it was no usual comradeship that held between the royalists who gathered in one company after marston moor was lost to the king. they travelled through vile roads—roads broken up by incessant rains—they camped wherever they found a patch of drier ground for the night's sleep. but never for a moment did they lose the glamour that attached to the person of king charles. like a beacon-light, the thought of the half-vanquished stuart went steadily in front of them. their strength lay in this—that, whether death or life arrived, they knew the venture well worth while.
the life had a strange savour of its own. the nappa squire, the late governor of knaresborough and his officers, lady ingilby—all had known the weight of harsh responsibility so long as the king's cause was alive in the north. the cause was dead now. there was no need to be at strain, sleeping or waking, with the sense that it rested with each of them to keep the monarchy secure. there was asked of them only a haphazard and stimulating warfare, of the sort dear to all hillmen.
scarborough castle fell, and when the news was brought—they were dining at the moment in a wooded dell between beamsley and langbar—the governor lifted his hat with pleasant gravity.
"god rest the gentlemen of scarborough. they have earned their holiday, as we have."
michael was busy with the stew-pot, hanging gipsy-wise on three sticks above a fire of gorse and fir-cones. "it's hey for skipton-in-craven," he said with a cheery smile. "i aye liked the comely town, and now the king will know that she was the last in all the north to stand for him."
"maybe skipton has fallen, too, by this time," chided the squire. "you were always one for dreams, michael."
michael was silent till the meal was ended. then he mowed a swath of thistles with his sword, and brought the spoil to elizabeth, tethered to a neighbouring tree. she brayed at him with extreme tenderness.
"now that we're well victualled, friends," he said lazily, "who comes with me to hear how it fares with skipton?"
the governor did not like the venture—the hazard of it seemed too great—but squire metcalf did.
"how d'ye hold together at all, michael?" roared the squire. "so much folly and such common sense to one man's body—it must be a civil war within yourself."
michael glanced at joan grant with an instinct of which he repented instantly. "it is, sir. since i was born into this unhappy world, there has been civil war inside me. i need an outlet now."
"you shall have it, lad."
"and you call this common sense?" asked the governor, with good-tempered irony.
"ay, of the yoredale sort. a blow or two in skipton high street—who knows what heart it might give the garrison?"
"i must remind you that we have women-folk to guard, and our wounded."
"but, sir, this is a metcalf riding, all like the olden time. we never meant your knaresborough men to share it."
yet some of the knaresborough men would not be denied; and the governor, as he saw the sixty horsemen ride over and down to beamsley-by-the-wharfe, wished that his private conscience would let him journey with them. he stood watching the hill-crest long after they had disappeared, and started when a hand was laid gently on his arm.
"it is hard to stay?" asked lady ingilby.
"by your leave, yes. why should these big metcalfs have all the frolic?"
"ah, frolic! as if there were naught in life but gallop, and cut and thrust, and——sir, is there no glory in staying here to guard weak?"
the governor was in evil mood. he had seen the king's cause go, had seen knaresborough succumb, had watched the steadfast loyalty of a lifetime drift down the stream of circumstance like a straw in a headlong current.
"lady ingilby," he said wearily, "there is no longer any glory anywhere. it has gone from the land."
"it is here among us. till we were broken folk, i did not know our strength. none but the stuart, friend, could have kept us in such friendliness and constancy. oh, i know! i saw you glance round for your horse when the metcalfs went—saw your struggle fought out, sir—and, believe me, you were kind to stay."
they finished their interrupted meal at leisure; and it was not till about four of the clock that miss bingham, who had strayed afield to pick a bunch of valley lilies, came running back to camp. the two men in pursuit blundered headlong into the enemy before they saw their peril; and they found scant shrift.
miss bingham, thoroughbred beneath her whimsies, halted a moment to regain her courage. "these are but outposts, sir," she said. "from the hill-top i could see a whole company of roundheads."
"their number," asked the governor—"and are they mounted?"
"more than our own, i think, and they go on foot."
"and half of us wounded. come, gentlemen, there's no time to waste."
his weariness was gone. alert, masterful, almost happy, he bade the women get further down the hill, out of harm's way. he gave his men their stations—little knots of them cowering under clumps of gorse and broom—until the land seemed empty of all human occupation. only elizabeth, the wayward ass, lifted up her voice from time to time, after finishing the last of the thistles michael had given her. and suddenly, as they waited, the governor let a sharp oath escape him.
"this comes of letting women share a fight. in the name of reason, why is miss bingham running up the hill again?"
they peered over the gorse, saw the tall, lithe figure halt, clearly limned against the sky-line. they heard her voice, pitiful and pleading.
"parliament men, i am alone and friendless. will you aid me?"
a steel-capped roundhead showed above the hill-crest. "there are plenty to aid such a comely lass as thee," he said, his rough otley burr cutting the summer's silence like a blunt-edged knife.
"then follow quickly."
the governor laughed gently as he watched miss bingham turn and race down the hill. "a rare plucked one, she," he muttered, "kin to jael, i fancy, wife of heber the kenite."
she passed close by him on her breathless run down hill and joined the women-folk below. and the next moment the red havoc of it began. the roundheads saw their leader race forward, and followed in close order. down the slope they poured, and every clump of gorse spat out at them with a red and murderous fire. then the knaresborough men were up and into them, and when their leader got back to otley with the remnants of his men, he protested that "he'd fancied, like, they'd ta'en all the hornets' nests i' yorkshire, but some few thrifty wasps were breeding still."
"why do you laugh?" said lady ingilby, when the governor came down to tell her all was well.
"because luck is as skew-tempered as the jackass braying yonder. have the metcalfs had such frolic out at skipton, think ye? and i was keen to ride with them—miss bingham, i owe you reparation. when i saw you move up the hill yonder, i cursed you for a woman."
"that was unwise, sir. as well curse elizabeth because she is a donkey, and yearns for absent friends; or the jack-snipe, because his flight is slanting; or any of us who are made as we are made."
"we thought you light of heart, child, in the old days at knaresborough. yet none of us could have planned a neater ambush."
"it was my old pastime, after all. how often you've chided me for luring men into folly. oh, what wise and solemn discourses you have given me, sir, on the unwisdom of it!"
"there was wisdom in it this time. but for the ambush, we could not have faced the odds."
for the next hour she busied herself with bandaging the men's hurts; then, with a restlessness that had been growing on her since the metcalfs went, she climbed the hill again. only blake saw her go. unrest had been his comrade, too, since he found himself sharing this odd gipsy life with the woman he asked least to meet on this side or the other of the grave.
he followed with reluctance and a smile at his own folly. she was standing on the hill-crest, one hand shading her eyes, as if she looked for some one to arrive.
"does he come, miss bingham?" asked blake.
she turned with a fury that died away and left her helpless. there was derision, heart-ache, pity, in blake's mobile face.
"is all forgot, then, mr. blake? there was a time in knaresborough, at the ferry-steps, when you thought kindly of me."
"there was. i ask you for some explanation of the madness. to my shame, the memory came and weakened me years after—when i found myself in oxford, to be precise, and heard the nightingales. answer the riddle. how can a thing so slight and empty hinder a grown man?"
"you are bitter, unforgiving."
"neither. i've ridden too many evil roads to remember bitterness. it is simply that i'm tired and filled with wonder. tell me why oxford and the nightingales opened an old wound afresh."
"it goes back to eve's days, i think," murmured miss bingham.
demureness, coquetry, the hint of tears and laughter in her eyes—all should have disarmed blake.
"ay, find other shoulders for the blame," he said impassively.
"as adam did."
again the easy insolence failed her at need. she was aware that no nimbleness of tongue could help her now. blake stood there like some judge whose bias against the prisoner at the bar was hardening.
"after all, you owe me gratitude," she went on hurriedly. "if it had not been that i'm fickle—oh, i admit as much—you would not stand where you stand now. i remember you so well—gay, easy-going, with a tongue that made one half believe your flattery. and now? you're blake the rider—little blake—blake who never tires. i see men lift their heads when your name is mentioned, and hear their praise. did i do so ill at knaresborough, to set you on the road?"
"you broke my heart. if that was to do well—why, my thanks, miss bingham."
it was then, for the first time, that knowledge came to her, as if a veil were lifted. she saw the years behind. vanity, pride of conquest, zest in the hunting for hunting's sake—these had been her luxuries. she had not guessed that the sport might cripple men for life.
"why do you tell me this—you who are so proud and reticent?"
"not for my pleasure," he answered drily. "there's a lad of the metcalfs i have a liking for. i would save him from my sort of fate, if that could be."
he could not understand the change in her. she was fierce, vindictive. through the velvet dalliance of her life the claws flashed out. then, in a moment, she repented. her voice grew smooth and insolent again.
"oh, puritan, because you have forgotten how to play, you would put all light-hearted folk in prison. sir, by your leave, i wait here till one christopher metcalf returns from skipton town. i wish him very well."
"then heaven help him, madam," said blake, and went down the hill in search of better cheer.
the metcalfs long ago had come to embsay, and up the further hill that gave them a clear view of skipton. the long, grey church, the castle's sturdy front, the beautiful, wide street, rich in the summer's greenery that bordered it, lay spread before them in the golden sunlight. the market-square was packed with men, and the hubbub of the crowd came up the rise.
the squire of nappa had called a halt because their horses needed a breathing-space before they put their project into action. more than once, during the ride out, they had laughed at the humour of their plan, though most men would have been thinking of the extreme hazard. they proposed, in fact, to get behind the roundheads' position on cock hill, to charge them unexpectedly from the rear, and to capture their cannonry by sheer speed of onset.
"it will be a tale to set the whole north in a roar," said the squire. "and the royalists up hereabout, god knows, have need of laughter these days."
"ay, but look yonder, sir," put in christopher gravely.
the squire followed the direction of his hand. in the sunlit market-square they saw mallory, the governor, ride over the lowered drawbridge. after him came the gentry and the ladies of the garrison, then soldiery on foot; and, last of all, the stable-boys and cooks and scullions, who had ministered for two long years to the needs of those besieged.
mallory was erect and buoyant. standards waved in the merry breeze, their colours glowing in the sunlight.
"what does it mean?" asked christopher. "it is no sortie; yet they ride with heads up, as if life went very well with them."
the old squire passed a hand across his eyes. feeling ran deep with him at all times; and now it was as if he looked years ahead and saw the king himself go out in just this fashion, proud, resolute, content with the day's necessary work.
"it means, my lad," he said roughly, "that skipton-in-craven has yielded at long last. but she goes out with the full honours of war, and she can boast till the trump o' doom that she was the last in yorkshire to stand for the king's majesty."
they rode a little nearer to the town. and now they could see that the crowd thronging the high street was made up of parliament men, who moved to one side and the other, clearing a route for the outgoing garrison. they saw lambert ride forward, salute sir john mallory with grave punctilio—heard mallory's voice come lightly on the wind, as if he exchanged a jest—and then the long procession passed, with banners flying, and the tale of skipton's siege was ended.
"best turn about, metcalfs," growled the squire. "we can do nothing here. there'll be the women wanting us out beamsley way, and michael has his donkey to attend to."
"true," assented michael. "all's gone—marston, york, skipton—but elizabeth is with us still. there's many a kick left in li'le elizabeth."
so—with laughter, lest they cried—the metcalf men took route again for beamsley. and the squire rode far ahead, with a stormy grief and a sense of utter desolation for companions.
kit, seeing his father's trouble, was minded to spur forward and help him in his need; but michael checked him.
"he has the black dog on his shoulders. best leave him to it."
"why, yes. that is the metcalf way, i had forgotten, michael."
when they neared the hill that was the last of their climb, up and over into beamsley, they saw the slim figure of a woman, tall against the sky; and, as they came nearer still, michael—whose sight was like a hawk's—told them that miss bingham was waiting there to bring them back.
"kind and sonsy, she," laughed one of the late garrison at knaresborough.
"you will unsay that, sir," said christopher.
"there's nothing to unsay. kind and sonsy—daft hot-head, you might say that of your own mother."
"in a different tone. you will unsay it."
"and why? we knaresborough men seldom unsay anything, until our windpipes are cut clean in two."
"there's for a good irishman!" said michael, putting his bulk between the combatants. "he'll talk, says he, when his windpipe is in two. they could not better that in donegal."
so the quarrel was blown abroad by the laughter of their fellows; but michael, as they jogged up the hill, grew dour and silent. kit's sudden heat astonished him. he had not guessed that the lad's regard for miss bingham went deeper than the splash of a pebble in a summer's pool.
when they reached the hill-top, a fresh surprise awaited him. miss bingham was standing there, with pale, drawn face; and her eyes searched eagerly for one only of the company, and disdained the rest.
michael could not believe it. her easy handling of the world she knew by heart—the levity that cloaked all feeling—were gone. she put a hand on kit's bridle-arm as he rode up, and forgot, it seemed, that many folk were looking on.
"you are wounded. no? then how fares it out at skipton?"
the old squire had seen the drift of things with an eye as keen as michael's; and in his present mood he was intolerant of women and all gentler matters. "it has sped bonnily," he snapped. "skipton has gone down-stream with the flood, miss bingham, and there's no more to do, save tend women's vapours and feed michael's jackass."
she smiled pleasantly at this man in evil mood. "sir, that is not like you. if your courtesy towards women has gone, too, then chivalry is ended for all time."
the metcalfs waited for the squire's rejoinder. none guessed how the rebuke would take him; but all knew how deep he was wading in the chill bog of adversity. they saw him lift his head in fury, saw him relent with hardship.
"miss bingham," he said, "there was a sorrow and a madness at my heart. you are right. if i forget courtesy toward women, i forget the wife who bred tall sons for me in yoredale."
he went apart that night and took counsel of his god, on the high lands where the birds seemed to rise for matins almost as soon as evensong was ended. he came down again for early breakfast in the woodland camp, with all the grace of youth about him, in high spirits, ready for the day's surprises.
