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."

"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.