The White Horses, Page 2

  *CHAPTER II.*

  *SKIPTON-IN-CRAVEN.*

  "It's a pity about that corn o' mine, all the same," said the Squire,with a last backward thought. "There never was such a harvest year,since back into the 'twenties."

  "There'll be such a harvest year, I trust," laughed Blake, "as willbring more like you to the King. I would that every dale of the northgave us a company like yours--men and horses riding as if they'd beenreared together from the cradle. I tell you sir, Prince Rupert wouldenrol you all at sight, if there were not more urgent need for you atSkipton."

  "As a plain man to a plain man, what does the King ask of us?" asked theSquire of Nappa. "Mr. Lambert, you say, is laying siege to Skipton. Heshould know better. I knew him as a lad, when he lived out yonder atCalton-in-Craven, and he had naught in common with these thick-headedrogues who are out against the King. He's of the gentry, and alwayswill be."

  "He has lost his way in the dark, then," said the other drily. "He'straining his cannon on Skipton Castle as if he liked the enterprise."

  "So you want us to ride through Lambert's men and into the castle tohelp garrison it?" asked Squire Metcalf, with his big simplicity, hisassurance that the men he led would charge through any weight of odds.

  "Heaven save us, no! The governor has enough men to feed already, menof usual size; your little company would eat up his larder in a week."

  "We _have_ fairish appetites," the Squire admitted. "Big sacks need alot of filling, as the saying goes. Still, you said the King wanted us,and we've left a fine harvest to rot where it stands."

  The messenger captured a happiness he had not known for many days.There were no shams about this Squire. In all sincerity he believedthat King Charles had personal and urgent need of him; he asked simplywhat it was the King commanded. It was so remote, this honesty, from theintrigues of those who fought for places in the Court, and named itloyalty, that the messenger was daunted for a moment.

  "You are a big company, sir," he said, turning briskly round in saddle;"but you seem oddly undivided in loyalty to the King and one another.Strike one Metcalf, or do him a kindness, and six-score men will repayin kind. You have the gipsy creed, my friends."

  "Ay, we're close and trusty. It seems you know the way of us Nappafolk, though I never set eyes on you till yesterday."

  "It is my business to know men. The King's riders must make no mistakesthese days, Squire." He glanced back along the chattering group ofhorse, with quick pride in the recruits he had won from Yoredale."You're all well horsed, well armed."

  "Why, yes. We heard trouble was brewing up 'twixt King and Parliament,and we got our arms in order. What else? Folk sharpen sickles when thecorn is ripening."

  "And you have these lusty rascals at command--sharp to the word?"

  Squire Metcalf smiled, a big, capacious smile. "They've felt the weighto' my hand lang syne, and know it. My father before me trained me thatway--as you train a dog, no more, no less."

  He drew rein and whistled sharply. The horsemen, fifty yards behind,pressed forward, and the heir of Nappa galloped at their head, drewrein, saluted his father with sharp precision, and waited for commands.

  "Oh, naught at all, Christopher," said the Squire. "This guest of oursdoubted whether I could whistle my lads to heel, and now he knows Ican."

  The messenger said nothing. The quiet, hard-bitten humour of thesenortherners appealed to him; and Mallory, the governor of Skipton, hadbeen right when he sent him out to Nappa, sure that the Metcalf clanwould be worth many times their actual number to the Royalists inYorkshire.

  They came to the rise of the road where Bishopdale, with its hedges offast-ripening hazel nuts, strode up into the harsher lands thatoverlooked Wharfedale. They rode down the crumbly steep of road, pastCray hamlet, set high above its racing stream; and at Buckden, half aleague lower down, they encountered a hunting-party come out to slay thedeer. They were too busy to join either party, King's or Parliament's,and offered a cheery bidding to the Metcalf men to join them in thechase.

  "We're after bigger deer," laughed the Squire of Nappa. "Who rides forthe King?"

  Hats were lifted, and a great cheer went up. "All of us," said a grey,weather-beaten horseman.

  "Ay, it seems like it," growled the Squire. "Much good you're doingSkipton-in-Craven by hunting deer instead of Roundheads."

  "Skipton can stand a twelve months' siege. She can whistle when sheneeds us, like any other likely lass. There's no need to lose ahunting-day till Sir John Mallory needs us."

  The Squire found his first disillusionment along this road of glamour.He had thought that a company of picked horsemen, armed for the King andriding with a single purpose, would have swept these huntsmen into line.Some few of them, indeed, had ridden forward a little, as if they likedhis message; but the grey-headed horseman, who distrusted all enthusiasmbecause long since he had lost his faith in life, brought them sharplyback.

  "It will be all over in a week or two, and the crop-heads back in theirkennels. No need to lose a hunting day, my lads."

  The white horses, carrying big men, trotted forward, through Starbotonand Kettlewell, where the Danes had raided, wooed, and settled longbefore a Stuart came to reign over gentler times. It was not till theyreached Linton, quiet and grey about its clear, trout-haunted stream,that the Squire of Nappa broke silence.

  "I told those hunting gentry that the King needed them, and theywouldn't hearken. It seems Royalists are deaf these days to the plainroad of honesty."

  "They are," said the messenger, with the surprising calm that he hadlearned from lonely errands, ridden oftener by night than daytime. "Soare most men and most women. My heart's singing by that token. I'mbringing in six-score Metcalfs to the King, all as honest as God'ssunlight. My luck is in, Squire."

  The Squire would have none of blandishment. He could ride a good horseor a grievance hard. "They doffed their hats when I named the King," hegrowled.

  "They did, but not their heart-coverings. If they'd been keen toride--why, they'd have ridden, and no child's game of deer slaying wouldhave stopped them. Skipton is better off without such laggard arms tohelp her."

  "But the King needs them," said Metcalf stubbornly, "and we showed themthe plain road."

  They rode on through Cracoe, where the trees were red-gold in theirpride of autumn, and again the Squire of Nappa broke the silence. "Whatdoes the King ask of us? If it is not to garrison the town----"

  "It is a pleasanter occupation. The Governor would change places withyou willingly, Squire. He told me so when mapping out the work for youmen of Nappa. You're well horsed and drilled. You are too strong to beattacked except in force, and they can spare few men from the assault.Your business is to patrol the open country, to intercept and harryLambert's reinforcements--to come like the wind out of nowhere, andvanish as suddenly, till the Roundheads learn that Skipton is attackingand besieged, both at the same time."

  "There's one big load off my mind," said Metcalf soberly. "We shallhave the sky over our heads and room for a gallop. I was in mortal fearof being shut up in Skipton Castle, I own, day in, day out, and never awind from the pastures. We were not bred for indoors, we Nappa folk,and I doubt a month of it would have killed us outright."

  The Squire did not understand the fine breadth of strategy that underlaythis plan mapped out for him. But the messenger was well aware of it,for Sir John Mallory had a soldier's instinct for the detail ofcampaign, and he had explained this venture yesterday with what hadseemed a mixture of sagacity and sheer, unpractical romance. Sincespending the night at Nappa, and journeying with the Metcalfs for half aday, Blake realised the Governor's sagacity more fully. As forromance--that, too, was vivid enough, but entirely practical. Six-scoremen on big white horses were enough to feed the most exacting poet'sfancy; they were sufficient, too, to disturb the thick-headed, workadayroutine of Lambert's soldiery.

  They came to Rylstone, fair and mode
st as a maid, who hides from men'sintrusions. Rylstone, the village beyond praise, bordered by greyhouses and the call of ancient peace--Rylstone, that dalesmen dream ofwhen their strength has left them for a while and their hearts aretender.

  "She's bonnie," said the Squire of Nappa, checking his horse from oldinstinct.

  "Yes, she's bonnie," Blake agreed. "Rylstone bred me, and a man shouldknow the debt he owes his mother."

  Then it was forward up the hill again. Blake was thinking of life'ssurprises--was picturing the long impatience of his manhood, because hestood only five-foot-six to his height in a country that reared tallmen. Since then he had learned to pit strength of soul against bodyheight, and now he was bringing in the finest troop of cavalry that everrode the dales. He was content.

  As they drew near to the house known as None-go-by, Blake was full ofthe enterprise planned out for these jolly Metcalf men. He did notpropose to take them into Skipton, but left-handed into the bridle-trackthat led to Embsay. There was news that a company of Fairfax's men wascoming round that way from Otley, to help the Roundhead siege; and hewould have fought a battle worth the while--for a small man, not toostrong of body--if he ambushed the dour rogues with his cavalry broughtout from Nappa.

  Yet his well-laid plan was interrupted. All the quiet ways of thecountryside had been thrown into surprising muddle and disorder by thiscivil war that had come to range friends of yesterday on opposite sidesof the quarrel.

  It should have been market-day, and the road full of sheep and cattle,sleepy drovers, yeomen trotting on sleek horses. Instead, there wassilence, and the Nappa folk had all the highway to themselves until theyneared the rutty track that joined their own from Thorlby and theGargrave country.

  A stream of horsemen was pouring down this track--Parliament men ridingfrom the west to help Lambert with the siege. They rode slowly, and theNappa men, as they drew rein and looked down the hill, counted twohundred of them. Then came three lumbering waggons, each with a cannonlashed to it by hay-ropes plaited fourfold, and each drawn by a team ofplough-horses that roused Squire Metcalf's envy. Behind the waggons,more horsemen rode at a foot-pace, till it seemed the stream would neverend.

  "Mr. Lambert is needing more artillery, it seems," said Blake drily."His anxiety must be great, if three cannon need such a heavy escort."

  The Squire of Nappa did not hear him. For a moment he sat quietly insaddle, his face the mirror of many crowded thoughts. Then suddenly heraised a shout--one that was to sound often through the Yorkshireuplands, like the cock grouse's note.

  "A Mecca for the King!" he roared, lifting the pike that was as light asa hazel wand to his great strength of arm.

  Blake was at his right hand as they charged. He had only his sword, butthe speed and fury of the battle made him forget that not long since hehad longed for the strength to wield a pike instead, as all the men ofNappa did.

  It was all confusion, speed of white horses galloping down-hill to theshock, thud of the onset. The Roundhead guard had faced about to meetthis swirling, quick assault. They saw a company of giants, carryingpikes as long as their own bodies, and they met them with the stolidRoundhead obstinacy. It was a grim fight, and ever across it rang theSquire of Nappa's lusty voice.

  Between the two companies of Roundhead horsemen were the threefarm-waggons carrying the guns. Those on the Skipton side were trying toride uphill to help their comrades; but the din of combat had sent theplough-horses wild. They were big and wilful brutes, and their screamsrose high above the babel of men fighting for their lives. Then theybolted, swerved across the road, and brought themselves and all theycarried into the ditches on either side. The cannon, as they fell,ripped the waggons into splintered wreckage.

  Between the fallen horses, through the litter of broken waggons, the menof Nappa drove what had been the rearguard of the convoy. They pickedtheir way through the fifty yards of broken ground, lifted their whitehorses to the next attack, and charged the second company of Roundheads.Those of the shattered rearguard who could not draw aside were drivendown pell-mell into their upcoming friends, bringing confusion withthem. And through it all there rang the Squire's voice, with its keen,insistent cry of "A Mecca for the King!" In that hour the Parliamentmen learned that the Stuart, too, had downright servants at command, whowere not made up of dalliance and lovelocks.

  The men of Nappa would not be denied. They asked no quarter and gavenone; and they drove the Roundheads--who contested every step withstubborn pluck--down the hill and up the gentle rise past SkiptonChurch, and into the broad High Street that was the comeliest inYorkshire. The Castle, with its motto of "Desormais" carved in stoneagainst the blue autumn sky, looked down on this sudden uproar in thestreet; men's faces showed above the battlements, eager with questionand surprise.

  The tumult reached Lambert's ears, too, as he stood beside the cannon onCock Hill. Knowing that reinforcements were coming over the Lancashireborder, he thought the garrison had made a sortie; and he gave a sharpcommand to fire on the Castle as fast as they could load their clumsycannon, to bring the sortie party back to the defence. The Roundheadluck was out altogether, for the first cannon-ball flew high above thecarved motto of "Desormais," and the second, falling short, killed threeof the horsemen who were retreating, step by step, before the Nappa men.

  Sir John Mallory, the governor, was one of the men who looked down fromthe battlements. He had a zealous heart, and his thirty years of lifehad taught him that it was good to live or die for the King. Below hesaw a swarm of giants striding white horses; saw the little messenger hehad sent to Nappa fighting as merrily as any Metcalf of them all; sawthe Roundheads retreating stubbornly. As he watched, a cannon-ballwhistled by, a foot or two above his head, and ruffled his hair inpassing as a sharp wind might do.

  "My thanks, Lambert," he said impassively. "One needs a breeze afterlong confinement."

  Then he went down the slippery stair; and a little later the drawbridgerattled down, and he rode out with twenty others who were sick from lackof exercise.

  It was a stubborn business. The Roundheads left behind with theoverturned guns, up the Rylstone road, recaptured the courage that noman doubted, and came driving in at the rear of this pitched battle.Lambert himself, the increasing tumult coming up to him through thestill, autumn air, got thirty of the besiegers together. They hadridden in at dawn, and their horses were picketed close at hand. Asthey galloped up the High Street, they were met by the weight of theirown retreating friends from Lancashire; and it was now that Lambertshowed the leadership, the power of glamouring his men, which none amongthe Roundheads had since Hampden died.

  "Friends," he said,--the Quaker instinct in him suggesting that odd formof address when battle was in progress--"friends, I trust you."

  Just that. He had found the one word that is magical to strong men.They answered him with a rousing shout, and drove up against the King'smen. For a moment even the Nappa riders gave back; but the recoil seemedonly to help them to a fiercer onset. They had both Cavalier speed andRoundhead weight, these Metcalf men and horses; and Sir John Mallory,fighting beside them for mastery of the High Street, was aware thatYoredale had given the King a finer troop of horse than even Rupertcould command.

  Across the thick of it Mallory caught Lambert's glance, and an odd smileplayed about their lips. The same thought came to both between the hurryof the fight. Not long ago they had dined together, had talked of thewinter's hunting soon to come, had smoked their pipes in amity. Noweach was thanking God that the shifting issues of the battle did notbring them sword to sword; for civil war is always a disastrous and amuddling enterprise.

  The glance, and the memories that went to its making, were over in asecond. It was a forward plunge again of King's men meeting Roundheads,hard to drive. And suddenly there rose a cry keen as winter in theuplands and strong as sun at midsummer.

  "Now, Metcalfs," roared the Squire of Nappa, "into the standingcorn--and God for the King, say I!"

 
; Into the standing corn they went, and it was open flight now down thelength of Skipton Street. Time after time Lambert strove to rally hismen, using oaths that had not been taught him by the Quakers, but theretreat swept him down, carrying him with it. A great gentleman,whichever side he took in this fierce quarrel, was learning for thefirst time the sickness of defeat.

  The Nappa men were only turned from pursuing the enemy into the teeth ofthe guns on Cock Hill by Mallory, who rode forward sharply, reined aboutand fronted them.

  "Gentlemen of Yoredale," he said, quiet and persuasive, "the King doesnot command you to be blown to bits up yonder. He has other need ofyou."

  "I like to sickle the whole field once I make a start," said SquireMetcalf.

  "Ay, but there's a biggish field in front of you. You'll need to sleepbetween-whiles, Squire."

  When they turned to ride up the High Street again, the Squire, among allthis muddle of wounded Metcalfs, and horses that were white and crimsonnow, saw only a little man slipping from the saddle of a little mare.He rode up in time to ease his fall, and afterwards felt the man'swounds gently, as a woman might. And the tears were in his eyes.

  "It's Blake, the messenger, and God knows I'm sorry. He fought like thebiggest rogue that ever was breeked at Nappa."

  "His soul's too big for his strength," said Mallory, with hisunalterable common sense. "He'll just have to lie by for a while."

  "There's naught much amiss, save loss o' blood, may be. We'll get himto the Castle gate, and then--why we'll just ride up the Raikes andspike those cannon lying in the ditch."

  "You're thorough, you men of Nappa," said Mallory, with a sudden laugh.

  "Men have to be, these days," the Squire answered soberly. "If a bodyrides for the King--well, he rides for the King, and no two ways aboutit."

  Kit drew apart from the turmoil, and searched for the kerchief JoanGrant had dropped in front of his horse, away in Yoredale yonder. Itwas white no longer, but reddened by a wound that he had taken. Andquietly, in the stillness that comes after battle, he knew that he wasto follow a long road and a hard road till he was home again. It wasbetter--in his heart he knew it--than dallying at country stiles, sickwith calf-love for a maid too high above him.

  "You look happy, lad," said the Squire, as he drew rein beside him.

  "I'm climbing a tree, sir, a big tree. There's somebody's heart at thetop of it."

  "Ay, Miss Joan's," growled Squire Metcalf. "Well, go on climbing, lad.You might have chosen worse."