Part 3

"Nay, nowt so much--not enough to bring all your Nappa men with you, Squire. Maybe it's men you're seeking, instead of ewes and cattle."

"Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't."

"Well, if it's men you're seeking, you'll find 'em. I overtook three hundred of Fairfax's soldiery just setting out from Otley."

"Oh, you did? Were they horsed?"

"No, they were going at a sharp marching pace. They were a likely set o' lads to look at--thick in the beam, but varry dour of face. I take no sides myself in this business of King and Parliament. I only say, Squire, that a nod's as good as a wink in troubled times."

"Thanks, Demaine," said the Squire of Nappa.

"Nay, no need. Neighbour knows neighbour, and good day to ye."

The whole intimacy of the dales was in that brief greeting--the freemasonry that ran like quicksilver in between the well-laid plans of ambitious generals. Fairfax had sent three hundred of his men to strengthen Lambert's attack on Skipton Castle. A country squire and a yeoman met on the highway and talked a while, and there was an ambush in the making.

"Hi, Christopher!" said the Squire, beckoning the lad to his side. "Ride forward on the Otley road till you see those men of Fairfax's. Then turn about and gallop."

Kit saluted gravely, as he or any Metcalf of them would have saluted if the chief bade them ride through the Fiery Gate. His wounds smarted as he rode for Otley, and he relished the keen pain. He was young, with his eyes to the stars, and suffering for the King's sake was haloed by romance.

He went through Ilkley. Its straw-thatched cottages clustered round the brown stream of Wharfe; and, half a mile beyond, he saw a company of men on foot marching with quick and limber step. He forgot his wounds. With a boy's careless devilry, he galloped to meet them and reined up within twenty paces.

"Are you my Lord Fairfax's men?" he asked. "If so you're needed at Skipton. Put your best foot forward."

"We're Lord Fairfax's men, sir," said the officer in command. "Do you come from Captain Lambert?"

"From Skipton--yes, I come from Skipton. There's need for haste."

With a laugh and a light farewell, Kit reined about and spurred his horse. When he came to the top of the hill overlooking the wonderful, quiet sweep of river that rocked despoiled Bolton Priory into dreams of yester-year, he found his kinsmen waiting on the rise.

"What news, Kit?" asked the Squire.

"Sir, it will be butchery," said the lad, stirred by generous pity. "There's a big company of them, all on foot, and I--have led them into ambush."

Squire Metcalf snarled at his baby-boy. "The King will be well rid of his enemies. Men do not fight, Kit, on milk-and-water fancies."

A laugh went up from the Metcalfs--a laugh that was not easy for any lad to bear. "I've given my message, sir. Put me in the front of the hazard, if you doubt me."

The Squire had one of his sharp repentances. This son of his had shamed him, and for a moment he strove with the hot temper that was the inheritance of all the Metcalf breed.

"You shall lead us, Kit," he said at last.

The time seemed long in passing before the three hundred men of Fairfax's came marching at a stubborn pace into the hollow down below. Then, with a roar of "A Mecca for the King!" Christopher was down among them with his kinsmen.

When all was done, there was nothing left of the three hundred except a press of fugitives, some prisoners, and many bodies scattered on the highroad. The garrison at Skipton might sleep well to-night, so far as recruits to the besieging forces went.

It was the prisoners who troubled the Squire of Nappa. His view of war had been that it was a downright affair of enemies who were killed or who escaped. He glanced at the fifty captives his men had taken, massed together in a sullen company, and was perplexed. His roving troop of horse could not be burdened with such a dead weight of footmen. The garrison at Skipton Castle would not welcome them, for there were mouths enough to feed there already.

"What shall I do with them, lads?" he asked, riding apart with his men.

Michael Metcalf, a raking, black-haired fellow, laughed carelessly. "Best take powder and pistols from them and turn 'em adrift like sheep. They'll bleat to little purpose, sir, without their weapons."

The Squire nodded. "Thou'rt not noted for great strength of head, Michael, save so far as taking blows goes, but that was sage advice."

The Metcalfs, trusting first to their pikes, and afterwards--the gentry-sort among them--to their swords, were disposed to look askance at the pistols as tools of slight account, until Michael again found wisdom. King's men, he said, might find a use for weapons the enemy found serviceable.

When the arms had been gathered, Squire Metcalf reined up in front of the prisoners. "Men of Fairfax's," he said bluntly, "you're a ragged lot to look at, but there are gentlemen among you. I do not speak of rank or class. The gentlemen, as the price of freedom, will take no further part in the Rebellion. The louts may do as they please, but they had best not let me catch them at the fighting."

The words came hot and ready, and though the dispersed company of prisoners laughed afterwards at the Squire's handling of the matter, they warmed to his faith in them. They had volunteered from many occupations to serve the Parliament. Blacksmiths and clothiers and carpenters from Otley were mingled with farmers and slips of the gentry from the outlying country. All answered to the keen issue Squire Metcalf had given them. They were trusted. On the next day twenty of them lost hold of his message, and went in search of arms; but thirty were constant to their pledge, and this, with human nature as it is, was a high tribute to the Squire's persuasiveness.

The Metcalf men rode quietly toward Skipton. For the first time since their riding out from Nappa, they felt lonely. They had fought twice, and their appetite was whetted; but no other battle showed ahead. They were young to warfare, all of them, and thought it one happy road of skirmish, uproar, and hard blows, from end to end of the day's journey.

The only break in the monotony came as they rode up the steep track to Embsay Moor. At the top of the hill, dark against the sunlit sky, a solitary horseman came into view, halted a moment to breathe his horse, then trotted down at a speed that the steepness of the road made foolhardy. He did not see the Metcalf company until it was too late to turn about, and trotted forward, since needs must.

"On which side of the battle?" asked Squire Metcalf, catching the bridle.

"On which side are you, sir?"

"The King's, but you are not. No King's man ever bandies questions; he answers straight to the summons which side he stands for."

They found a message after diligent searching of his person. The message was in Lambert's neat Quakerish handwriting, and was addressed to a captain of horse in Ripon, bidding him take his men to Ripley and keep watch about the Castle. "That termagant, Lady Ingilby, is making her house a meeting-place for Cavaliers," the message read. "Her husband at the wars is one man only. She rallies twenty to the cause each day. See to it, and quickly."

"Ay," said the Squire, with his rollicking laugh, "we'll see to it."

It was astonishing to see the change in this man, who until yesterday had been content to tend his lands, to watch the dawn come up and sunset die over the hills he loved, and get to his early sleep. His father and his grandfather had handled big issues in the open, though he himself had chosen a stay-at-home squire's life; and the thing that is in the blood of a man leaps forward always at the call of need.

Squire Metcalf, with brisk courtesy, claimed the messenger's horse. "Lest you ride back to Skipton with the news," he explained, "and because a spare horse is always useful these days. For yourself, get back at leisure, and tell Mr. Lambert that the Riding Metcalfs have carried the message for him."

Without another word, he glanced at the sun, guessed hastily the line of country that pointed to Ripley, and rode forward at the head of his good company. It was rough going, with many turns and twists to avoid wet ground here, a steep face of rock there; but at the end of it they came to a high spur of moor, and beneath them, in a flood of crimson--the sun was near its setting--they saw the tower of Ripley Castle and the long, raking front of house and outbuildings.

The Squire laughed. His face was aglow with pride, like the sunset's. "I've few gifts, lads, but one of them is to know Yorkshire from end to end, as I know my way to bed o' nights. I've led you within sight of Ripley; the rest lies with lad Christopher."

Michael, the black-haired wastrel of the flock, found voice.

"Kit will be saddle-sore if he rides all your errands. Give one o' them to me, sir."

The Squire looked him up and down. "You've a heart and a big body, Michael, but no head. I tell you, Kit must take this venture forward."

So Michael laughed. He was aware that, if wits were asked, he must give place to Kit, whom he loved with an odd, jealous liking.

"What is your errand, sir?" asked Christopher.

The Squire put Lambert's letter into his hand, bade him read it over and over, then snatched it from him. "Have you got it by heart, Kit?"

Kit repeated it word by word, and his father tore the letter into shreds and threw them to the keen west wind that was piping over the moor. "That's the way to carry all messages. If you're taken, lad, they can turn your pockets inside out and search your boots, but they cannot find what's safe inside your head, not if they tap it with a sword-cut."

There was a high deed done on the moor at this hour of the declining day. Without a tremor or regret, the Squire of Nappa sent his son--the one nearest his warm heart--to certain danger, to a hazard from which there might well be no returning.

"Find Lady Ingilby," he said gruffly, "and beware of Roundheads guarding the approaches to the house. Give her the message."

"And then, sir?"

"It is this way, Kit," said the Squire, after a restless pacing up and down the moor. "Take counsel with Lady Ingilby and any Cavaliers you find at Ripley. Tell them the Metcalfs have picketed their horses here on the moor, and wait for orders. If she needs us, we are ready. And so good-bye, my lad."

The Metcalfs, by habit, were considerate toward the hale, big bodies that asked good feeding. On the way they had contrived to victual themselves with some thoroughness, and now they unstrapped each his own meal from the saddle. When they had eaten, and crowned the meal with a draught of water from the stream, Michael laughed that easy, thoughtless laugh of his.

"When the King comes to his own, I'll petition him to make the moors run ripe October ale. I never thrive on water, I."

"It's not in you to thrive, lad," snapped the Squire. "You've no gift that way, come ale or water."

They had not been idle, any of them, since yesterday's riding out from Nappa; and now they were glad to lie in the heather and doze, and dream of the cornfields ripe for harvest and the ingle-nook at home. The Squire, for his part, had no wish for sleep. To and fro he paced in the warm, ruddy gloaming, and his dreams were of the future, not the past. Ambition, that had taken his forbears to high places, was changing all his old, quiet outlook. The King had summoned him. About his King there was a halo of romance and great deserving. It was good to be asked to fight for such a cause.

Metcalf did not know it, but his soul was ripening, like his own harvest fields, under this fierce sun of battle and peril and hard riding. Instead of a pipe by the hearth o' nights, he was asked to bivouac on the moor, to throttle sleep until Kit rode back or sent a messenger. He was content. Better a week of riding for the King than years of safety in home-fields.

He had not cared specially for thinking, save of crops and horses and the way of rearing prime cattle for market; but to-night his mind was clear, marching out toward big issues. Little by little it grew plain to him that he had been given a leadership of no usual sort. There were a hundred-and-twenty of them, keen to charge with the whole weight of men and horses; but each of the six-score could ride alone on errands needing secrecy, and summon his kinsmen when any hazard pressed too closely. The clan was one man or six-score, just as need asked, and the Squire was quick to realise the service they could render. It might well be that, long afterwards, men would tell their bairns, close huddled round the hearth on winter nights, what share the Riding Metcalfs had in crushing the rebellious Parliament.

As he thought about it all, his heart beating like a lad's, his imagination all afire, a step sounded close behind him. He turned to find Michael at his elbow.

"Well, scapegrace?" he asked. "It all goes bonnily enough."

"Ay, for Christopher," growled the other. The black mood was on him, and at these times he had no respect of persons. He was, indeed, like one possessed of an evil spirit. "Kit was a favourite always, and now he gets all errands."

"He can keep his temper, Michael, under hardship. I've proved him, and I know. A soldier needs that gift."

Michael met the rebuke sullenly, but made no answer, and a restless silence followed.

"My lad," said the Squire by and by, "you broke into a fine dream of mine. There were six-score Metcalfs, I fancied, pledged to ride together. Now there is one less."

"How so? We've a few wounds to boast of between us, but no dead."

"One of us is dying by slow stages. Jealousy is killing him, and I tell you, Michael, I'd rather see the plague among us than that other pestilence you're nursing. The sickness will spread. When times are slack--food short and nothing to be done by way of blows--you'll whisper in this man's ear and in that man's ear, and turn their blood to ice."

A great, overmastering repentance swept Michael's devilry away. He was himself again. "I love Christopher," he said very simply, "though I'm jealous of him."

"Ay, I know! But take this warning from me, Michael,--when the black dog's on your shoulder, shake him off. Jealousy's your prime failing. It will break up our company one day, if you let it."

*CHAPTER IV*

*THE LAST LAUGH.*

Christopher, his shoulders very straight and his head somewhere up among the stars, had trotted quietly down to Ripley village. His own failing was not jealousy, but an extreme, foolhardy belief that luck was with him always, and that blue sky watched over every day's adventure. As he reached the top of the street, he was thinking less of Lady Ripley and his errand than of Joan Grant, who had sat on a stile in the home-country while he made love to her, and had bidden him climb high.

He was roused from his dream by a company of Roundhead soldiery that blocked the way, twenty paces or so ahead. It did not occur to him--his wits were country-reared as yet--that they need not know for which side he rode, or that he was the bearer of a message. Moreover, there was adventure to his hand. He put spurs to his horse, lifted his pike, and rode in among them. The big-hearted simplicity of his attack bewildered the enemy for a moment; then they closed round him, plucked him from the saddle, and held him, a man gripping him on either side, while Ebenezer Drinkwater, their leader, looked him up and down.

"So you're for the King?" said Drinkwater.

"I have that privilege."

"Ay, you've the look of it, with your easy laugh and your big air. Have you never heard of the Latter Judgment, and what happens to the proud folk?"

"I've heard much of you canting cropheads," said Christopher suavely. This was not the adventure he had hoped to meet, but he accepted it blithely, as he would have met a stiff fence fronting him in the middle of a fox-hunt.

"You're carrying a message to Ripley Castle?"

"I am."

Drinkwater, a hard man, empty of imagination, could make nothing of this youngster who seemed to have no thought for his life. He ordered one of his men to search the prisoner. Boots and pockets, shirt and the inner lining of his coat were ransacked. And Christopher felt no humiliation, because laughter was bubbling at his heart.

"Well?" asked the prisoner.

Drinkwater, dour, persistent, believing what his arid experience had taught him--that each man had his price--found a rough sort of diplomacy. "You can go safe if you tell us where the message is."

"I never cared too much for safety," said Kit, with great cheeriness. "Offer another bribe, good crophead."

Ebenezer, fond of food and good liquor, fell into the usual snare, and measured all men's appetites by his own. "You look starved and empty. A good supper, say, and a creaming mug of ale to top it?"

"I'll take that draught of beer. Supper I'm in no need of for an hour or two."

Drinkwater laughed, without merriment, as he bade one of his men go to the tavern and bring a measure of home-brewed. It was brought to Christopher, and the smell of it was good as he blew the froth away.

Between the cup and the drinking he halted. "Let us understand the bargain. I drink this ale--I'm thirsty, I admit--and in return I tell you where I hide the message."

"That is the bargain," assented Drinkwater. "I always knew every man was to be bought, but your price is the cheapest I've heard tell of."

Kit lingered over the draught. "It is good ale," he said. "Send for another measure."

"Well, it's not in the bond, but you can have it. Now, youngster," went on Drinkwater, after the second measure had been despatched, "where's that message of yours?"

"In my head, sir," said Kit, with a careless nod. "Safe behind wooden walls, as my father put it when he bade me learn it all by rote."

"No jesting," snapped Drinkwater, nettled by a guarded laugh from one of his own men. "The bargain was that you told us the message."

"That I told you where it lay--no more, no less. I have told you, and paid for that good ale of yours."

Drinkwater was no fool. He saw himself outwitted and wasted no regrets. After all, he had the better of the jest.

"Tie him by the legs and arms," he said dourly, "and set him on the bench here till we're ready to start. There are more ways than one of sobering a King's man."

Christopher did not like the feel of the rope about his limbs, nor did he relish the attentions of stray village-folk who came and jeered at him after his captors had gone in to supper. One can despise louts, but still feel the wasp-sting of their gibes.

Into the middle of it all came two horsewomen; and to Kit, seeing the well-known horses, it was as if a breath of Yoredale and the spring came to him. He knew the old men, too, who guarded the horse-women, front and rear. Under his gladness went an uneasy feeling that yesterday's hard riding and hard lighting, or Drinkwater's ale, or both, had rendered him light-headed. It was not possible that she could be here in Ripley.

Joan Grant was tired of the uneventful journey, tired of her maid Pansy, whose tongue ran like a brook. "This should be Ripley, at long-last," she said fretfully. "Tell me, girl, am I grey-headed yet? It seems a lifetime since the morning."

Pansy, looking through the right-hand window of the coach, saw a tavern-front, its windows soft with candle-light. On the bench in front of it, lit by the ruddy gloaming, was a man bound with ropes, a man who threw gibe for gibe at a company of Ripley's cowards who baited him.

"He carries no knight's air just now," said Pansy, with a bubble of laughter; "but it was not for naught I found that stirrup-iron at the gate this morning."

Joan Grant looked, and, seeing Kit there, friendless and courageous, she felt a quickening of the wayward thing she called her heart. She got down from the carriage, and stepped to the bench that stood under the inn wall; then, seeing the welcome in Kit's eyes--a welcome near to adoration--she withdrew a little.

"So this comes of riding for the King?" she asked, with high disdain.

And something stirred in Christopher--a new fire, a rebellion against the glamour that had put his manhood into leading-strings.

"If this comes, or worse, I'm glad to ride for the King," he said.

"If I loosed your hands and bade you take a seat in my coach----"

"I should not take it; there is other work to do."

Joan, under the smart of the rebuff, was pleased with this man of hers. Something had happened to him since yesterday. He was no longer the uncouth boy, thinking he could have the moon by asking for it.

"You're rough and uncivil, sir."

"I am. These lambs of the Parliament are teaching me new manners."

She bowed carelessly, drew her skirts away from the litter of the roadway, and went perhaps ten paces toward her carriage. Then she turned. "I can be of no service to you, then?" she asked coldly.

His face grew eager, but not with the eagerness that had pleased and affronted her just now; and he tried to beckon her nearer, forgetting that his hands were tied. She guessed his meaning, and came to his side again; and this time she began cutting at his bonds with a knife borrowed from her coachman; but the villagers intervened, saying they dared not be party to the venture.

"Yes, you can be of service," he whispered, when the onlookers had given back again, leaving them to what they fancied was a lovers' leave-taking. "Lady Ingilby lives close by--it will scarcely be out of your way to take a message to her."

"So little out of the way that we are bound for the Castle, my maid and I, at the end of a fatiguing journey. If this is civil war, I'd as lief have peace. There were no adventures on the road."

Kit could not understand her gusty mood--for that matter, she could not understand herself--but he was not concerned with whimsies. Folk were dependent on him, and he was answerable for their safety. He recalled that she was kin to the folk at Ripley Castle, and accepted this surprising fortune.

"Listen, and remember," he said sharply. "These lambs may quit their supper any moment and disturb us. Tell Lady Ingilby that we caught a messenger on his way from Skipton. His letter was to the Roundheads here in Ripley. 'That termagant, Lady Ingilby, is making her house a meeting-place for Cavaliers'--have you that by heart?"

"Oh, yes," assented Joan, laughing at herself because he was not the suitor now, but the lord paramount, who must be obeyed. "Proceed, Captain Metcalf--or have they made you colonel since yesterday? Promotion comes so quickly in time of war."

"You can flout me later," said Christopher, with country stolidness.

He repeated the rest of the message, and made sure that she had it by heart. "My folk are up the moor," he finished. "They're waiting near the High Cross till they hear what Lady Ingilby asks of them."

Joan Grant again, for no reason that she understood, grew lenient with this man's bluntness, his disregard of the glamour she had been able once to weave about him as a spider spins its threads.

"Your folk are as near as High Cross, and you ask no more of me?"

"What is there to ask, except that you get into your carriage and find Lady Ingilby? My work's done, now that I have a messenger."

She looked him in the face. In all her life of coquetry and whims, Miss Grant had never stood so close to the reality that is beauty. She smiled gravely, turned without a word, and got into her carriage.

"Pansy," she said, as they were covering the short journey to the Castle, "I have met a man to-day."

"Snares o' Belial, most of them," murmured Pansy.