They jogged forward on the road, and the day grew hot with thunder. The slowness of a walking pace, after months in the saddle, the heat to which they were unused as yet, after the more chilly¹ north, seemed to make a league of every mile. Then the storm burst, and out of nowhere a fierce wind leaped at them, driving the rain in sheets before it. The lightning played so near at times that they seemed to be walking through arrows of barbed fire.
 
"A pleasant way of reaching Oxford², after all one's dreams!" grumbled³ Kit⁴.
 
"Oh, it will lift. I'm always gayest in a storm, my lad. The end on't is so near."
 
The din⁵ and rain passed overhead. A league further on they stepped into clear sunlight and the song of soaring larks⁶. Here, too, their walking ended, for a carrier overtook them. He had a light load and a strong, fast horse in the shafts⁸; and, if their way of entry into the city of his dreams jarred on Kit's sense of fitness, he was glad to have the journey shortened.
 
The carrier pulled up at the gateway⁹ of St. John's, and the wonder of their day began. Oxford, to men acquainted with her charm by daily intercourse¹⁰, is constantly the City Beautiful; to these men of Yoredale, reared in country spaces, roughened by campaigning on the King's behalf, it was like a town built high as heaven in the midst of fairyland. As they passed along the street, the confusion of so many streams of life, meeting and eddying¹² back and mixing in one great swirling¹³ river, dizzied them for a while. Then their eyes grew clearer, and they saw it all with the freshness of a child's vision. There were students, absurdly youthful and ridiculously light-hearted, so Kit thought in his mood of high seriousness. There were clergy¹⁴, and market-women with their vegetables, hawkers, quack¹⁵ doctors, fortune-tellers, gentry¹⁶ and their ladies, prosperous, well-fed, and nicely clothed. A bishop¹⁷ and a dean rubbed shoulders with them as they passed. And, above the seemly hubbub¹⁸ of it all, the mellow¹⁹ sun shone high in an over-world of blue sky streaked²⁰ with amethyst²¹ and pearl.
 
"Was the dream worth while?" asked Michael, with his easy laugh.
 
"A hundred times worth while. 'Twould have been no penance²² to walk every mile from Yoredale hither-to, for such an ending to the journey."
 
They went into the High Street, and here anew the magic of the town met them face to face. Oxford, from of old, had been the cathedral city, the University, the pleasant harbourage of well-found gentry, who made their homes within sound of its many bells. Now it was harbouring the Court as well.
 
Along the street—so long as they lived, Christopher and Michael would remember the vision, as of knighthood palpable and in full flower—a stream of Cavaliers came riding. At their head, guarded jealously on either side, was a horseman so sad and resolute²³ of face, so marked by a grace and dignity that seemed to halo him, that Kit turned to a butcher who stood nearest to him in the crowd.
 
"Why do they cheer so lustily? Who goes there?" he asked.
 
"The King, sir. Who else?"
 
So then a great tumult²⁴ came to Christopher. When he was a baby in the old homestead, the Squire²⁵ had woven loyalty²⁶ into the bones and tissues of him. Through the years it had grown with him, this honouring of the King as a man who took his sceptre direct from the hands of the good God. Let none pry²⁷ into the soul of any man so reared who sees his King for the first time in the flesh.
 
With Michael it was the same. He did not cheer as the crowd did; his heart was too deeply touched for that. And by and by, when the townsfolk had followed the cavalcade²⁸ toward Christ Church, the brothers found themselves alone.
 
"It was worth while," said Kit, seeking yet half evading²⁹ Michael's glance.
 
They shook themselves out of their dreams by and by, and, for lack of other guidance, followed the route taken by the King. The Cavaliers had dispersed³⁰. The King had already gone into the Deanery. So they left the front of Christ Church and wandered aimlessly into the lane that bordered Merton, and so through the grove³¹ where the late rains and the glowing sun had made the lilacs and the sweet-briars a sanctuary³² of beaded, fragrant³³ incense³⁴.
 
From Merton, as they dallied³⁵ in the grove—not knowing where to seek Rupert, and not caring much, until the wine of Oxford grew less heady—a woman came between the lilacs. Her walk, her vivacious³⁶ body, her air of loving laughter wherever she could find it, were at variance³⁷ with the tiredness of her face. She seemed like sunlight prisoned in a vase of clouded porcelain³⁸.
 
Perhaps something of their inborn³⁹, romantic sense of womanhood showed in the faces of the Metcalfs as they stepped back to make a way for her. One never knows what impulse guides a woman; one is only sure that she will follow it.
 
However that might be, the little lady halted; a quick smile broke through her weariness. "Gentlemen," she said, with a pretty foreign lilt of speech, "you are very—what you call it?—so very high. There are few men with the King in Oxford who are so broad and high. I love big men, if they are broad of shoulder. Are you for the King?"
 
"We are Metcalfs of Nappa," said Kit. "Our loyalty is current coin in the north."
 
The little lady glanced shrewdly at them both, her head a little on one side like a bird's. "Are you of the company they call the Riding Metcalfs? Then the south knows you, too, and the west country, wherever men are fighting for the King. Gentlemen, you have a battle-cry before you charge—what is it?"
 
"A Mecca for the King!"
 
She laughed infectiously. "It is not like me to ask for passwords. I was so gay and full of trust in all men until the war came. The times are difficile, n'est pas, and you were unknown to me. What is your errand here?"
 
"We came to find Prince Rupert," said Kit, blurting⁴¹ his whole tale out because a woman happened to be pretty and be kind. "The north is needing him. That is our sole business here."
 
"Ah, then, I can help you. There's a little gate here—one goes through the gardens, and so into the Deanery. My husband lodges⁴² there. He will tell you where Rupert finds himself."
 
Michael, because he knew himself to be a devil-may-care, had a hankering after prudence⁴³ now and then, and always picked the wrong moment for it. If this unknown lady had chosen to doubt them, and ask for a password, he would show the like caution. Moreover, he felt himself in charge just now of this impulsive⁴⁴ younger brother.
 
"Madam," he answered, his smile returning, "our errand carries with it the whole safety of the north. In all courtesy, we cannot let ourselves be trapped within the four walls of a house. Your husband's name?"
 
"In all courtesy," she broke in, "it is permitted that I laugh! The days have been so triste—so triste. It is like Picardy and apple orchards⁴⁵ to find one's self laughing. You shall know my husband's name, sir—oh, soon! Is it that two men so big and high are afraid to cross an unknown threshold?"
 
Michael thrust prudence aside, glad to be rid of the jade⁴⁶. "I've seldom encountered fear," he said carelessly.
 
"Ah, so! Then you have not loved." Her face was grave, yet mocking. "To live one must love, and to love—that is to know fear."
 
She unlocked the gate with a key she carried at her girdle, and passed through. They followed her into gardens lush, sweet-smelling, full of the pomp and eager riot of the spring. Then they passed into the Deanery, and the manservant who opened to them bowed with some added hint of ceremony that puzzled Michael. The little lady bade them wait, went forward into an inner room, then returned.
 
"My husband will receive you, gentlemen," she said, with a smile that was like a child's, yet with a spice of woman's malice⁴⁷ in it.
 
The sun was playing up and down the gloomy panels of the chamber⁴⁸, making a morris dance of light and shade. At the far end a man was seated at a table. He looked up from finishing a letter, and Christopher felt again that rush of blood to the heart, that deep, impulsive stirring of the soul, which he had known not long ago in the High Street of the city.
 
They were country born and bred, these Yoredale men, but the old Squire had taught them how to meet sharp emergencies, and especially this of standing⁴⁹ in the Presence. Their obeisance⁵⁰ was faultless in outward ceremony, and the King, who had learned from suffering the way to read men's hearts, was aware that the loyalty of these two—the inner loyalty—was a thing spiritual and alive.
 
The Queen, for her part, stood aside, diverted by the welcome comedy. These giants with the simple hearts had learned her husband's name.
 
"I am told that you seek Prince Rupert—that you are lately come from York?" said the King.
 
He had the gift—one not altogether free from peril—that he accepted or disdained⁵¹ men by instinct; there were no half measures in his greetings. Little by little Christopher and Michael found themselves at ease. The King asked greedily for news of York. They had news to give. Every word they spoke⁵² rang true to the shifting issues of the warfare⁵³ in the northern county. It was plain, moreover, that they had a single purpose—to find Rupert and to bring him into the thick of tumult where men were crying for this happy firebrand.
 
The King glanced across at Henrietta Maria. They did not know, these Metcalfs, what jealousies⁵⁴ and slanders⁵⁵ and pin-pricks of women's tongues were keeping Rupert here in Oxford. They did not know that Charles himself, wearied by long iteration of gossip dinned⁵⁶ into his ears, was doubting the good faith of his nephew, that he would give him no commission to raise forces and ride out. The King and Queen got little solace⁵⁷ from their glance of Question; both were so overstrained with the trouble of the times, so set about by wagging tongues that ought to have been cut out by the common hangman, that they could not rid themselves at once of doubt. And the pity of it was that both loved Rupert, warmed to the pluck of his exploits in the field, and knew him for a gentleman proved through and through.
 
"Speak of York again," said the King. "London is nothing to me, save an overgrown, dull town whose people do not know their minds. Next to Oxford, in my heart, lies York. If that goes, gentlemen, I'm widowed of a bride." He was tired, and the stimulus⁵⁸ of this hale, red-blooded loyalty from Yoredale moved him from the grave reticence⁵⁹ that was eating his strength away. "It is music to me to hear of York. From of old it was turbulent and chivalrous⁶⁰. It rears strong men, and ladies with the smell of lavender about them. Talk to me of the good city."
 
So then Michael, forgetting where he stood, told the full tale of his journeying to York. And the Queen laughed—the pleasant, easy laughter of the French—when he explained the share a camp-follower's donkey had had in the wild escapade.
 
"You will present the donkey to me," she said. "When all is well again, and we come to praise York for the part it took in holding Yorkshire for the King, you will present that donkey to me."
 
And then the King laughed, suddenly, infectiously; and his Queen was glad, for she knew that he, too, had had too little recreation of this sort. They went apart, these two, like any usual couple who were mated happily and had no secrets from each other.
 
"How they bring the clean breath of the country to one," said Charles. "Before they came, it seemed so sure that Rupert was all they said of him."
 
"It was I who made you credit rumours," she broke in, pretty and desolate⁶² in the midst of her French contrition⁶³. "I was so weary, and gossip laid siege to me hour by hour, and I yielded. And all the while I knew it false. I tell you, I love the sound of Rupert's step. He treads so firmly, and holds his head so high."
 
The King touched her on the arm with a deference⁶⁴ and a friendship that in themselves were praise of this good wife of his. Then he went to the writing-table, wrote and sealed a letter, and put it into Michael's hands.
 
"Go, find the Prince," he said, "and give him this. He is to be found at this hour, I believe, in the tennis-court. And when you next see the Squire of Nappa tell him the King knows what the Riding Metcalfs venture for the cause."
 
Seeing Kit hesitate and glance at him with boyish candour, the King asked if he had some favour to request. And the lad explained that he wished only to understand how it came that the Riding Metcalfs were so well known to His Majesty⁶⁵.
 
"We have done so little," he finished; "and the north lies so far away."
 
The King paced up and down the room. The fresh air these men had brought into the confin............