipped the pistol that had over-watched Cromwell's slumbers not long
ago. And his wonder grew; for, during months of intimacy with Ripley's
household, he had learned that Lady Ingilby, at usual times, was
motherly, unwarlike, afraid of powder and the touch of sharpened steel.
As he led her horse to the mounting-steps at the far side of the
stable-yard, the lilt of tired hoofs came up the roadway. Young dawn
was busy up the hills, and into the grey and rosy light rode Michael.
He was not dressed for a banquet. His clothes were yellow with the clay
of Marston Moor, his face disordered by wounds lately dried by the
night's east wind. But the soul of him was Michael's--wayward and
unalterable.
"At your service, Lady Ingilby," he said. "I heard a donkey bray just
now, and fancied it was Elizabeth, crying over milk spilled at Marston."
"It was no white milk, Mr. Metcalf, by the look of you."
"The thunder-rain was red in the ditches. It was a good fight, and it's
ended. So, baby Kit, we're first to the tryst, we two. I've been
wondering, all from Marston hitherto, whether you were dead or living."
Christopher found one heartache stanched. The sense that Michael was
here, instead of on the wet ground of the Moor out yonder, was vivid
happiness. "Elizabeth will be glad," he said indifferently. "She was
crying for you not long ago."
Then he was urgent that Michael should be left here on guard, and he had
his way. He borrowed the other's horse; and, after all, Lady Ingilby
was glad to have an escort through the roads.
"You have news of my husband?" she asked Michael, without hope of any
answer that sufficed.
"None," said Michael, "save that we were in the thick of it--Kit, and
he, and I--and I heard a man near me say that Ingilby was fighting as if
three men's strength were in his body."
"That is no news," said the other drily. "He was ever that sort of
man."
When they had ridden out, she and Kit, and had come to the hollow where
dog-roses and honeysuckle were blooming spendthrift to the warmer air of
dawn; she turned in saddle. "Your brother spoke of coming to a tryst.
What tryst?"