less--within call."
"Ay, so are a thousand cuckoos, if you could whistle them to hand. Who
are you, to come jesting at the gates?"
"Nephew to Lord Fairfax, by your leave."
"That alters matters. I'm Metcalf of Nappa, and aye had a liking for
the Fairfaxes, though the devil knows how they came into t'other camp.
Their word is their bargain, anyhow."
Fairfax laughed. The sturdy bluntness of the man was in keeping with
all he had heard of him. "That is true. Will you surrender--leaving all
arms behind you?"
"No," said the Squire of Nappa. "Bring your thousand cuckoos in, and I
promise 'em a welcome."
He shut the casement, called for his son Christopher to take his
sentry-place, and sought Lady Ingilby.
"There's a good deal to be done in five minutes," he said, by way of
breaking the news to her.
"Oh, you think only of speed these days, and I--believe me, I am tired."
"'Tiredness butters no haver-bread,' as we say in Yoredale. There are
two ways open to us--one to surrender by and by, the other to ride out
to-night."
"But my husband---oh, he left me here to hold the Castle."
"For as long as might be. He'll not grumble when he learns the way of
our riding out. Better leave Ripley now, with honour, than wait till
they starve us into surrender."
He had his way. In silence they made their preparations. Then Metcalf
lifted a noisy rally-cry as he led his men into the courtyard. And the
fight was grim and troublesome. When it was done, the Metcalfs
turned--those who were left--and came back for the womenfolk; and some
of the white horses, saddled hastily, fidgeted when for the first time
they found women's hands on the bridle.
Michael was one of those who gave his horse, lest a woman should go on
foot; and at the courtyard gate, while the press of folk went through,
he halted suddenly.
"Kit," he said, "there's li'le Elizabeth braying as if all her world
were lost. 'Twould be a shame to forget her, after what she did for me
at York."
Christopher was young to defeat. "It's no time to think of donkeys,
Michael," he snapped, humour and good temper deserting him in need.
"I defend my own, lad, whether Marston Moor is lost or won. I'm fond of
Elizabeth, if only for her skew-tempered blandishments."
When he returned from the humble pent-house where they had lodged the
ass, the Squire had got his company ready for the march, and was
demanding roughly where Michael was.
"Here, sir," said Michael, with the laugh that came in season or out.
"Making friends with your kind, lad," snapped the other. "Well, it's a
thrifty sort of common sense."
The odd cavalcade went out into the dewy, fragrant dawn. About the land
was one insistent litany of birds--merle and mavis, sleepy cawing of the
rooks, and shrill cry of the curlews and the plover. A warm sun was
drinking up lush odours from the rain-washed fields and hedgerows.
"Eh, but to see my growing corn in Yoredale!" sighed Squire Metcalf.
"As 'tis, lads, we're heading straight for Knaresborough, to learn how
they are faring there."
Joan Grant had been content, till now, to sit Christopher's horse and to
find him at her stirrup.
"I do not like the Knaresborough country," she said, with gusty
petulance.
"Not like it? Their garrison has kept the Cropheads busy."
"Oh, ay, Master Christopher! There's nothing in the world save sorties
and hard gallops. To be sure, we poor women are thrust aside these
days."
"What is it?"
"What is it, the boy asks. I thought you grown since Yoredale days; and
now, Kit, you're rough and clumsy as when you came a-wooing and I bade
you climb a high tree--if, that is, you had need to find my heart."
They rode in silence for a while. Christopher thought that he had
learned one thing at least--to keep a still tongue when a woman's temper
ran away with her. But here, again, his wisdom was derided.
"I loathe the tongue-tied folk! Battle, and audience with the King, and
wayfaring from Yoredale down to Oxford--have they left you mute?"
"Less talkative," he agreed; "I've seen men die."
For a moment she lost her petulance. "You are older, graver, more
likeable. And yet I--I like you less. There was no need--surely there
was no need to--to let others tell me of the ferry-steps at
Knaresborough."
"The ferry-steps?"
"So you've forgotten that poor maid as well. I pity Miss Bingham now.
Why do women hate each other so? Instead, they should go into some
Sisterhood of Pity, hidden away from men."
"They should," assented Christopher; "but few of them do, 'twould seem."
"And now you laugh at me. Oh, I have heard it all! How pleasantly Nidd
River runs past the ferry-steps. She is beautiful, they tell me."
"I have no judgment in these matters. Ask Michael--he was there with me
in Knaresborough."
Michael had chanced to overtake them at the moment, Elizabeth following
him like a dog. "Nidd River--yes, she is beautiful."
"It was Miss Bingham we talked of. I--oh! I have heard such wonderful
tales of her. She glamours men, they say."
Michael, for a breathing-space or two, was silent. Then he recaptured
the easy-going air that had served as a mask in harder times than this.
"She glamoured me, Miss Grant--on my faith, she did--whenever Kit would
leave her side. The kindest eyes that ever peeped from behind a
lattice."
"Miss Bingham seems to be prodigal of the gifts that heaven has given
her."
"True charity, believe me--to spend what one has, and spend it royally."
"She seems, indeed, to be a very perfect hoyden. Oh, I am weary!
Marston Moor is lost. Ripley is lost. Are we going to ride for ever
along dreary roads?"
"Three of us go on foot--Kit the baby, Elizabeth and I. We have no
grumbles."
She turned on him like a whirlwind. "If the end of the world came--here
and now--you would make a jest of it."
[Illustration: "'If the end of the world came--here and now--you would
make a jest of it.'"]
"'Twould sweeten the end, at any rate. There's Irish blood in me, I
tell you."
From ahead there sounded a sharp cry of command. "Hi, Meccas, all! The
enemy's in front."
War had lessened the ranks of the Metcalfs, but not their discipline.
Michael and his brother clutched each a horse's bridle, after helping
the women to alight, and sprang to the saddle. Even Elizabeth shambled
forward to take her share of hazard, and Joan found herself alone. And
the gist of her thoughts was that she hated Kit, and was afraid that he
would die.
She watched the Metcalfs spur forward, then slacken pace as they neared
the big company coming round the bend of the road. The old Squire's
voice rang down-wind to her.
"King's men, like ourselves? Ay, I see the fashion of you. And where
may you be from, gentles?"
"I'm the late Governor of Knaresborough, at your service."
"And I'm the Squire of Nappa, with all that the Cropheads have left of
my Riding Metcalfs."
The Governor saluted with extreme precision. "This almost reconciles me
to the loss of Knaresborough, sir. We have heard of you--give you
good-day," he broke off, catching sight of Michael and Christopher. "We
have met in happier circumstances, I think."
*CHAPTER XXI.*
*SIR REGINALD'S WIDOW.*
There is nothing so astounding, so muddled by cross-issues and
unexpected happenings, as civil war. Not long ago Marston Moor had
heard the groans of Cavaliers as they lay naked to the night-wind, and
prayed for death in Wilstrop Wood. York had surrendered. The garrisons
of Knaresborough and Ripley, met together on the dusty highroad here,
were weak with famine and privation. Yet they stood chatting--the
ladies of both garrisons passing laughter and light badinage with the
men--as if they were gathered for a hunting-party or falconry. The
intolerable pressure of the past months was ended for a while, if only
by disaster; and from sheer relief they jested.
Joan Grant, in the middle of the chatter, edged her mare near to a
sprightly horse-woman who had just dismissed Michael with a playful tap
of her whip across his cheek.
"You are Miss Bingham? Ah, I guessed it."
"By what token?"
"By your beauty, shall we say? Gossip has so much to tell about it, and
about the Vicarage garden, with Nidd River swirling past the
ferry-steps."
They eyed each other with the wariness of duellists. "The good Vicar is
fortunate in his garden," assented Miss Bingham, with the most charming
courtesy.
"And in his water-nymphs, 'twould seem. I think you would be like some
comely dream--on an April evening, say, with the young leafage of the
trees for halo."
"Oh, it is pleasant to be flattered! But why this praise of me? We
were strangers not an hour ago."
"I have heard so much of you. You were so kind to the men who sortied
from Knaresborough and returned with wounds. You sat by the
ferry-steps--all like a good angel--and bound their hurts afresh when
they smarted. Oh, indeed, we have heard of your pleasant skill in
healing."
While they faced each other, there came the thud and racket of
horse-hoofs down the road. The rider drew rein amid a swirl of dust,
cleared his eyes with a hand that trembled, and looked from one face to
another. His tired face lit up when at last he saw the Governor of
Knaresborough.
"Give you good-day, sir. I was riding to seek aid from you."
"The devil you were," growled the other. "The man sups lean who trusts
to my help, Graham. Knaresborough's in other hands since--since
Marston."
"It would be. I had forgotten that. But you're here."
"What is your need, lad?"
"A few men to help me, over at Norton Conyers. I rode to ask if you
could lend them me."
"All of us, if we're needed. We were jesting on the road here, for lack
of other occupation. What is it? But, first, is your uncle safe--tough
Reginald Graham? I love him as I love the steep rock-face of
Knaresborough."
"It was this way. My uncle would have me near him at Marston. We were
with Rupert on the right wing, and were close behind one of the Riding
Metcalfs--I know not which, for they're all big men and as like as two
peas in a pod--and saw him cut Cromwell through the throat. We were
together when we broke the Roundheads and pursued too far. It was when
we came to the ditch again, and found Leslie there with his Scots, that
I lost Sir Reginald. I took a wound or two in the stampede that
followed, and was laid by in a little farmstead near Wilstrop Wood. The
good-wife was kind to me--said she had lost a bairn of her own not long
since, trampled down by flying horsemen at the gate."
"Ay, lad; but why d'ye not get forward with your news of Sir Reginald?"
"Because I cannot trust myself to speak of him without some folly in my
throat. Give me time, sir--give me time. I got about again in a day or
two, and stumbled home somehow to Norton Conyers. And I--I met a black
procession--all like a nightmare, it was--journeying to the kirkyard.
So I joined them; and one man nudged another, and asked who this was
coming in his tatters to the burial without mourning-gear. And I
pointed to my wounds and laughed. 'Mourning-gear enough,' said I.
'Mourners go in blood and tatters since Marston.' And then, they tell
me, I fell, and lay where I fell. That was all I knew, till I got up
next day with all my limbs on fire."
There was silence among those looking on--a deep and reverent silence.
This youngster, out of battle and great pain, had captured some
right-of-way to the attention of strong men.
"When I was about again, they told me how it chanced. Sir Reginald took
a mortal hurt at Marston, but rode with the best of his strength to
Norton Conyers. He found Lady Graham at the gate, waiting for news of
him; and he stooped from saddle, so they say, and kissed her. 'I could
not die away from you, wife,' he said."
"Ay," growled the Governor, "he was like that--a hard fighter, and a
lover so devout that his wife had reason to be proud."
"She tried to help him get from horse; but he shook his head. 'The
stairs are wide enough,' was all his explanation. Then he rode in at
the main door and up the stair, and bent his head low to enter the big
bed-chamber. He got from the saddle to the bed, lay with his eyes on
fire with happiness, and so died."
"A good ending," said the Squire of Nappa roughly, because he dared not
give his feelings play. "What I should call a gentleman's ending--leal
to King and wife. Oh, you young fool, no need to make a tragedy about
it!"
Graham answered gamely to the taunt that braced him. "As for that, sir,
tragedy is in the making, if no help comes to Norton Conyers. We had
word this morning that a company of Roundheads was marching on the
Hall--the worst of the whole brood--those who robbed the dead and dying
in Wilstrop Wood."
It was not the Governor of Knaresborough who took command. Without
pause for thought of precedence, Squire Metcalf lifted his voice.
"A Mecca for the King, and bustle about the business, lads!"
The road no longer showed like a meeting-place where idle gentry
foregathered to pass the time of day. The Governor, with some envy
underlying all his admiration, saw the Metcalfs swing into line behind
their leader.
"Our horses are fresh," explained the Squire over shoulder, with a
twinge of punctilio. "Do you follow, sir, and guard the women-folk."
"I shall guard them," said the Governor, laughing quietly.
Miss Bingham saw Joan watching the dust swirl and eddy in the wake of
the Riding Metcalfs, saw that the girl's face was petulant and wistful.
"He did not pause to say good-bye," she said, with gentlest sympathy.
"I did not ask him to."
"But, indeed, men are fashioned in that mould. I am older than you,
child."
"So much is granted," said Joan sharply.
"And women are fashioned in their mould, too, with feet of velvet and
the hidden claws. Yes, I am older. You drew blood there."
"Miss Bingham, I am in no mood for petty warfare of our sort. Our men
have done enough, and they are riding out again. We women should keep
still tongues, I think, and pray for better guidance."
"How does one pray? You're country-bred and I am not." The voice was
gentle, but the sideways glance had venom in it. "It comes so easily to
you, no doubt--scent of hay, and church bells ringing you across the
fields, and perhaps _he_ will meet you at the stile, to share the
self-same book--is that what prayer means?"
"No," said the Governor, interposing bluntly. "Ask Lady Derby what
prayer means--she who has made Lathom House a beacon for all time. Ask
Ingilby's wife, who held Ripley for the King's wounded--ask Rupert----"
"The Prince--is he, too, among the listeners to church bells?" asked
Miss Bingham airily.
"To be precise, he is. I talked yesterday with one who was at York when
Rupert came to raise the siege. The Prince was spent with forced
marches, dead-weary, soul and body. He had earned his praise, you would
have thought; but, when they cheered him like folk gone mad, he just
waited till the uproar ceased, and bared his head. 'The faith that is
in me did it, friends, not I,' he said, and the next moment he laughed,
asking for a stoup of wine."
"He cared for his body, too, 'twould seem," murmured Miss Bingham.
"A soldier does, unless by birth and habit he's an incorrigible fool.
I've even less acquaintance than you with prayer; but I've seen the
fruits of it too often, child, to sneer at it."
"To be named child--believe me, sir, it's incense to me. Miss Grant
here was persuading me that I was old enough to be her mother. I was
prepared to kneel at the next wayside pool and search there for grey
hairs."
"Search in twenty years or so--time enough for that. Meanwhile, we have
to follow these hot-headed Metcalfs, and discipline begins, Miss
Bingham."
"Oh, discipline--it is as tedious as prayer."
The Governor cut short her whimsies. "The tedium begins. This is no
ballroom, I would have you understand."
Miss Bingham sighed as their company got into order. "Why are not all
men of that fashion?" she asked languidly. "It is so simple to obey
when one hears the whip, instead of flattery, singing round one's ears."
Joan glanced at her in simple wonderment. She had no key that unlocked
the tired, wayward meaning of this woman who had played many games of
chess with the thing she named her heart.
The Metcalfs, meanwhile, had gone forward at a heady pace. As of old,
one purpose guided them, and one rough master-mind had leadership of
their hot zeal. They encountered many piteous sights by the
wayside--stragglers from Marston, Knaresborough, York--but the old
Squire checked his pity.
"It's forrard, lads, forrard!" he would roar from time to time, as they
were tempted to halt for succour of the fallen.
His instinct guided him aright. When they came through the dust of
thirsty roads and the dead heat of a thunderstorm that was brewing
overhead, to the high lands overlooking Norton Conyers, they caught a
glint below them of keen sunlight shining on keen steel.
"It's always my luck to be just in time, with little to spare," said
Blake, the messenger, who was riding at the Squire's bridle-hand. "D'ye
see them yonder?"
Metcalf saw a gently-falling slope of pasture between the Roundheads and
themselves, with low hedges separating one field from another.
"Tally-ho, my lads!" he laughed. "I'll give you a lead at the fences--a
Yoredale sort of lead."
The Parliament men checked their horses, gaped up at the sudden uproar,
and had scarce braced themselves for the encounter when the Metcalfs
were down and into them. The weight of horseflesh, backed by speed,
crashed through their bulk, lessening the odds a little. Then it was
hack, and counter, and thrust, till the storm broke overhead, as it had
done at Marston, but with a livelier fury. They did not heed it. Time
and again the yell of "A Mecca for the King!" was met by the roar of
"God and the Parliament!" And Squire Metcalf, in a lull of the eddying
battle, found the tart humour that was his help in need.
"Nay, I'd leave half of it out, if I were ye, after what chanced in
Wilstrop Wood. Fight for Parliament alone, and all its devilries."
That brought another swinging fight to a head; and the issue shifted
constantly. The lightning danced about the men's armour. The thunder
never ceased, and the rain lashed them as if every sluice-gate of the
clouds were opened.
Very stubborn it was, and the din of oaths and battle-cries leaped out
across the thunder-roar, stifling it at times.
"The last shock, Meccas!" cried the Squire. "Remember Wilstrop Wood."
In the harsh middle of the conflict, the Squire aimed a blow at the
foremost of the Roundheads who rode at him. His pike dinted the man's
body-armour, and the haft snapped in two. Little Blake rode forward to
his aid, knowing it was useless; and, with a brutish laugh, the
Roundhead swung his sword up.
And then, out of the yellow murk of the sky, a friend rode down to the
Squire's aid--rode faster than even Blake had done on the maddest of his
escapades. Kit, unpressed for the moment after killing his immediate
adversary, saw a blue fork of flame touch the uplifted sword and run
down its length. The Roundhead's arm fell like a stone dropped from a
great height, and lightning played about horse and rider till both
seemed on fire. They dropped where they stood, and lay there; and for a
moment no man stirred. It was as if God's hand was heavy on them all.
The Squire was the first to recover. "D'ye need any further battle, ye
robbers of the dead?" he asked.
Without further parley they broke and fled. Panic was among them, and
many who had been honest once in the grim faith they held saw wrath and
judgment in this intervention.
The Metcalfs were hot for pursuit, but their leader checked them. "Nay,
lads. Leave the devil to follow his own. For our part, we're pledged
to get to Norton Conyers as soon as may be."
His kinsmen grumbled at the moment; but afterwards they recalled how
Rupert, by the same kind of pursuit, had lost Marston Field, and they
began to understand how wise their headstrong leader was.
The sun was setting in a red mist--of rain to come--when they reached
Norton Conyers; and an hour later the Governor of Knaresborough rode in
with the mixed company he guarded. The men of his own garrison, the
women-folk of Knaresborough and Ripley, odds and ends of camp followers,
made up a band of Royalists tattered enough for the dourest Puritan's
approval.
"Where is li'le Elizabeth?" asked Michael plaintively. "For my sins, I
forgot her when the Squire told us we were hunting the foxes who raided
Wilstrop Wood."
"Who is Elizabeth?" snapped the Governor, in no good temper.
"Oh, a lady to her hoof-tips, sir--loyal, debonair, a bairn in your
hands when she loves you, and a devil to intruders." He turned, with
the smile that brimmed out and over his Irish mouth. "Meccas all, the
Governor asks who Elizabeth is. They knew in Oxford, and praised her
grace of bearing."
A lusty braying sounded through the lessening thunder-claps, and a roar
of laughter came from Michael's kinsmen.
"Twins are never far apart, if they can help it," said Christopher. "It
is daft to worry about Elizabeth, so long as Michael's safe."
From long siege on land there comes to men something of the look that
manners have whose business is with besieging seas. The Governor's eyes
were steady and far away. He seemed bewildered by the ready laughter of
these folk who had ridden in the open instead of sitting behind castle
walls. But even his gravity broke down when Elizabeth came trotting
through the press, and look about her, and found Michael. She licked
his hands and face. She brayed a triumph-song, its harmony known only
to herself.
"One has not lived amiss, when all is said," said Michael. "You will
bear witness, sir, that I have captured a heart of gold."
The Governor stopped to pat Elizabeth, and she became an untamed fury on
the sudden, for no reason that a man could guess.
"I--I am sorry, sir," Michael protested.
"Oh, no regrets! She is a lady to her hoof-tips, as you said, and my
shins are only red-raw--not broken, as I feared."
It was well they had their spell of laughter in between what had been
and what must follow. When they came to Norton Conyers, it was to find
the mistress dull with grief, and hopeless. All she cared for lay
buried, with pomp and ceremony enough, in the kirkyard below. She was
scarcely roused by the news that fire and rapine would have raided the
defenceless house if the Riding Metcalfs had not come on the stroke of
need.
"I thank you, gentlemen--oh, indeed, I thank you. But nothing matters
very much. He waits for me, and that is all."
She was past argument or quiet persuasion. They ate and drank their
fill that night, because they needed it--and their needs were the King's
just now--and on the morrow, when they had cursed their wounds, and
prayed for further sleep, and got up again for whatever chanced, they
found Graham's widow still intractable. They told her that the safety
of many women-folk was in her hands.
"I trust them to you," she said. "There's an old nurse of mine lives up
in a fold of the hills yonder. They will not find me there, and I care
little if they do. Meanwhile, I shall get down each night and morning
to pray for the soul of a gallant gentleman who has unlocked the
Gate"--her eyes were luminous with a temperate fire--"unlocked it a
little ahead of me. He has left it on the latch."
The Squire bent to her hand. "Madam," he said, his roughness broken up,
as honest moorland soil is broken when it is asked to rear pleasant
crops--"madam, I've a wife in Yoredale, I. She carries your sort of
heart, I think. Of your charity, pray for her till I come."
"I shall pray, sir."
And so the Riding Metcalfs went from Norton Conyers, with an added
burden of women-folk, but with a sense of rosemary and starshine, as if
they had tarried for a while in some wayside Calvary.
*CHAPTER XXII.*
*MISS BINGHAM.*
It was no usual comradeship that held between the Royalists who gathered
in one company after Marston Moor was lost to the King. They travelled
through vile roads--roads broken up by incessant rains--they camped
wherever they found a patch of drier ground for the night's sleep. But
never for a moment did they lose the glamour that attached to the person
of King Charles. Like a beacon-light, the thought of the
half-vanquished Stuart went steadily in front of them. Their strength
lay in this--that, whether death or life arrived, they knew the venture
well worth while.