Spring, and the rising sap, and the soft, cool scents4 of eventide are magical to those climbing up the hill of dreams; to those who have ceased to climb, they are echoes of a fairyland once lived in, but now seen from afar. It had all been so long ago. Skirmish and wounds, and lonely rides in many weathers, should have dug a grave deep enough for memories to lie in; but old ghosts rose to-night, unbidden. If it had been his sinning, he could have borne the hardship better; he had the old knightly5 faith—touched with extravagance, but haloed by the Further Light—that all women are sacrosanct6. If he had failed—well, men were rough and headstrong; but it was she who had stooped to meaner issues. And it was all so long ago that it seemed absurd the nightingales should make his heart ache like a child's.
Fame was his. The Metcalfs, big on big horses, had captured the fancy of all England by their exploits in the open. Yet Blake, the messenger—riding alone for the most part, through perils7 that had no music of the battle-charge about them—had his own place, his claim to quick, affectionate regard wherever Cavaliers were met together. They laughed at his high, punctilious8 view of life, but they warmed to the knowledge that he had gone single-handed along tracks that asked for comrades on his right hand and his left. But this was unknown to Blake, who did not ask what men thought of him. It was enough for him to go doing his journeys, carrying a heartache till the end came and he was free to understand the why and wherefore of it all.
It was a relief to see the moonlight blinking on the roofs of Banbury as he rode into the town. There were no nightingales here; instead, there was the hum and clamour of a Roundhead populace, infuriated by the news that two Cavaliers had broken prison in the early morning and had locked the gaoler in.
Blake found his bridle10 seized roughly, and it was doubtful for a moment whether he or his high-spirited mare11, or the two of them, would come to grief.
"Well, friend?" he asked of the burly Puritan who held the bridle.
"Your business here?"
"To sell cloth. I come from Oxford12, and have done much business there with the Court."
"Then why come selling wares13 in Banbury? Court fashions find no favour here."
"Cloth is cloth," said Blake impassively, "and I've some remnants going cheap."
A woman in the crowd pressed forward. "How much the yard?" she asked.
With his tired knowledge of the world, he named a price that made the woman ask eagerly for a sample. "I have no samples. The cloth itself will come in by carrier to-morrow. I'm tired and hungry," he said, smiling at the man who held his rein14. "Perhaps you will direct me to a lodging15 for the night?"
"Was there great stir among the sons of Belial in Oxford?" asked his captor, with a shrewd sideways glance.
"They were like bees in a busy hive," assented16 Blake cheerily.
"You learned something, maybe, of their plans?"
"I did, friend."
"That might be worth free lodging to you for the night, and a supper of the best. What did you learn?"
"Why, that they planned to buy a good deal of my cloth. That's how I measure a man—with the eye of a merchant who has cloth to sell. You, sir—your clothes are of the shabbiest, if you'll pardon my frankness. Will you not come to the tavern17 to-morrow, after the carrier has brought my bales, and let me show you some good broadcloth—cloth of a sober colour, suited to the pious18 habits you profess19? To-day I clothe a Cavalier, to-morrow a gentleman who fights on the Parliament side—a merchant knows no niceties of party."
Blake had thrust home. This man, named gentle for the first time in his busy life as tradesman, traducer20 of the King's good fame, and the prime stirabout of anarchy21 in Banbury, was filled with a heady, spurious pride. This merchant had sold cloth to the dandies of the Court, perhaps to the King himself, and now it was his turn. There were men of this odd, cringing22 habit among the sterner Roundhead stuff, and Blake knew them as a harpist knows the strings23 he plays on.
The end of it was that he was directed to a comfortable tavern, was given, though he scarcely seemed to ask for it, the password that ensured him the freedom of the streets, and parted from his captor with an easy-going reminder24 that the cloth should reach Banbury about nine of the next morning.
The password was useful to him more than once. It saved much trouble with soldiery who held him up at every turn. It saved appeal to the pistol he carried in his holster; and that would have meant the rousing of the town, and odds25 against him that would put his whole errand into jeopardy26.
He halted once only, at the front of the tavern which had been recommended to him. An ostler was standing27 at the door, chewing a straw and waiting for some fresh excitement to stir these strenuous28 days. Blake slipped a coin into his hand, and explained that, about nine of the next morning, a townsman would come asking for a merchant who had cloth to sell.
"You will explain, ostler, that I am called away on business—business connected with the two Cavaliers who broke gaol9 last night. Explain, too, that I hope to return to your town in a few days' time. The townsman's name was Ebenezer Fear-the-Snare29—I remember it because of its consuming drollery30."
With a cheery nod and a laugh that might mean anything, Blake left the other wondering "what devilment this mad fellow was bent31 on," and rode out into the beauty of the summer's night that lay beyond the outskirts32 of Banbury. Here, again, the nightingales assailed33 him. They could not rest for the love-songs in their throats; and ancient pain, deep where the soul beats at the prison-house of flesh, guided his left hand on the reins34 until, not knowing it, he was riding at a furious gallop35. Then he checked to a sober trot36.
The land was fragrant37 with the warmth of wet soil, the scent3 of flowers and rain-washed herbage. The moon shone blue above the keen white light of gloaming, and the road ahead stretched silver, miraculous38, like some highway of the old romance that was waiting for the tread of kings and knights39, of ladies fair as their own fame.
Old dreams clambered up to Blake's saddle and rode with him—wild heartaches of the long ago—the whetstone of first love, sharpening the power to feel, to dare all things—the unalterable need of youth to build a shrine40 about some woman made of the same clay as himself. They were good dreams, tasted again in this mellow41 dusk; but he put them by at last reluctantly. He had a live ambition before him—to bring a company of riders, bred in his own stiff Yorkshire county, for the Cavaliers of Oxford to appraise42.
He slackened pace with some misgiving43. The two Metcalfs, when he bade farewell to them in Oxford, had been so sure that one of their kinsmen44 would have reached the outskirts of Banbury, would be waiting for him. The horseman, they had explained, would not approach the town too closely, knowing its fame as a place of Parliament men who watched narrowly all Oxford's incoming and outgoing travellers; but Blake had travelled three miles or so already, and he grew impatient for a sight of his man.
Through the still air and the complaint of nightingales he heard the whinny of a horse. His own replied. The road made a wide swerve45 here through the middle of a beech46 wood. As he rounded it and came into the open country, he saw a broken wayside cross, and near it a horseman mounted on a white horse as big and raking in the build as its rider.
"A Mecca?" asked Blake, with the indifference47 of one traveller who passes the time of day with another.
"Nay48, that will not serve," laughed the other. "Half a sixpence is as good as nothing at all."
"A Mecca for the King, then, and I was bred in Yorkshire, too."
The freemasonry of loyalty49 to one King, to the county that had reared a man, is a power that makes all roads friendly, that kills suspicion and the wary50 reaching down of the right hand toward a pistol-holster.
"How does Yoredale look," went on Blake, with a little, eager catch in his voice, "and the slope of Whernside as you see it riding over the tops from Kettlewell?"
"Bonnie, though I've not seen either since last year's harvest. This King's affair of ride and skirmish is well enough; but there's no time to slip away to Yoredale for a day and smell the wind up yonder. Are Kit51 and Michael safe?"
"They are in Oxford, accepting flattery with astounding52 modesty53."
"They've found Prince Rupert? The Metcalfs—oh, I touch wood!—keep a bee-line when they know where home lies."
"That is no boast, so why go touching54 wood? I tell you the King knows what your folk have done and hope to do. The Prince is raising cavalry55 for the relief of York, and will not rest until you Metcalfs join him. How soon can your company get south?"
The horseman thought the matter over. "It will take five days and a half," he said at last.
"Good for you!" snapped Blake. "Even your brother Christopher, with the starry56 look o' dreams about his face, was sure that it would take seven days. I wager57 a guinea to a pinch o' snuff that you're not in Oxford in five days and a half."
"That is a wager?"
"I said as much, sir."
"Then lend me the pinch of snuff. I emptied my box in waiting for you, and was feeling lonely."
Blake laughed as he passed his box over. There was an arresting humour about the man, a streak58 of the mother-wit that made the Metcalf clan59 at home in camp or city. "I'll see you to the next stage," he said, reining60 his horse about—"that is, if you care for an idle man's company. I've nothing in the world to do just now."
The other only nodded, touched his horse sharply with the spur, and Blake found himself galloping61 with a fury that, even to his experience of night adventures, seemed breakneck and disastrous
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