Part 14

And Kit, the young fire in his veins, did not know that Michael was jesting at the grave of his own hopes. That upper chamber--the look of Mistress Joan, her pride and slenderness--were matters that had pierced the light surface of his life, once for all.

"The York country was eaten bare when I last went through it," he said, after they had ridden a league in silence. "It will be emptier now. Best snatch a meal at the tavern here, Kit, while we have the chance. Our wits will need feeding if we're to find our way into York."

They found a cheery host, a table well spread with cold meats. When the host returned with wine, ordered hastily, he glanced at his guests with an air that was half humorous and half secretive.

"Here is the wine, Mr. Metcalf," he said--"the best of a good cellar, though I say it."

"Eh?" drawled Michael, always most indolent when surprised. "You know my name, it seems."

"Well, sir, if two big, lusty gentry choose to come riding two white horses--and all the Plain o' York ringing with news of the Riding Metcalfs--small blame to me if I guessed your quality. I'm a King's man, too."

"You'd best prove it quickly," said Michael, with a gentle laugh. "The business we ride on asks for sacrifice, and a fat host or two would not be missed."

"I am asking to prove it." The way of the man, the jolly red of his face, and the eyes that were clear as honesty, did not admit of doubt. "In the little room across the passage there are three crop-headed Puritans dining--dining well, and I grudge 'em every mouthful. They're not ashamed to take their liquor, too; and whether 'twas that, or whether they fancied I was as slow-witted as I seemed, they babbled of what was in the doing."

"I always had the luck," said Michael impassively. "Had they the password through the ranks besieging York?"

"Ay, that; and more. They had papers with them; one was drying them at the fire, after the late storm o' rain that had run into his pocket, and it seemed they were come with orders for the siege. I should say they were high in office with the Puritans, for they carried the three sourest faces I've seen since I was breeked."

"The papers can wait. What was the password, host?"

"_Idolatry_. It seemed a heathenish word, and I remembered it."

"Good," laughed Michael. "To-morrow it will be Mariolatry, doubtless, and Red Rome on the next day. How these folk love a gibe at His Majesty's sound Churchmanship! They carry papers, you say? It is all diverting, host. My brother here will not admit that luck, pure and simple, is a fine horse to ride. Kit, we must see that little room across the passage."

Michael got to his feet, finished his wine in three leisurely gulps, then moved to the closed door, which he opened without ceremony. The three Parliament men had their heads together at the board, and one was emphasising an argument by drumming with a forefinger on the papers spread before them. They turned sharply as the door opened, and reached out for their weapons when they saw Michael step into the room, followed by a lesser giant.

"_Idolatry_, friends," said Michael suavely.

The three looked at each other with puzzled question. These strangers wore their hair in the fashion dear to Cavaliers, and they carried an intangible air that suggested lightness of spirit.

"You have the password," said one; "but your fashion is the fashion of Belial's sons. What would you?"

"We come with full powers to claim your papers and to do your errand with the forces now besieging York. To be candid, you are suspect of eating more and drinking more than sober Parliament men should--and, faith, your crowded table here bears out the scandal."

The three flushed guiltily, then gathered the dourness that stood to them for strength; and Kit wondered what was passing through his brother's nimble brain.

"Your credentials," snapped the one who seemed to be leader of the three.

Michael, glancing round the board, saw a great pasty, with the mincemeat showing through where the knife had cut it. "Oh, my own password is _Christmas-pie_, friends! I encountered the dish at Banbury, and a great uproar followed when my brother gave it the true name."

And now the Roundheads knew that they were being played with. So great was their party's abhorrence of anything which savoured of the Mass, that a dish, pleasant in itself, had long since grown to be a shibboleth.

The first man raised a pistol--a weapon that seemed out of keeping with his preacher's garb--but Kit, longing for action instead of all this play of words, ran in with a jolly laugh, lifted his man high, as one lifts a child in frolic, and let him drop. The pistol fell, too, and the trigger snapped; but the Parliament man, however strong his trust in Providence might be, had forgotten Cromwell's other maxim--that he should keep his powder dry.

Michael's voice was very gentle. "I said we came with full powers. It would be wiser not to play with fire. Indeed, we do not wish you ill, and, in proof of friendship, we are willing to change clothes with you."

A little later Michael and Christopher came out, locking the door behind them. They asked the astonished host for scissors, and bade him clip their locks as close as he could contrive without knowledge of the barber's art. And it was odd that these two, who six months ago had been close-cropped in Yoredale, resented the loss of the lovelocks they had grown in deference to fashion. To them it seemed as if they were losing the badge of loyalty, as if the fat host played Delilah to their Samson.

"Keep that easy carriage of your bodies down, gentles, if you're bent on play-acting," said Boniface, with a cheery grin.

"How should we walk, then?"

"With a humble stoop, sir--a very humble stoop--that was how the three Parliament men came in and asked for the best victuals I could give 'em."

Michael's laugh was easy-going; but, for all that, his orders were precise and sharp. Their horses, of the tell-tale white, were to be stabled securely out of eyeshot, and well tended until called for. He and Kit would ride out on the pick of the three Roundhead cattle.

"As for that, sir, there's no pick, in a manner of speaking. They rode in on the sorriest jades I ever saw at a horse-fair."

"We'll take the rough luck with the smooth."

Yet even Michael grew snappish when he saw the steeds they had to ride. It was only when Kit laughed consumedly at sight of them that he recovered his good humour.

"After all, sir," suggested Boniface, "it proves the loyalty of the country hereabouts. They couldn't get decent horseflesh, for love or money. Our folk would only sell them stuff ready for the knacker's yard."

"That has a pleasant sound for us, with all between this and York to travel."

"Take two o' my beasts, gentles, if there's haste. You're cropped enough, and in quiet clothes enough, to ride good horses--always granting their colour doesn't happen to be white. As for these two o' mine, one is a roan, t'other a darkish bay."

Michael was arrested by the host's thoroughness and zeal, his disregard of his own safety. "And you, when you unlock the door on these rogues?"

"I shall fare as I shall fare, and not grumble either way. For your part, get away on the King's business, and God guide him safe, say I."

"But at least there's our reckoning to pay."

"Not a stiver. Nay, I'll not hear of it. Am I so poor a King's man that I grudge a cut from the joint and a bottle to the Riding Metcalfs?"

Michael warmed afresh to the man's loyalty. "Our thanks, host. As for the three in yonder, they'll not trouble you. I told them the door would be unlocked in an hour's time, explained that my folk were in the neighbourhood, and warned them to save their skins as best they could. You'll laugh till there are no more tears to shed when you see two of them in their bravery. Till I die that picture will return--their two sad faces set on top of our gay finery."

With a nod and a cheery call to his horse, he took the road again; and Kit and he spurred fast to recover the lost ground until they reached a steep and winding hill. For their cattle's sake they were compelled to take a breather at the top, and Kit looked over the rolling wolds with a heart on fire for Rupert and the errand. Somewhere yonder, under the blue, misty haze, lay York, the city old to courage and the hazard. New hazards were in the making; it behoved Michael and himself to give no spoiled page to York's long story.

"What a lad for dreams it is!" said Michael, in his gentlest voice.

Kit turned, and the sight of Michael habited in sober gear, with a steeple hat to crown the picture, broke down his dreams. It is good that comedy and the high resolve are friends who seldom ride apart. "The two we changed gear with, Michael--you would not laugh at them if you could see yourself."

"I have a good mirror, Kit, in you."

So they eyed each other for a while, and took their fill of merriment. Then they went forward. What the end of the venture was to be, they hazarded no guess; but at least they had papers and a garb that would pass them safely through the lines at York.

Another Royalist was abroad, as it happened, on a venture that to her own mind was both hazardous and lonely. The donkey that had helped Michael to secure his first entry into York--the patient, strong-minded ass that had followed the Riding Metcalfs south and had grown to be the luck of their superstitious company--had been lost on the march between Lathom House and Skipton. She had been stolen by a travelling pedlar, who found her browsing in a thistle-field a mile behind the army she hoped to overtake a little later on. He owned her for a day; and then, high spirit getting the better of dejection, she bided her time, shot out two hind-feet that left him helpless in the road, and set out on the quest that led to Michael--Michael, who might command her anything, except to go forward in the direction of her head.

To Elizabeth--her name among the Metcalfs--the forward journey was full of trouble and bewilderment. She followed them easily enough as far as Skipton, and some queer instinct guided her up the High Street and into the country beyond Otley. Then tiredness came on her, and she shambled forward at haphazard. At long last she blundered into Ripley; and, either because she knew the look of the Castle gateway, or because she gave up all for lost, she stood there and brayed plaintively.

A sentry peered from the top of the gate-tower. "Who goes there?" he demanded gruffly.

Elizabeth lifted up her head and brayed; and presently William Fullaboy, 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."