They carried Christopher into the tavern¹, and the Squire² thrust the gaping³ onlookers⁴ from the room and shut the door. He thought the lad was dying.
 
Kit⁵ lay on the lang-settle. The dancing firelight showed the pallor of his face, the loose, helpless surrender of limbs and body.
 
"I cared for the lad too much, maybe," growled⁶ the Squire. "He was littlish, as we Metcalfs go, and a man's heart yearns⁷, somehow, about the baby of a flock."
 
For two hours he watched, and then Kit stirred. "The louts bandied Joan's name about," the lad murmured.
 
"Ay, so they did. Get up and fight, lad Christopher—for Joan."
 
Kit obeyed the summons with a promptness that dismayed the Squire. He got to his feet, looked about him, and moved across the floor; then his legs grew weak under him, and he tottered⁸ to the settle.
 
"Tell her it doesn't matter either way," he said. "Tell her I'm for the King, as all the Metcalfs are."
 
He slept that night like a little child; and the Squire, watching beside him, returned to his own childhood. The bitterness of fever was over. Kit would live, he thought.
 
Pansy was early astir next morning, and moved among the servants of the Castle with an aloofness⁹ that enraged¹¹ the women, with a shy, upward glance of her Puritan eyes that enthralled¹² the men. She was demure¹³ and gentle; and when a lad came into the yard with his milking-cans, and said that there had been a bonnie fight in the village overnight, Pansy asked him how it had fared with Master Christopher.
 
"Oh, he?" said the lad, his eyes big and round at sight of her. "He was ready to die last night; but he's thought better of it, so they say."
 
Pansy did not take the news to her mistress, whose moods were not to be reckoned with these days, but to the lady of the house. Already she had learned, with her quick instinct for character, that Lady Ingilby and she had much in common.
 
"The Riding Metcalfs are in Ripley, by your leave," she said, with downcast eyes.
 
"I'm vastly glad to hear it. Miss Grant has told me of their loyalty¹⁴. Well?"
 
"Master Christopher lies wounded in the tavern—he that carried the message so well. It seems a shame that he should stay there with only men to nurse him."
 
"Ah, Master Christopher! I've heard of him, Why do you bring the news to me, girl, instead of to your mistress?"
 
"Because, my lady, she's deep in love with him, and does not know it. I'd as lief meet a she-wolf in the open as talk of him to the mistress."
 
The other laughed whole-heartedly. It was the first real laugh she had found since her husband left her for the wars. "You've a head on your shoulders, child, and a face rather too pretty for the snares¹⁵ of this world. I thank you for the news."
 
An hour later Lady Ingilby went out, alone and on foot, into Ripley street. There was a press of Metcalfs about the roadway—brawny men who had slept beside their horses wherever they could find room about the fields, and who had gathered for the next day's call to action.
 
"Is the Squire of Nappa here?" asked Lady Ingilby.
 
"He's indoors," said Michael, with his graceless ease of bearing, "tending Christopher, the darling of our company."
 
"Go in and tell him that Lady Ingilby commands."
 
When the Squire came out, a little dizzy with his vigil, and altogether glad that Kit had so far slept off his weakness as to ask for breakfast, he saw a lady with a high, patrician¹⁶ nose and keen, grey eyes, who smiled at him.
 
"Sir, I come to inspect your company. In my husband's absence I undertake his duties."
 
"Madam," he answered with rough grace, "my men are honoured. The King may have better soldiers, but has he six-score to set side by side with mine for height and girth?"
 
He bade his men get to horse—as many of them as the street afforded room for—and marshalled them briskly into line. Lady Ingilby was astounded¹⁷ by the discipline they showed. It was as if their leader scarcely needed to give an order; their readiness seemed to go with the command, as if one brain guided the whole company.
 
She took the salute¹⁸ with lively satisfaction. "You dwarf¹⁹ our houses, Metcalfs. I never guessed how low the inn roof is. You are all for the King? Good! That was a lusty roar."
 
They faced each other, the cavalry²⁰ and the slim, straight lady whose husband was at the wars. And the Nappa men answered her laugh; and from this day forward they were comrades, she and they, and she could command them anything.
 
"Undoubtedly²¹ prayers are answered, if one prays long enough," she said, in her odd, imperative²² way. "There's been a siege of Ripley Castle, a stealthy siege, and I've needed men about me."
 
"We are free for your service," said the Squire. "Indeed, we were in fear of idleness, after doing what was asked at Skipton yesterday."
 
"There's no speed of attack in this venture." She read the man's need for blows and the gallop²³, and would not tempt²⁴ him into a promise rashly given. "You will understand, Mr. Metcalf, that my house is a hospital just now. Whenever a Cavalier takes wounds too hard for him, he drags himself to Ripley. The countrymen all know my mind; and, when they find a lame²⁵ dog of the King's, they bring him to my gate. The garrison²⁶ of my good castle, I tell you frankly²⁷, is made up of women and sick men."
 
"But we're no nurses," protested the Squire, with laughable simplicity²⁸. "You'd have six-score other ailing²⁹ men if you shut us up indoors."
 
Lady Ingilby laughed, for the second time since her husband rode for the King. "We could not house you, sir. If there's scarce room for you in Ripley's street, you would overfill the castle. I have other work for you."
 
"In the open?"
 
"Ah, your eagerness! Yes, in the open. Keep our gates safe from without, sir. There are few hale men among the garrison, and these are wearied out with sleeplessness³⁰. Prowling companies of Roundheads come this way, giving us no rest. They know Sir William Ingilby is with the King, they know I keep open house here for Cavaliers——"
 
"Bid your household rest," the Squire broke in. "There are six-score of us here—judge for yourself whether we're big enough to guard you."
 
"Big enough," she assented³¹, with a brisk, friendly nod. "But how to feed your company, sir?" she added, returning to the prose of housewifery.
 
"We feed ourselves," laughed the Squire. "It seemed a fat country as we rode through. Mutton—and corn for our horses—wherever these are, there's a meal for us."
 
Kit had left his half-finished breakfast at the sound of Lady Ingilby's voice outside. It was not her quality, or the courage she was showing under hardship, that stirred his pulses. As she turned to go in at the tavern door, saying she must see the wounded man, Christopher himself crossed the threshold.
 
"My faith, sir," she said tartly³², "you should be in your bed, by the look of you. You can scarce stand."
 
"Miss Grant is with you?" he asked, a sudden crimson³³ in his cheeks.
 
"Oh, yes. The most wonderful maid that ever came to Ripley—her eyes like stars—she feeds on thistledown."
 
"You are pleased to jest," he said, aloof¹⁰ and chilly³⁵.
 
"Not so hasty, by your leave. You've a message for this girl who sups on moonbeams?"
 
Some kindness in her voice arrested Kit. "Tell her that I wish her very well."
 
"I shall tell her nothing of the kind, my lad. D'ye want to win her? Then I shall tell her you were thinking of the wars—that, when I asked if you had any message, you seemed to have forgotten her. I shall make much of that ugly scar across your face—taken yesterday, by the look of it—and hazard that you may live a week, with some good luck to help you."
 
"You've no heart," he said, the Metcalf temper roused.
 
"An older heart than yours—that is all. I have lived through your sort of moonlight, and found the big sun shining on the hill-top. My man went out to the wars, and I—I would not have him back just yet for all the gold in Christendom. Absence is teaching me so much."
 
"I need her. You do not understand."
 
"Tut-tut! You'll have to wait till you've proved your needing." She looked at the Castle front, saw a star of light flicker³⁶ and grow clear in a window on the left. "That is her room, Sir Love-too-well," she said, with the gentlest laugh. "When you are weary of guarding the Castle, glance up and picture her yonder, sipping³⁷ dew, with all the fairies waiting on her."
 
"I thank you," said Kit, with childish gravity. "I shall know where to look when all else in Ripley seems drab and tawdry."
 
Lady Ingilby beckoned³⁸ Squire Metcalf to her side. "Your son is no courtier, Mr. Metcalf," she said tartly.
 
"He was not bred that way. I licked him into shape."
 
"And yet he is a courtier. He loves well. Only, by your leave, defend my gate against all women from the Yoredale country. I've Joan Grant here, and her maid Pansy, and between them they're turning our men's wits. Two pretty women can always outflank a troop of horse."
 
The Riding Metcalfs had a busy season between October of that year and the next year's spring. So far as history-making went, the Civil War was quiet enough. Pym, with his sane³⁹ strength, died as Christmas was nearing, and left the Parliament in a muddle⁴⁰ of divided leadership. The King summoned a Parliament at Oxford⁴¹, but nothing fruitful came of it. Yet in Yorkshire the Metcalfs found work enough to do. Loyal to their pledge, they always left some of their number to guard Ripley Castle; the rest of them went harrying⁴² Puritans wherever they could find them. Sometimes they made their way to Skipton, creating uproar⁴³ and a diversion of the siege; at other times they paid minute and embarrassing attention to Otley, for, of all the Parliament's officers, they detested⁴⁴ most the Fairfaxes, who, as old Squire Mecca had it, should have learnt better manners from their breeding.
 
Kit was divided between two allegiances now. One was owing unalterably to the light which Lady Ingilby had shown him shining from Joan's upper room. The other was Prince Rupert's. Through all the muddled⁴⁵ rides and skirmishes and swift alarms of that hard winter, the Metcalfs had heard constantly the praises of two men sung—Rupert's and Cromwell's. Rupert had succeeded in the raising of a cavalry troop that already, rumour⁴⁶ said, was invincible⁴⁷; Cromwell was building up his Ironsides, grim and heavy, to meet the speed and headlong dash of Rupert's men. Gradually, as the months went on, Kit shaped Prince Rupert to the likeness⁴⁸ of a hero—a little less than saint, and more than man. Whenever he came home to Ripley, he roamed o' nights, and looked up at Joan's window, and shaped her, too, to the likeness of a maid too radiant for this world. He was in the thick of the high dreams that beset⁴⁹ an untrained lad; but the dreams were building knighthood into the weft and woof of him, and no easy banter⁵⁰ of the worldlings would alter that in years to come.
 
Joan played cat's-cradle with his heart. She would flout⁵¹ him for a day, and meet him at the supper-board thereafter with downcast eyes and tender voice; and Squire Metcalf would suppress his laughter when Kit confided⁵² to him that women were beyond his reckoning.
 
Soon after dawn, on a day in late April, Kit stole out for a glance at the left wing of the Castle, where Joan's window grew ruddy in the sunlight. Rain was falling, and a west wind was sobbing⁵³ up across the sun. And suddenly he fancied that women were not beyond his reckoning. They were April bairns, all of them—gusty and cold, warm and full of cheer, by turns. He remembered other Aprils—scent of gilly-flowers in the garden far away in Yoredale, the look of Joan as she came down the fields to greet him—all the trouble and the fragrance⁵⁵ of the days when he was giving his heart to her, not knowing it.
 
He felt a sharp tap on his shoulder. "Day-dreaming, Kit?" laughed the Squire of Nappa. "Oh, she's there, my lad, safe housed. I was about to knock on the gate, but I fancy you'd best take my message to Lady Ingilby."
 
Kit was glad to take it, glad to be nearer by the width of the courtyard to that upper window. Women—who, for the most part, are practical and ruled by household worries—must laugh often at the men who care for them with true romance.
 
When the gate was unbarred, and he had passed through, a kerchief fluttered down—a little thing of cambric, ladylike and foolish. Kit did not see it. His glance had roved to the upper window, and there, framed by the narrow mullions, was Joan's face.
 
"You do not care to pick it up," she said with a careless laugh. "How rough you are, you men of Yoredale."
 
Kit saw the favour lying at his feet, and pinned it to his hat. When he glanced up again, the window overhead was empty, and Lady Ingilby, standing⁵⁶ at his side, was bidding him good-morrow.
 
"I have urgent news for you," he said, recovering from confusion.
 
"Not so urgent but a kerchief could put it out of mind. But come indoors, lest a snowstorm of such favours buries you. You'll have many such storms, I hazard—you, with your big laugh and your air of must-be-obeyed."
 
When they had come into the oak-parlour, and Lady Ingilby had seen that the door was close-shut against eavesdroppers, Kit gave his message.
 
"A man rode in an hour ago from York. The garrison there is near to famine. They're besieged⁵⁷ by three armies—Lord Fairfax at Walmgate Bar, my Lord Manchester at Bootham Bar, and the Scots at Micklegate. My father sends me with the message, and asks if you can spare the Riding Metcalfs for a gallop."
 
"Six-score to meet three armies?"
 
"If luck goes that way."
 
She stood away from him, looking him up and down. "My husband is of your good breed, sir. I gave him to the King, so I must spare my six-foot Metcalfs to the cause."
 
Joan Grant came into the parlour. Kit, seeing the filtered sunlight soft about her beauty, thought that the world's prime miracle of womanhood, a thing dainty, far-away, had stepped into the room.
 
"Can I share your secrets?" she asked diffidently.
 
"I've none," said Kit, with a sudden laugh. "I carry your kerchief, Joan—at least, my hat does, whenever I wear it in the open, for men to see."
 
Again she was aware of some new self-reliance, some ease of speech and carriage that had been absent in the Yoredale days. A few months of peril⁵⁸ had accomplished⁵⁹ this; she asked herself, with a queer stab of jealousy⁶⁰, what a year of soldiery would do.
 
"I dropped the kerchief by chance, sir," she said coldly. "You will return it."
 
"By and by, when it has been through other chance and mischance. Lady Ingilby, you shall be judge between us. Is the kerchief mine?"
 
The older woman laughed. "Yours—when you've proved your right to wear it. Meanwhile, it is a loan."
 
"Women always forsake⁶¹ each other at the pinch," said Joan, with a gust⁵⁴ of temper.
 
"To be sure, girl. Our men-folk are so often right, in spite of their absurdities⁶². This venture toward York, Mr. Metcalf? You propose to ride against three armies—a hundred and twenty of you?"
 
"No, by your leave. We hope to get near the city in one company, and then decide. If York is leaguered by regiments⁶³, there'll be an outer rim³⁴ of Metcalfs, waiting their chance of capturing news going in or coming out."
 
"Good! I begin to see how strong you are, you clan⁶⁴ of Metcalfs. You are one, or two, or six-score, as need asks. I think you are well advised to go to York."
 
Joan Grant turned from the window. Her aloofness and disdain⁶⁵ were gone. "Would you not stay to guard our wounded here?" she asked.
 
The mellow⁶⁶ sunlight was busy in her hair. Her voice was low and pleading. Kit was dizzied by temptation. And Lady Ingilby looked on, wondering how this man would take the baptism.
 
"We fight where the King needs us most—that is the Metcalf way," he said at last.
 
"If I asked you not to go? Of course, I care nothing either way. But suppose I asked you?"
 
With entire simplicity and boyishness, Kit touched the kerchief in his hat. "This goes white so far as I can guide it."
 
"Ah," said Lady Ingilby. "The King should hear of you, sir, in days to come."
 
When he had gone, Joan came to her aunt's side. "He—he does not care, and I would we were home in Yoredale, he and I. I was free to flout him there."
 
"Never trust men," said Lady Ingilby, with great cheeriness. "He does not care, of course—no man does when the battle music sounds."
 
"But he—he was glad to wear my kerchief."
 
"It is the fashion among our Cavaliers. That is all. He would not care to take the field without a token that some poor gentlewoman was dying of heart-break for his wounds."
 
Joan found her dignity. "My own heart is sound," she protested.
 
"Then don't accuse it, child, by protests."
 
"I'm so glad that he's gone—so glad!" She crossed to the window again, looked out on the sunlit street. "How drab the world is," she said pettishly⁶⁷. "There'll be snow before night, I fancy; it grows chilly."
 
"The world's drab," assented Lady Ingilby. "What else does one expect at my years? And our six-foot Metcalf will forget you for the first pretty face he meets in York."
 
"Is he so base? Tell me, is he so base?"
 
"No; he forgets—simply, he forgets. Men do."
 
Without, in Ripley street, there was great stir of men and horses getting ready for the York road. Lady Ingilby, hearing the tumult⁶⁸ of it, crossed to the window, and her heart was lighter⁶⁹ by twenty years as she watched the cavalcade⁷⁰ ride out.
 
"The White Horses, and six-score giants riding them! They'll make history, girl. The pity is that not all of those six-score will sit a saddle again. They have the look of men who do not care how and when they die, so long as King Charles has need of them."
 
"Kit will return," said Joan, in a chastened voice.
 
"That is good hearing. How do you know it, baby-girl?"
 
"Because I asked him to return. Just to nurse his wounds would be—Paradise, I think."
 
The Metcalf men were a mile on the York road by now. Michael, the reputed black sheep and roysterer of the clan, rode close beside Christopher, and chattered⁷¹ of a face he had seen at an upper window of the Castle.
 
"A face to lead a man anywhere," he finished, "Hair like wind in the rusty⁷² brackens."
 
Kit touched the favour in his hat. "It is she I fight for, Michael—for the King and Joan."
 
"Are you always to have luck, just for the asking?" growled Michael.
 
"This time, yes, unless brother fights with brother."
 
For a moment they were ready to withdraw from their kinsfolk and settle the issue in some convenient glade⁷³. Then Michael yielded to the queer, jealous love he had learned, long since in Yoredale, for this lad.
 
"Oh, we'll not quarrel, Kit. There'll be another face for me at the next town we ride through. There are more swans than one, and all turn geese in later life."
 
Squire Mecca, hearing high words from the rear, rode back to learn what the uproar was about. "So you're at your brawling⁷⁴ again, Michael?" he roared.
 
"No, sir. I was wishing Kit good luck for the lady's favour he is wearing in his hat."
 
"You're a smooth-tongued rascal⁷⁵! As for you, Kit, lady's favours can bide⁷⁶ till we're through with this rough work. Moonshine is pretty enough when the day's over, but the day is just beginning."
 
They rode by way of Tockwith village, long and straggling, and forward over a heath studded thick with gorse and brambles, and set about with black, sullen⁷⁷ wastes of bog⁷⁸.
 
Squire Metcalf, for all his hardihood, was full of superstition⁷⁹, as most folk are who have good wits and healthy souls. A little wind—of the sort named "thin" in Yoredale—blew over Marston Moor⁸⁰, chilling the warm sunlight.
 
"There's a crying in the wind," he said, turning to Kit, who was riding at his bridle-hand. "I trust it's sobbing for the end of all foul⁸¹ traitors⁸² to the King."