  Produced by Al Haines. [image] "Old Squire Metcalf, as he went out to meet him, broke into a roar of laughter." (Page THE WHITE BY HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE Author of "Ricroft of Withers," "The Open Road," WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED To my Sister's Memory CONTENTS. CHAPTER I.— Illustrations THE WHITE HORSES. CHAPTER I. WHO RIDES FOR THE KING? Up through the rich valley known now as Wensleydale, but in those days marked by the lustier name of Yoredale, news had crept that there was civil war in England, that sundry skirmishes had been fought already, and that His Majesty was needing all leal men to rally to his standard. It was an early harvest that year, as it happened, and John Metcalf, of Nappa Hall, stood at his garden-gate, watching the sunset glow across his ripening wheat. There were many acres of it, gold between green splashes of grass-land; and he told himself that they would put the sickle into the good crop before a fortnight's end. There was something about Squire Metcalf—six feet four to his height, and broad in the beam—that seemed part of the wide, lush country round him. Weather and land, between them, had bred him; and the night's peace, the smell of sweet-briar in the evening dew, were pleasant foils to his strength. He looked beyond the cornfields presently. Far down the road he saw a horseman—horse and rider small in the middle of the landscape—and wondered what their errand was. When he had done with surmises, his glance roved again, in the countryman's slow way, and rested on the pastures above the house. In the clear light he could see two figures standing there; one was his son Christopher, the other a trim-waisted maid. Squire Metcalf frowned suddenly. He was so proud of his name, of his simple squiredom, that he could not bear to see his eldest-born courting defeat of this kind. This little lady was niece to his neighbour, Sir Timothy Grant, a good neighbour and a friend, but one who was richer than himself in lands and rank, one who went often to the Court in London, and was in great favour with the King. Squire Metcalf had seen these two together in his own house, and guessed Christopher's secret without need of much sagacity; and he was sorely troubled on the lad's account. Christopher himself, away at the stile yonder, was not troubled at all except by a pleasant heartache. He had youth, and Joan Grant beside him, and a heart on fire for her. "You are pleased to love me?" she was saying, facing him with maddening grace. "What is your title to love me, sir?" "Any man has the right to love," Kit protested sturdily. "He cannot help it sometimes." "Oh, granted; but not to tell it openly." "What else should a man do? I was never one for secrets." Joan laughed pleasantly, as if a thrush were singing. "You speak truth. I would not trust you with a secret as far as from here to Nappa. If a child met you on the road, she would read it in your face." "I was bred that way, by your leave. We Metcalfs do not fear the light." "But, sir, you have every right to—to think me better than I am, but none at all to speak of—of love. I had an old Scots nurse to teach me wisdom, and she taught me—what, think you?" "To thieve and raid down Yoredale," said Kit unexpectedly. "The Scots had only that one trade, so my father tells me, till the Stuarts came to reign over both countries." "To thieve and raid? And I—I, too, have come to raid, you say—to steal your heart?" "You are very welcome to it." "But do I want it?" She put aside her badinage, drew away from him with a fine strength and defiance. "Listen, sir. My Scots nurse taught me that a woman has only one heart to give in her lifetime; that, for her peace, she must hide it in the branches of a tree so high that only a strong man can climb it." "I'm good at tree-climbing," said Christopher, with blunt acceptance of the challenge. "Then prove it." "Now?" he asked, glancing at a tall fir behind them. "Oh, sir, you are blunt and forthright, you men of Nappa! You do not understand the heart of a woman." Kit Metcalf stood to his brawny six-foot height. "I'm needing you, and cannot wait," he said, fiery and masterful. "That's the way of a man's heart." "Then, by your leave, I shall bid you good e'en. No man will ever master me until——" "Until?" asked Kit, submissive now that he saw her retreating up the pasture. She dropped him another curtsey before going up the steep face of the hills. "That is the woman's secret, sir. It lives at the top of a high tree, that 'until.' Go climbing, Master Christopher!" Kit went back to Nappa, in frank revolt against destiny and the blue face of heaven. There was nothing in the world worth capturing except this maid who eluded him at every turn, like a butterfly swift of wing. He was prepared to be sorry for himself until he came face to face with his father at the garden gate. "I saw two young fools at the stile," said Squire Metcalf. "I've watched you for half an hour. Best wed in your own station, Kit—no more, no less. No Metcalf ever went dandying after great ladies yet. We've our own proper pride." Christopher, in spite of his six feet, looked a small man as he stood beside his father; but his spirit was equal to its stubborn strength. "I love her. There's no other for me," he said sharply. The Squire glanced shrewdly at him. "Ah, well," he said at last, "if it goes as deep as that, lad, you'll just have to go on crying out for the moon. Sir Timothy has been away in London all the summer—trouble with the Parliament, and the King needing him, they say. He'd have taken Miss Joan with him if he'd guessed that a lad from Nappa thought he could ever wed into the family." "We've lands and gear enough," protested Kit. "We have, but not as they count such matters. They've got one foot in Yoredale, and t'other in London; and we seem very simple to them, Kit." Shrewd common sense is abhorrent to all lovers, and Kit fell into a stormy silence. He knew it true, that he felt rough, uncouth, in presence of his mistress; but he knew also that at the heart of him there was a love that was not uncouth at all. The Squire left Kit to fight out his own trouble, and fell to watching the horseman who was more than a speck now on the landscape. The rider showed as a little man striding a little mare; both were weary, by the look of them, and both were heading straight for Nappa Hall. They had a mile to cover. "Father, I need to get away from Nappa," said Kit, breaking the silence. "Ay," said the Squire, with a tolerant laugh, "love takes all men that way in the first flush of it. I was young myself once. You want to ride out, lad, and kill a few score men, just to show little Miss Joan what a likely man o' your hands you are. Later on, you'll be glad to be shepherding the ewes, to pay for her new gowns and what not. Love's not all mist and moonshine, Kit; the sturdier part comes later on." Up the lane sounded the lolopping pit-a-pat of a horse that was tired out and near to drop; and the rider looked in no better case as he drew rein at the gate. "You're the Squire of Nappa, sir?" he said, with a weary smile. "No weary to ask the question. I was told to find a man as tall as an oak-tree and as sturdy." [image] "'You're the Squire of Nappa, sir?' he said." "Yet it would have been like seeking a needle in a bundle of hay, if you hadn't chanced to find me at the gate," the other answered. "There are six score Metcalfs in this corner of Yoredale, and nobody takes notice of my height." "The jest is pretty enough, sir, but you'll not persuade me that there's a regiment of giants in the dale." "They're not all of my height—granted. Some are more, and a few less. This is my eldest-born," he said, touching Christopher on the shoulder. "We call him Baby Kit, because he's the smallest of us all." The horseman saw a lad six foot high, who certainly looked dwarfed as he stood beside his father. "Gad, the King has need of you! Undoubtedly he needs all Metcalfs, if this is your baby-boy." "As for the King, the whole six score of us have prayed for his welfare, Sabbath in and Sabbath out, since we were breeked. It's good hearing that he needs us." "I ride on His Majesty's errand. He bids the Squire of Nappa get his men and his white horses together." "So the King has heard of our white horses? Well, we're proud o' them, I own." The messenger, used to the stifled atmosphere of Courts until this trouble with the Parliament arrived, was amazed by the downright, free-wind air the Squire of Nappa carried. It tickled his humour, tired as he was, that Metcalf should think the King himself knew every detail of his country, and every corner of it that bred white horses, or roan, or chestnut. At Skipton-in-Craven, of course, they knew the dales from end to end; and he was here because Sir John Mallory, governor of the castle there, had told him the Metcalfs of Nappa were slow to leave the beaten tracks, but that, once roused, they would not budge, or falter, or retreat. "The King needs every Metcalf and his white horse. He sent me with that message to you, Squire." "About when does he need us?" asked Metcalf guardedly. "To-morrow, to be precise." "Oh, away with you! There's all my corn to be gathered in. I'll come nearer the back end o' the year, if the King can bide till then. By that token, you're looking wearied out, you and your horse. Come indoors, man, and we'll talk the matter over." The messenger was nothing loath. At Skipton they had given an importance to the Metcalf clan that he had not understood till now. This was the end of to-day's journey, and his sole errand was to bring the six score men and horses into the good capital of Craven. "I ask no better cheer, sir. Can you stable the two of us for the night? My little grey mare is more in need of rest than I am." Christopher, the six-foot baby of the clan, ran forward to the mare's bridle; and he glanced at his father, because the war in his blood was vehement and lusty, and he feared the old check of discipline. "Is it true, sir?" he asked the messenger. "Does the King need us? I've dreamed of it o' nights, and wakened just to go out and tend the land. I'm sick of tending land. Is it true the King needs us?" The messenger, old to the shams and false punctilios of life, was dismayed for a moment by this clean, sturdy zest. Here, he told himself, was a cavalier in the making—a cavalier of Prince Rupert's breed, who asked only for the hazard. "It is true that the King needs a thousand such as you," he said drily. "Be good to my little mare; I trust her to you, lad." And in this solicitude for horseflesh, shown twice already, the messenger had won his way already into the favour of all Metcalfs. For they loved horses just a little less than they loved their King. Within doors, as he followed the Squire of Nappa, he found a warm fire of logs, and an evening meal to which the sons of the house trooped in at haphazard intervals. There were only six of them, all told, but they seemed to fill the roomy dining-room as if a crowd intruded. The rafters of the house were low, and each stooped, from long habit, as he came in to meat. Kit, the baby of the flock, was the last to come in; and he had a queer air about him, as if he trod on air. There was only one woman among them, a little, eager body, who welcomed the stranger with pleasant grace. She had borne six sons to the Squire, because he was dominant and thought little of girl-children; she had gone through pain and turmoil for her lord, and at the end of it was thankful for her pride in him, though she would have liked to find one girl among the brood—a girl who knew the way of household worries and the way of women's tears. The messenger, as he ate and drank with extreme greediness, because need asked, glanced constantly at the hostess who was like a garden flower, growing here under the shade of big-boled trees. It seemed impossible that so small a person was responsible for the six men who made the rafters seem even lower than they were. When the meal was ended, Squire Metcalf put his guest into the great hooded chair beside the fire of peat and wood. "Now, sir, we'll talk of the King, by your leave, and these lusty rogues of mine shall stand about and listen. What is it His Majesty asks of us?" The messenger, now food and liquor had given him strength again, felt at home in this house of Nappa as he had never done among the intrigues of Court life. He had honest zeal, and he was among honest men, and his tongue was fiery and persuasive. "The King needs good horsemen and free riders to sweep the land clear of Roundheads. He needs gentlemen with the strong arm and the simple heart to fight his battles. The King—God bless him!—needs six-score Metcalfs, on horses as mettled as their riders, to help put out this cursed fire of insurrection." "Well, as for that," said the Squire, lighting his pipe with a live peat from the hearth, "I reckon we're here for that purpose. I bred my sons for the King, when he was pleased to need them. But I'd rather he could bide—say, for a month—till we get our corn in. Take our six-score men from the land just now, and there'll be no bread for the house next year, let alone straw for the beasts." The messenger grew more and more aware that he had been entrusted with a fine mission. This plain, unvarnished honesty of the Squire's was worth fifty protestations of hot loyalty. The dogged love he had of his lands and crops—the forethought of them in the midst of civil war—would make him a staunch, cool-headed soldier. "The King says you are to ride out to-morrow, Squire. What use to pray for him on Sabbaths if you fail him at the pinch?" Metcalf was roused at last, but he glanced at the little wife who sat quietly in her corner, saying little and feeling much. "I've more than harvesting to leave. She's small, that wife of mine, but God knows the big love I have for her." The little woman got up suddenly and stepped forward through the press of big sons she had reared. Her man said openly that he loved her better than his lands, and she had doubted it till now. She came and stood before the messenger and dropped him a curtsey. "You are very welcome, sir, to take all my men on the King's service. What else? I, too, have prayed on Sabbaths." The messenger rose, a great pity and chivalry stirring through his hard-ridden, tired body. "And you, madam?" he asked gently. "Oh, I shall play the woman's part, I hope—to wait, and be silent, and shed tears when there are no onlookers." "By God's grace," said Blake, the messenger, a mist about his eyes, "I have come to a brave house!" The next morning, an hour after daybreak, Blake awoke, stirred drowsily, then sprang out of bed. Sleep was a luxury to him these days, and he blamed himself for indolence. Downstairs he found only a serving-maid, who was spreading the breakfast table with cold meats enough to feed twenty men of usual size and appetite. The mistress was in the herb-garden, she said, and the men folk all abroad. For a moment the messenger doubted his welcome last night. Had he dreamed of six score men ready for the King's service, or was the Squire's honesty, his frank promise to ride out, a pledge repented of already? He found the Squire's wife walking in the herb-garden, and the face she lifted was tear-stained. "I give you good day," she said, "though you've not dealt very well with me and mine." "Is there a finer errand than the King's?" he asked brusquely. "My heart, sir, is not concerned with glory and fine errands. It is very near to breaking. Without discourtesy, I ask you to leave me here in peace—for a little while—until my wounds are healing." The Squire and his sons had been abroad before daybreak, riding out across the wide lands of Nappa. Of the hundred odd grown men on their acres, there was not one—yeoman, or small farmer, or hind—but was a Metcalf by name and tradition. They were a clan of the old, tough Border sort, welded together by a loyalty inbred through many generations; and the law that each man's horse must be of the true Metcalf white was not of yesterday. Christopher's ride to call his kinsfolk in had taken him wide to the boundary of Sir Timothy Grant's lands; and, as he trotted at the head of his growing company, he was bewildered to see Joan step from a little coppice on the right of the track. She had been thinking of him, as it happened, till sleep would not come; and, like himself, she needed to get out into the open. Very fresh she looked, as she stepped into the misty sunlight—alert, free-moving, bred by wind and rain and sun. To Kit she seemed something not of this world; and it is as well, maybe, that a boy's love takes this shape, because in saner manhood the glamour of the old day-dreams returns, to keep life wholesome. Kit halted his company, heedless of their smiles and muttered jests, as he rode to her side. "You look very big, Christopher! You Nappa men—and your horses—are you riding to some hunt?" She was cold, provocative, dismaying. "Yes, to hunt the Roundheads over Skipton way. The King has sent for us." "But—the call is so sudden, and—I should not like to hear that you were dead, Kit." Her eyes were tender with him, and then again were mocking. He could make nothing her, as how should he, when older men than he had failed to understand the world's prime mystery. "Joan, what did you mean by 'until,' last night at the stile? You said none should master you until——" "Why, yes, until—— Go out and find the answer to that riddle." "Give me your kerchief," he said sharply—"for remembrance, Joan." Again she resented his young, hot mastery, peeping out through the bondage she had woven round him. "To wear at your heart? But, Kit, you have not proved your right to wear it. Come back from slaying Roundheads, and ask for it again." Blake, the messenger, meanwhile, had been fidgeting about the Nappa garden, wondering what was meant by the absence of all men from house and fields. His appetite, too, was sharpened by a sound night's sleep. Remembering the well-filled table indoors, he turned about, then checked himself with a laugh. Even rough-riding gentry could not break fast until the host arrived. Presently, far down the road, he heard the lilt of horse-hoofs moving swiftly and in tune. The uproar grew, till round the bend of the way he saw what the meaning of it was. Big men on big white horses came following the Squire of Nappa up the rise. All who could gather in the courtyard reined up; the rest of the hundred and twenty halted in the lane. They had rallied to the muster with surprising speed, these men of Yoredale. All that the messenger had suffered already for the cause, all that he was willing to suffer later on, were forgotten. Here were volunteers for the King—and, faith, what cavaliers they were! And the big men, striding their white horses, liked him the better because his heart showed plainly in his face. The messenger laughed suddenly, standing to the the height of five-foot-six that was all Providence had given him. "Gentlemen," he said, with the music of galloping horses in his voice, "gentlemen, the King!" The Squire and he, after they had breakfasted, and the mistress had carried the stirrup-cup from one horseman to another, rode forward together on the track that led to Skipton. For a mile they went in silence. The Squire of Nappa was thinking of his wife, and youngsters of the Metcalf clan were thinking of maids who had lately glamoured them in country lanes. Then the lilt of hoof-beats, the call of the open hazard, got into their blood. A lad passed some good jest, till it ran along the company like fire through stubble; and after that each man rode blithely, as if it were his wedding-day. A mile further on they saw a little lady gathering autumn flowers from the high bank bordering the road. She had spent a restless night on Kit's account, had he known it, and was early abroad struggling with many warring impulses. The Squire, who loved Christopher, knew what the lad most needed now. He drew rein sharply. "Men of Nappa, salute!" he cried, his voice big and hearty as his body. Joan Grant, surprised in the middle of a love-dream, saw a hundred and twenty men lifting six-foot pikes to salute her. The stress of it was so quick and overwhelming that it braced her for the moment. She took the salute with grace and a smile that captured these rough-riding gentry. Then, with odd precision, she dropped her kerchief under the nose of Kit's horse. He stooped sharply and picked it up at the end of his pike. "A good omen, lads!" he cried. "White horses—and the white kerchief for the King!" Then it was forward again; and Joan, looking after them, was aware that already her knight was in the making. And then she fell into a flood of tears, because women are made up of storm and sun, like the queer northern weather. CHAPTER II. SKIPTON-IN-CRAVEN. "It's a pity about that corn o' mine, all the same," said the Squire, with a last backward thought. "There never was such a harvest year, since back into the 'twenties." "There'll be such a harvest year, I trust," laughed Blake, "as will bring more like you to the King. I would that every dale of the north gave us a company like yours—men and horses riding as if they'd been reared together from the cradle. I tell you sir, Prince Rupert would enrol you all at sight, if there were not more urgent need for you at Skipton." "As a plain man to a plain man, what does the King ask of us?" asked the Squire of Nappa. "Mr. Lambert, you say, is laying siege to Skipton. He should know better. I knew him as a lad, when he lived out yonder at Calton-in-Craven, and he had naught in common with these thick-headed rogues who are out against the King. He's of the gentry, and always will be." "He has lost his way in the dark, then," said the other drily. "He's training his cannon on Skipton Castle as if he liked the enterprise." "So you want us to ride through Lambert's men and into the castle to help garrison it?" asked Squire Metcalf, with his big simplicity, his assurance that the men he led would charge through any weight of odds. "Heaven save us, no! The governor has enough men to feed already, men of usual size; your little company would eat up his larder in a week." "We have fairish appetites," the Squire admitted. "Big sacks need a lot of filling, as the saying goes. Still, you said the King wanted us, and we've left a fine harvest to rot where it stands." The messenger captured a happiness he had not known for many days. There were no shams about this Squire. In all sincerity he believed that King Charles had personal and urgent need of him; he asked simply what it was the King commanded. It was so remote, this honesty, from the intrigues of those who fought for places in the Court, and named it loyalty, that the messenger was daunted for a moment. "You are a big company, sir," he said, turning briskly round in saddle; "but you seem oddly undivided in loyalty to the King and one another. Strike one Metcalf, or do him a kindness, and six-score men will repay in kind. You have the gipsy creed, my friends." "Ay, we're close and trusty. It seems you know the way of us Nappa folk, though I never set eyes on you till yesterday." "It is my business to know men. The King's riders must make no mistakes these days, Squire." He glanced back along the chattering group of horse, with quick pride in the recruits he had won from Yoredale. "You're all well horsed, well armed." "Why, yes. We heard trouble was brewing up 'twixt King and Parliament, and we got our arms in order. What else? Folk sharpen sickles when the corn is ripening." "And you have these lusty rascals at command—sharp to the word?" Squire Metcalf smiled, a big, capacious smile. "They've felt the weight o' my hand lang syne, and know it. My father before me trained me that way—as you train a dog, no more, no less." He drew rein and whistled sharply. The horsemen, fifty yards behind, pressed forward, and the heir of Nappa galloped at their head, drew rein, saluted his father with sharp precision, and waited for commands. "Oh, naught at all, Christopher," said the Squire. "This guest of ours doubted whether I could whistle my lads to heel, and now he knows I can." The messenger said nothing. The quiet, hard-bitten humour of these northerners appealed to him; and Mallory, the governor of Skipton, had been right when he sent him out to Nappa, sure that the Metcalf clan would be worth many times their actual number to the Royalists in Yorkshire. They came to the rise of the road where Bishopdale, with its hedges of fast-ripening hazel nuts, strode up into the harsher lands that overlooked Wharfedale. They rode down the crumbly steep of road, past Cray hamlet, set high above its racing stream; and at Buckden, half a league lower down, they encountered a hunting-party come out to slay the deer. They were too busy to join either party, King's or Parliament's, and offered a cheery bidding to the Metcalf men to join them in the chase. "We're after bigger deer," laughed the Squire of Nappa. "Who rides for the King?" Hats were lifted, and a great cheer went up. "All of us," said a grey, weather-beaten horseman. "Ay, it seems like it," growled the Squire. "Much good you're doing Skipton-in-Craven by hunting deer instead of Roundheads." "Skipton can stand a twelve months' siege. She can whistle when she needs us, like any other likely lass. There's no need to lose a hunting-day till Sir John Mallory needs us." The Squire found his first disillusionment along this road of glamour. He had thought that a company of picked horsemen, armed for the King and riding with a single purpose, would have swept these huntsmen into line. Some few of them, indeed, had ridden forward a little, as if they liked his message; but the grey-headed horseman, who distrusted all enthusiasm because long since he had lost his faith in life, brought them sharply back. "It will be all over in a week or two, and the crop-heads back in their kennels. No need to lose a hunting day, my lads." The white horses, carrying big men, trotted forward, through Starboton and Kettlewell, where the Danes had raided, wooed, and settled long before a Stuart came to reign over gentler times. It was not till they reached Linton, quiet and grey about its clear, trout-haunted stream, that the Squire of Nappa broke silence. "I told those hunting gentry that the King needed them, and they wouldn't hearken. It seems Royalists are deaf these days to the plain road of honesty." "They are," said the messenger, with the surprising calm that he had learned from lonely errands, ridden oftener by night than daytime. "So are most men and most women. My heart's singing by that token. I'm bringing in six-score Metcalfs to the King, all as honest as God's sunlight. My luck is in, Squire." The Squire would have none of blandishment. He could ride a good horse or a grievance hard. "They doffed their hats when I named the King," he growled. "They did, but not their heart-coverings. If they'd been keen to ride—why, they'd have ridden, and no child's game of deer slaying would have stopped them. Skipton is better off without such laggard arms to help her." "But the King needs them," said Metcalf stubbornly, "and we showed them the plain road." They rode on through Cracoe, where the trees were red-gold in their pride of autumn, and again the Squire of Nappa broke the silence. "What does the King ask of us? If it is not to garrison the town——" "It is a pleasanter occupation. The Governor would change places with you willingly, Squire. He told me so when mapping out the work for you men of Nappa. You're well horsed and drilled. You are too strong to be attacked except in force, and they can spare few men from the assault. Your business is to patrol the open country, to intercept and harry Lambert's reinforcements—to come like the wind out of nowhere, and vanish as suddenly, till the Roundheads learn that Skipton is attacking and besieged, both at the same time." "There's one big load off my mind," said Metcalf soberly. "We shall have the sky over our heads and room for a gallop. I was in mortal fear of being shut up in Skipton Castle, I own, day in, day out, and never a wind from the pastures. We were not bred for indoors, we Nappa folk, and I doubt a month of it would have killed us outright." The Squire did not understand the fine breadth of strategy that underlay this plan mapped out for him. But the messenger was well aware of it, for Sir John Mallory had a soldier's instinct for the detail of campaign, and he had explained this venture yesterday with what had seemed a mixture of sagacity and sheer, unpractical romance. Since spending the night at Nappa, and journeying with the Metcalfs for half a day, Blake realised the Governor's sagacity more fully. As for romance—that, too, was vivid enough, but entirely practical. Six-score men on big white horses were enough to feed the most exacting poet's fancy; they were sufficient, too, to disturb the thick-headed, workaday routine of Lambert's soldiery. They came to Rylstone, fair and modest as a maid, who hides from men's intrusions. Rylstone, the village beyond praise, bordered by grey houses and the call of ancient peace—Rylstone, that dalesmen dream of when their strength has left them for a while and their hearts are tender. "She's bonnie," said the Squire of Nappa, checking his horse from old instinct. "Yes, she's bonnie," Blake agreed. "Rylstone bred me, and a man should know the debt he owes his mother." Then it was forward up the hill again. Blake was thinking of life's surprises—was picturing the long impatience of his manhood, because he stood only five-foot-six to his height in a country that reared tall men. Since then he had learned to pit strength of soul against body height, and now he was bringing in the finest troop of cavalry that ever rode the dales. He was content. As they drew near to the house known as None-go-by, Blake was full of the enterprise planned out for these jolly Metcalf men. He did not propose to take them into Skipton, but left-handed into the bridle-track that led to Embsay. There was news that a company of Fairfax's men was coming round that way from Otley, to help the Roundhead siege; and he would have fought a battle worth the while—for a small man, not too strong of body—if he ambushed the dour rogues with his cavalry brought out from Nappa. Yet his well-laid plan was interrupted. All the quiet ways of the countryside had been thrown into surprising muddle and disorder by this civil war that had come to range friends of yesterday on opposite sides of the quarrel. It should have been market-day, and the road full of sheep and cattle, sleepy drovers, yeomen trotting on sleek horses. Instead, there was silence, and the Nappa folk had all the highway to themselves until they neared the rutty track that joined their own from Thorlby and the Gargrave country. A stream of horsemen was pouring down this track—Parliament men riding from the west to help Lambert with the siege. They rode slowly, and the Nappa men, as they drew rein and looked down the hill, counted two hundred of them. Then came three lumbering waggons, each with a cannon lashed to it by hay-ropes plaited fourfold, and each drawn by a team of plough-horses that roused Squire Metcalf's envy. Behind the waggons, more horsemen rode at a foot-pace, till it seemed the stream would never end. "Mr. Lambert is needing more artillery, it seems," said Blake drily. "His anxiety must be great, if three cannon need such a heavy escort." The Squire of Nappa did not hear him. For a moment he sat quietly in saddle, his face the mirror of many crowded thoughts. Then suddenly he raised a shout—one that was to sound often through the Yorkshire uplands, like the cock grouse's note. "A Mecca for the King!" he roared, lifting the pike that was as light as a hazel wand to his great strength of arm. Blake was at his right hand as they charged. He had only his sword, but the speed and fury of the battle made him forget that not long since he had longed for the strength to wield a pike instead, as all the men of Nappa did. It was all confusion, speed of white horses galloping down-hill to the shock, thud of the onset. The Roundhead guard had faced about to meet this swirling, quick assault. They saw a company of giants, carrying pikes as long as their own bodies, and they met them with the stolid Roundhead obstinacy. It was a grim fight, and ever across it rang the Squire of Nappa's lusty voice. Between the two companies of Roundhead horsemen were the three farm-waggons carrying the guns. Those on the Skipton side were trying to ride uphill to help their comrades; but the din of combat had sent the plough-horses wild. They were big and wilful brutes, and their screams rose high above the babel of men fighting for their lives. Then they bolted, swerved across the road, and brought themselves and all they carried into the ditches on either side. The cannon, as they fell, ripped the waggons into splintered wreckage. Between the fallen horses, through the litter of broken waggons, the men of Nappa drove what had been the rearguard of the convoy. They picked their way through the fifty yards of broken ground, lifted their white horses to the next attack, and charged the second company of Roundheads. Those of the shattered rearguard who could not draw aside were driven down pell-mell into their upcoming friends, bringing confusion with them. And through it all there rang the Squire's voice, with its keen, insistent cry of "A Mecca for the King!" In that hour the Parliament men learned that the Stuart, too, had downright servants at command, who were not made up of dalliance and lovelocks. The men of Nappa would not be denied. They asked no quarter and gave none; and they drove the Roundheads—who contested every step with stubborn pluck—down the hill and up the gentle rise past Skipton Church, and into the broad High Street that was the comeliest in Yorkshire. The Castle, with its motto of "DÉsormais" carved in stone against the blue autumn sky, looked down on this sudden uproar in the street; men's faces showed above the battlements, eager with question and surprise. The tumult reached Lambert's ears, too, as he stood beside the cannon on Cock Hill. Knowing that reinforcements were coming over the Lancashire border, he thought the garrison had made a sortie; and he gave a sharp command to fire on the Castle as fast as they could load their clumsy cannon, to bring the sortie party back to the defence. The Roundhead luck was out altogether, for the first cannon-ball flew high above the carved motto of "DÉsormais," and the second, falling short, killed three of the horsemen who were retreating, step by step, before the Nappa men. Sir John Mallory, the governor, was one of the men who looked down from the battlements. He had a zealous heart, and his thirty years of life had taught him that it was good to live or die for the King. Below he saw a swarm of giants striding white horses; saw the little messenger he had sent to Nappa fighting as merrily as any Metcalf of them all; saw the Roundheads retreating stubbornly. As he watched, a cannon-ball whistled by, a foot or two above his head, and ruffled his hair in passing as a sharp wind might do. "My thanks, Lambert," he said impassively. "One needs a breeze after long confinement." Then he went down the slippery stair; and a little later the drawbridge rattled down, and he rode out with twenty others who were sick from lack of exercise. It was a stubborn business. The Roundheads left behind with the overturned guns, up the Rylstone road, recaptured the courage that no man doubted, and came driving in at the rear of this pitched battle. Lambert himself, the increasing tumult coming up to him through the still, autumn air, got thirty of the besiegers together. They had ridden in at dawn, and their horses were picketed close at hand. As they galloped up the High Street, they were met by the weight of their own retreating friends from Lancashire; and it was now that Lambert showed the leadership, the power of glamouring his men, which none among the Roundheads had since Hampden died. "Friends," he said,—the Quaker instinct in him suggesting that odd form of address when battle was in progress—"friends, I trust you." Just that. He had found the one word that is magical to strong men. They answered him with a rousing shout, and drove up against the King's men. For a moment even the Nappa riders gave back; but the recoil seemed only to help them to a fiercer onset. They had both Cavalier speed and Roundhead weight, these Metcalf men and horses; and Sir John Mallory, fighting beside them for mastery of the High Street, was aware that Yoredale had given the King a finer troop of horse than even Rupert could command. Across the thick of it Mallory caught Lambert's glance, and an odd smile played about their lips. The same thought came to both between the hurry of the fight. Not long ago they had dined together, had talked of the winter's hunting soon to come, had smoked their pipes in amity. Now each was thanking God that the shifting issues of the battle did not bring them sword to sword; for civil war is always a disastrous and a muddling enterprise. The glance, and the memories that went to its making, were over in a second. It was a forward plunge again of King's men meeting Roundheads, hard to drive. And suddenly there rose a cry keen as winter in the uplands and strong as sun at midsummer. "Now, Metcalfs," roared the Squire of Nappa, "into the standing corn—and God for the King, say I!" Into the standing corn they went, and it was open flight now down the length of Skipton Street. Time after time Lambert strove to rally his men, using oaths that had not been taught him by the Quakers, but the retreat swept him down, carrying him with it. A great gentleman, whichever side he took in this fierce quarrel, was learning for the first time the sickness of defeat. The Nappa men were only turned from pursuing the enemy into the teeth of the guns on Cock Hill by Mallory, who rode forward sharply, reined about and fronted them. "Gentlemen of Yoredale," he said, quiet and persuasive, "the King does not command you to be blown to bits up yonder. He has other need of you." "I like to sickle the whole field once I make a start," said Squire Metcalf. "Ay, but there's a biggish field in front of you. You'll need to sleep between-whiles, Squire." When they turned to ride up the High Street again, the Squire, among all this muddle of wounded Metcalfs, and horses that were white and crimson now, saw only a little man slipping from the saddle of a little mare. He rode up in time to ease his fall, and afterwards felt the man's wounds gently, as a woman might. And the tears were in his eyes. "It's Blake, the messenger, and God knows I'm sorry. He fought like the biggest rogue that ever was breeked at Nappa." "His soul's too big for his strength," said Mallory, with his unalterable common sense. "He'll just have to lie by for a while." "There's naught much amiss, save loss o' blood, may be. We'll get him to the Castle gate, and then—why we'll just ride up the Raikes and spike those cannon lying in the ditch." "You're thorough, you men of Nappa," said Mallory, with a sudden laugh. "Men have to be, these days," the Squire answered soberly. "If a body rides for the King—well, he rides for the King, and no two ways about it." Kit drew apart from the turmoil, and searched for the kerchief Joan Grant had dropped in front of his horse, away in Yoredale yonder. It was white no longer, but reddened by a wound that he had taken. And quietly, in the stillness that comes after battle, he knew that he was to follow a long road and a hard road till he was home again. It was better—in his heart he knew it—than dallying at country stiles, sick with calf-love for a maid too high above him. "You look happy, lad," said the Squire, as he drew rein beside him. "I'm climbing a tree, sir, a big tree. There's somebody's heart at the top of it." "Ay, Miss Joan's," growled Squire Metcalf. "Well, go on climbing, lad. You might have chosen worse." |
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