*CHAPTER IX.*
*THE LOYAL CITY.*
They jogged forward on the road, and the day grew hot with thunder. Theslowness of a walking pace, after months in the saddle, the heat towhich they were unused as yet, after the more chilly north, seemed tomake a league of every mile. Then the storm burst, and out of nowhere afierce wind leaped at them, driving the rain in sheets before it. Thelightning played so near at times that they seemed to be walking througharrows of barbed fire.
"A pleasant way of reaching Oxford, after all one's dreams!" grumbledKit.
"Oh, it will lift. I'm always gayest in a storm, my lad. The end on'tis so near."
The din and rain passed overhead. A league further on they stepped intoclear sunlight and the song of soaring larks. Here, too, their walkingended, for a carrier overtook them. He had a light load and a strong,fast horse in the shafts; and, if their way of entry into the city ofhis dreams jarred on Kit's sense of fitness, he was glad to have thejourney shortened.
The carrier pulled up at the gateway of St. John's, and the wonder oftheir day began. Oxford, to men acquainted with her charm by dailyintercourse, 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. Asthey passed along the street, the confusion of so many streams of life,meeting and eddying back and mixing in one great swirling river, dizziedthem for a while. Then their eyes grew clearer, and they saw it allwith the freshness of a child's vision. There were students, absurdlyyouthful and ridiculously light-hearted, so Kit thought in his mood ofhigh seriousness. There were clergy, and market-women with theirvegetables, hawkers, quack doctors, fortune-tellers, gentry and theirladies, prosperous, well-fed, and nicely clothed. A bishop and a deanrubbed shoulders with them as they passed. And, above the seemly hubbubof it all, the mellow sun shone high in an over-world of blue skystreaked with amethyst and pearl.
"Was the dream worth while?" asked Michael, with his easy laugh.
"A hundred times worth while. 'Twould have been no penance to walkevery 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 metthem face to face. Oxford, from of old, had been the cathedral city,the University, the pleasant harbourage of well-found gentry, who madetheir homes within sound of its many bells. Now it was harbouring theCourt as well.
Along the street--so long as they lived, Christopher and Michael wouldremember the vision, as of knighthood palpable and in full flower--astream of Cavaliers came riding. At their head, guarded jealously oneither side, was a horseman so sad and resolute of face, so marked by agrace and dignity that seemed to halo him, that Kit turned to a butcherwho 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 tumult came to Christopher. When he was a baby in theold homestead, the Squire had woven loyalty into the bones and tissuesof him. Through the years it had grown with him, this honouring of theKing as a man who took his sceptre direct from the hands of the goodGod. Let none pry into the soul of any man so reared who sees his Kingfor the first time in the flesh.
With Michael it was the same. He did not cheer as the crowd did; hisheart was too deeply touched for that. And by and by, when thetownsfolk had followed the cavalcade toward Christ Church, the brothersfound themselves alone.
"It was worth while," said Kit, seeking yet half evading Michael'sglance.
They shook themselves out of their dreams by and by, and, for lack ofother guidance, followed the route taken by the King. The Cavaliers haddispersed. The King had already gone into the Deanery. So they left thefront of Christ Church and wandered aimlessly into the lane thatbordered Merton, and so through the grove where the late rains and theglowing sun had made the lilacs and the sweet-briars a sanctuary ofbeaded, fragrant incense.
From Merton, as they dallied in the grove--not knowing where to seekRupert, and not caring much, until the wine of Oxford grew less heady--awoman came between the lilacs. Her walk, her vivacious body, her air ofloving laughter wherever she could find it, were at variance with thetiredness of her face. She seemed like sunlight prisoned in a vase ofclouded porcelain.
Perhaps something of their inborn, romantic sense of womanhood showed inthe 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 shewill follow it.
However that might be, the little lady halted; a quick smile brokethrough her weariness. "Gentlemen," she said, with a pretty foreign liltof speech, "you are very--what you call it?--so very high. There arefew men with the King in Oxford who are so broad and high. I love bigmen, if they are broad of shoulder. Are you for the King?"
"We are Metcalfs of Nappa," said Kit. "Our loyalty is current coin inthe north."
The little lady glanced shrewdly at them both, her head a little on oneside like a bird's. "Are you of the company they call the RidingMetcalfs? Then the south knows you, too, and the west country, wherevermen are fighting for the King. Gentlemen, you have a battle-cry beforeyou charge--what is it?"
"A Mecca for the King!"
She laughed infectiously. "It is not like me to ask for passwords. Iwas so gay and full of trust in all men until the war came. The timesare _difficile, n'est pas_, and you were unknown to me. What is yourerrand here?"
"We came to find Prince Rupert," said Kit, blurting his whole tale outbecause a woman happened to be pretty and be kind. "The north isneeding him. That is our sole business here."
"Ah, then, I can help you. There's a little gate here--one goes throughthe gardens, and so into the Deanery. My husband lodges there. He willtell you where Rupert finds himself."
Michael, because he knew himself to be a devil-may-care, had a hankeringafter prudence 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 chargejust now of this impulsive younger brother.
"Madam," he answered, his smile returning, "our errand carries with itthe whole safety of the north. In all courtesy, we cannot let ourselvesbe trapped within the four walls of a house. Your husband's name?"
"In all courtesy," she broke in, "it is permitted that I laugh! Thedays have been so _triste_--so _triste_. It is like Picardy and appleorchards 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 crossan unknown threshold?"
Michael thrust prudence aside, glad to be rid of the jade. "I've seldomencountered 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 passedthrough. They followed her into gardens lush, sweet-smelling, full ofthe pomp and eager riot of the spring. Then they passed into theDeanery, and the manservant who opened to them bowed with some addedhint 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 thatwas like a child's, yet with a spice of woman's malice in it.
The sun was playing up and down the gloomy panels of the chamber, makinga morris dance of light and shade. At the far end a man was seated at atable. He looked up from finishing a letter, and Christopher felt againthat rush of blood to the heart, that deep, impulsive stirring of thesoul, 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 Squirehad taught them how to meet sharp emergencies, and especially this ofstanding in the Presence. Their obeisance was faultless in outwardceremony,
and the King, who had learned from suffering the way to readmen's hearts, was aware that the loyalty of these two--the innerloyalty--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 fromYork?" said the King.
He had the gift--one not altogether free from peril--that he accepted ordisdained men by instinct; there were no half measures in his greetings.Little by little Christopher and Michael found themselves at ease. TheKing asked greedily for news of York. They had news to give. Every wordthey spoke rang true to the shifting issues of the warfare in thenorthern county. It was plain, moreover, that they had a singlepurpose--to find Rupert and to bring him into the thick of tumult wheremen were crying for this happy firebrand.
The King glanced across at Henrietta Maria. They did not know, theseMetcalfs, what jealousies and slanders and pin-pricks of women's tongueswere keeping Rupert here in Oxford. They did not know that Charleshimself, wearied by long iteration of gossip dinned into his ears, wasdoubting the good faith of his nephew, that he would give him nocommission to raise forces and ride out. The King and Queen got littlesolace from their glance of Question; both were so overstrained with thetrouble of the times, so set about by wagging tongues that ought to havebeen cut out by the common hangman, that they could not rid themselvesat once of doubt. And the pity of it was that both loved Rupert, warmedto the pluck of his exploits in the field, and knew him for a gentlemanproved through and through.
"Speak of York again," said the King. "London is nothing to me, save anovergrown, dull town whose people do not know their minds. Next toOxford, in my heart, lies York. If that goes, gentlemen, I'm widowed ofa bride." He was tired, and the stimulus of this hale, red-bloodedloyalty from Yoredale moved him from the grave reticence that was eatinghis strength away. "It is music to me to hear of York. From of old itwas turbulent and chivalrous. It rears strong men, and ladies with thesmell of lavender about them. Talk to me of the good city."
So then Michael, forgetting where he stood, told the full tale of hisjourneying to York. And the Queen laughed--the pleasant, easy laughterof the French--when he explained the share a camp-follower's donkey hadhad 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 forthe King, you will present that donkey to me."
And then the King laughed, suddenly, infectiously; and his Queen wasglad, for she knew that he, too, had had too little recreation of thissort. They went apart, these two, like any usual couple who were matedhappily 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 ofhim."
"It was I who made you credit rumours," she broke in, pretty anddesolate in the midst of her French contrition. "I was so weary, andgossip laid siege to me hour by hour, and I yielded. And all the whileI knew it false. I tell you, I love the sound of Rupert's step. Hetreads so firmly, and holds his head so high."
The King touched her on the arm with a deference and a friendship thatin themselves were praise of this good wife of his. Then he went to thewriting-table, wrote and sealed a letter, and put it into Michael'shands.
"Go, find the Prince," he said, "and give him this. He is to be foundat this hour, I believe, in the tennis-court. And when you next see theSquire of Nappa tell him the King knows what the Riding Metcalfs venturefor the cause."
Seeing Kit hesitate and glance at him with boyish candour, the Kingasked if he had some favour to request. And the lad explained that hewished only to understand how it came that the Riding Metcalfs were sowell known to His Majesty.
"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 hadbrought into the confinement of his days at Oxford seemed again to putrestlessness, the need of hard gallops, into his soul.
"No land lies far away," he said sharply, "that breeds honest men, witharms to strike shrewd blows. Did you fancy that a company of horsemencould light the north with battle, could put superstitious terror intothe hearts of malcontents, and not be known? Gentlemen, are you sosimple that you think we do not know what you did at Otley Bridge--atRipley, when the moon shone on the greening corn--at Bingley, where youslew them in the moorland wood? It is not only ill news that travelsfast, and the Prince, my nephew, never lets me rest for talk of you."
To their credit, the Metcalfs bore it well. Bewildered by this royalknowledge of their deeds, ashamed and diffident because they had done solittle in the north, save ride at constant hazard, they let no signescape them that their hearts were beating fast.
The King asked too much of himself and others, maybe, stood head andshoulders above the barter and cold common sense of everyday. TheMetcalf spirit was his own, and through the dust and strife he talkedwith them, as if he met friends in a garden where no eavesdroppers werebusy.
They went out by and by, the Queen insisting, with her gay, Frenchlaugh, that the donkey should be presented to her later on. They foundthemselves in the street, with its pageantry of busy folk.
"Well, Kit," asked Michael. "We've fought for the King, and taken awound or so. Now we've seen him in the flesh. How big is he, whendreams end?"
"As big as dawn over Yoredale pastures. I never thought to meet hislike."
"So! You're impulsive, lad, and always were, but I half believe you."
They came again into the High Street. It was not long, so far as timewent, since these Nappa men had fancied, in their innocence, thatbecause a messenger rode out to summon them to Skipton, the King and allEngland must also know of them. Now the King did know of them, itseemed. Six months of skirmish, ambush, headlong gallops against odds,had put their names in all men's mouths. Quietly, with a sense ofwonder, they tested the wine known as fame, and the flavour of it had asweetness as of spring before the languor of full summer comes.
"We were strangers here an hour since," said Kit, watching the folkpass, "and now we come from Court."
"What did I tell you, babe Christopher, when I tried in Yoredale to lickyour dreaming into shape? Life's the most diverting muddle. One hourgoing on foot, the next riding a high horse. We'd best find thetennis-court before the King's message cools."
A passer-by told them where to find the place. The door was open to theMay sunlight, and, without ceremony or thought of it, they passedinside. Prince Rupert was playing a hard game with his brother Maurice.Neither heard the Metcalfs enter; in the blood of each was the cryingneed for day-long activity--in the open, if possible, and, failing that,within the closed walls of the tennis-court. The sweat dripped from theplayers as they fought a well-matched game; then Rupert tossed hisracquet up.
"I win, Maurice," he said, as if he had conquered a whole Roundheadarmy.
"It is all we do in these dull times, Rupert--to win aces from eachother. We're tied here by the heels. There's the width of England togo fighting in, and they will not let us."
Rupert, turning to find the big surcoat that should hide his frivolousattire between the street and his lodging, saw the two Metcalfs standingthere. He liked their bigness, liked the tan of weather and greathardship that had dyed their faces to the likeness of a mellowed wall ofbrick. Yet suspicion came easily to him, after long association with theintrigues of the Court at Oxford, and instinctively he reached down forthe sword that was not there, just as Michael had done when he camedripping from Ouse river into York.
"You are Prince Rupert?" said Michael. "The King sends this letter toyou."
Rupert broke the seal. When he had read the few lines writtencarelessly and at speed, his face cleared. "Maurice," he said, "we needplay no more tennis. Here's our commission to raise forces for therelief of York."
He was a changed man. Since boyhood, war had been work and recreationboth to him. In his youth there had been the Winter Queen, his widowedmother, beset by intrigue and disaster, with only one knightly man abouther, the grave Earl of Craven, who was watch-dog and worshipper.Craven, hard-bitten, knowledgeable, with the strength of the greyBurnsall fells in the bone and muscle of him, had taught Rupert thebeginnings of the need for warfare, had sown the first seeds of thatinstinct for cavalry attack which had made Rupert's horsemanship aliving fear wherever the Roundheads met them. First, he had had thedream of fighting for his mother's honour; when that was denied him hehad come into the thick of trouble here in England, to fight for KingCharles and the Faith. And then had come the cold suspicion of thesedays at Oxford, the eating inward of a consuming fire, the playing attennis because life offered no diversion otherwise. It is not easy tobe denied full service to one's king because the tongues of interlopersare barbed with venom, and these weeks of inaction here had been eatinginto his soul like rust.
The first glow of surprise over, Rupert's face showed the underlyinggravity that was seldom far from it. The grace of the man was rooted ina rugged strength, and even the charm of person which none denied wasthe charm of a hillside pasture field, flowers and green grass above,but underneath the unyielding rock.
"Maurice, these gentlemen are two of Squire Metcalf's lambs," he said,"so the King's letter says. For that matter, they carry theircredentials in their faces."
"Tell us just how the fight went at Otley Bridge," said Maurice, withyoung enthusiasm. "We have heard so many versions of the tale."
"It was nothing," asserted Kit, still astonished to find their exploitsknown wherever they met Cavaliers. "Sir Thomas Fairfax came back oneevening from a skirmish to find we held the bridge. He had five-scoremen, and we had fifty. It was a good fight while it lasted. Forty ofour men brought back wounds to Ripley; but we come of a healthy stock,and not a limb was lost."
Rupert had no easy-going outlook on his fellows; his way of life did notpermit such luxury. He was aware that rumour had not lied foronce--that the magic of the Metcalf name, filtering down from Yorkshirethrough many runnels and side-channels, was no will-o'-wisp. Two of theclan were here, and one of them had told a soldier's tale in a soldier'sway, not boasting of the thirty men of Fairfax's they had left for deadat Otley Bridge.
"I shall be for ever in your debt," he said impassively, "if you willanswer me a riddle that has long been troubling me. Who taught youMetcalfs the strength of cavalry, lightly horsed and attacking at thegallop?"
"Faith, we were never taught it," laughed Michael. "It just came to usas the corn sprouts or the lark sings. The old grey kirk had somethingto do with it, maybe, though I yawned through many a sermon aboutserving God and honouring the King. One remembers these little mattersafterwards."
"One does, undoubtedly," said Rupert. "Now, sir," he went on, after agrave silence, "I have a great desire. I'm commissioned to raise forcesfor the relief of York, and I want you men of Yoredale for my firstrecruits. They are already busy in the north, you'll say. Yes, but Ineed them here. Six-score of your breed here among us, or as many astheir wounds permit to ride, would bring the laggards in."
"With you here?" said Kit impulsively. "The laggards should be stirredwithout our help."
"By your leave, they are tiring of me here in Oxford. The tales of yourdoings in the north are whetting jaded appetites. Bring your big mensouth on their white horses, and show the city what it covets. I'llsend a horseman to York within the hour."
"That need not be," said Michael. "We wasted a whole night in Banbury,and your messenger need ride no further than that town, I fancy. Thefirst of our outposts should be there by now."
"You will explain, sir," put in Rupert, with grave question.
"It is simple enough. Six-score men--and I think all of them will ride,wounded or no--cover a good deal of country, set two miles apart. Thatwas my father's planning of our journey south--a horseman playingsentry, on a fresh horse, at every stage, until we sent news that youwere coming to the relief of York."
"Thorough!" said Rupert. "Strafford should be here, and ArchbishopLaud--they understand that watchword."
The Prince was housed at St. John's, where Rupert had knownlight-heartedness in his student days. That evening the Metcalfs suppedthere--just the four of them, with little ceremony about the crudeaffair of eating--and afterwards they talked, soldiers proven in manyfights, and men who, by instinctive knowledge of each other, had theself-same outlook on this dizzy world of battle, intrigue, andsmall-minded folk that hemmed them in. To them the King was England,Faith, and constancy. No effort was too hard on his behalf; no eastwind of disaster, such as Rupert had suffered lately, could chill theirsteady hope.
"There's one perplexity I have," said Rupert, passing the wine across."Why are your men so sure that they can find fresh horses for the askingat each two-mile stage? Horses are rare to come by since the war brokeout."
So Michael explained, with his daft laugh, that a Yorkshireman had someoccult gift of scenting a horse leagues away, and a stubborn purpose toacquire him--by purchase if he had the money, but otherwise ifProvidence ordained it so.
"Has the rider gone to Banbury?" he asked.
"Yes, two hours since, by a messenger I trust, He is from Yorkshire,too--one Nicholas Blake, who never seems to tire."
Kit's eagerness, blunted a little by good fare and ease after months ofhardship, was awake again. "Blake?" he asked. "Is he a little man, madeup of nerves and whipcord?"
"That, and a pluck that would serve three usual men."
"I'm glad he has the ride to Banbury. It was he who first brought usout of Yoredale into this big fight for the King. When last I saw him,he was limping in the middle of Skipton High Street, with blood runningdown his coat--I thought he had done his last errand."
"Blake does not die, somehow. Sometimes, looking at him, I think helongs to die and cannot. At any rate, he rode south last autumn with aletter for me, and I kept him for my own private errands. One does notlet rare birds escape."
The next moment Rupert, the gay, impulsive Cavalier, as his enemiesaccounted him, the man with grace and foolhardiness, they said, butlittle wit, thrust the _debris_ of their supper aside and spread out amap upon the table. It was a good map, drawn in detail by himself, andit covered the whole country from London to the Scottish border.
"I am impatient for the coming of your clan, gentlemen," he said. "Letus get to figures. Mr. Blake is at Banbury already, we'll say, and hasfound your first outpost. _He_ covers two miles at the gallop, and thenext man covers two, and so to Knaresborough. How soon can they win intoOxford?"
"In five days," said Michael, with his rose-coloured view of detail.
Prince Rupert challenged his reckoning, and the puzzle of thecalculation grew more bewildering as the four men argued about it. Theyhad another bottle to help them, but the only result was that each clungmore tenaciously to his opinion. Maurice said the journey, allowing formischances and the scarcity of horses, would take eight days at least;Kit Metcalf hazarded a guess that seven was nearer the mark; and at lastthey agreed to wager each a guinea on the matter, and parted with apleasant sense of expectation, as if a horse race were in the running.Soldiers must take their recreations this way; for they travel on a roadthat is set thick with hazard, and a gamble round about the winningchance is part of the day's work.
"I give you welcome here to Oxford," said Rupert, as he bade themgood-night. "Since the tale of your exploits blew about our sleepyclimate, I knew that in the north I had a company of friends. When theSquire of Nappa rides in, I shall tell him that he and I, alone inEngland, know what light cavalry can do against these men ofCromwell's."
The Metcalfs, when they said farewell, and he asked where they werelodging for the night, did not explain that they had come in a carrier'scart to Oxford, without ceremony and entirely without change of gear.They just went out into the street,
wandered for an hour among the scentof lilacs, then found a little tavern that seemed in keeping with theirown simplicity. The host asked proof of their respectability, and theyshowed him many guineas, convincing him that they were righteous folk.Thereafter they slept as tired men do, without back reckonings or fearof the insistent morrow. Once only Kit awoke and tapped his brother onthe shoulder.
"They'll be here in seven days, Michael," he said, and immediately beganto snore.