The White Horses

by Halliwell Sutcliffe

  *CHAPTER XIV.*

  *A STANLEY FOR THE KING.*

  Christopher Metcalf had learned the way of hazard, the need to saylittle and hear all. As he rode from Lathom House through the summer'sdawn, the land was full of blandishment. Last night's heavy rain hadbrought keen scents to birth--of primrose and leafage in the lanes, ofwallflowers in the homestead gardens that he passed. Scents tempt a manto retrospect, and he wondered how it was faring with Joan--rememberedthe nearness of her and the fragrance, as they roamed the Yoredale hillstogether in other springs.

  He put blandishment aside. There was no before or after for him--simplythe plain road ahead. Wherever he found a countryman to greet, he drewrein and passed the time of day, and got into talk with him. Before hehad covered six miles, he learned that Rigby, with the three thousandmen withdrawn from the siege of Lathom, had in fact retreated behind thewalls of Bolton, and that the town was strongly fortified. A milefurther on his horse cast a shoe, and, while he waited at the door of awayside smithy, he joined a company of gossips seated on the benchoutside.

  "Thanks be, the Lady o' Lathom is safe," said a grey old shepherd.

  "A rare game-bird, she," assented the jolly yeoman on his left.

  "Ay. She's plucked a few fine feathers from Rigby. Rigby? I mind thetime when he was skulking in and out--trying to find wastrel men who'dpay him to prove black was white in court. And now he calls himself aCaptain."

  "Well, he's as he was made, and of small account at that," said theyeoman. "The man I blame is Colonel Shuttleworth. One o' the gentry,he, and likeable. There's no good comes, say I, when the gentry forgettheir duty to their King. They go to kirk each Sabbath, and pray forthe King's health--well, they mean it, or they don't mean it, andthere's no middle way."

  Kit felt at home. These men were of the country stock he knew by heart."Friends," he said, "I'm a stranger here in Lancashire. Who is ColonelShuttleworth?"

  "Oh, just a backslider!" The yeoman's face was cheery by long habit,even when he condemned a man. "He's sent fifteen hundred men to helpRigby garrison the town of Bolton. The likes of him to help the likesof Rigby--it makes us fancy the times are upside down."

  Kit Metcalf, when his horse was shod, rode forward swiftly. A leaguethis side of Bolton, where the track climbed steep between banks of lingand bilberry, he saw a man striding a white horse. Man and horse wereso big that they blotted out a good part of the sky-line; so he knewthat there was a kinsman waiting for him.

  "Yoi-hoi!" yelled Kit. "A Mecca for the King."

  The horseman shielded his eyes against the sun as he watched theup-coming rider. Then a laugh that Kit remembered floated down-wind tohim.

  "Why, Michael, what are you doing here?" he asked, as he drew near.

  "To be frank, I was yawning just before you came. I've been waitingsince daybreak for some messenger from Lathom. And at the end of it youcome, white brother of the Metcalf flock--you, who have the luck atevery turn."

  "I had luck this time--fifteen sorties since I saw you last. Michael,you should have been there with us. We brought their mortar in----"

  "Good," drawled Michael. "You had the luck. For my part, I've beensitting on a horse as thirsty as myself for more hours than I remember.Let's get down to camp and a brew of ale there."

  "And afterwards we sortied--sortied till we drove them into hiding, likerabbits. The Lady of Lathom welcomed us home each night, her eyes onfire."

  "No doubt, brother. The tale will warm me by and by. Meanwhile I don'tcare a stiver what fire shone in my lady's eyes--blue, or grey, orblack. Give me honest ale, of the true nut-brown colour."

  "You're a wastrel, Michael," laughed the younger brother, glad to passbadinage again with one of his own folk.

  "I am, my lad, and know it. There's luck in being a wastrel--folkexpect nothing from a man. He goes free, while such as you--babe Kit, ifyou guessed how prisoned up you are! They look for sorties, gallopsagainst odds, moonshine of all sorts every day you live. You've anickname already in Oxford. They name you the White Knight."

  "Oh, be done with banter," snapped Christopher. "There's littleknighthood about me. Let's get down to camp and see the colour of thatale of yours."

  When they came to the heathery, rising land wide of Bolton, and thesentry had passed them forward, Kit found himself face to face withPrince Rupert once again.

  "The White Knight brings news," Michael explained in his off-handed way.

  "Pleasant news?" the Prince asked. "Is Rigby dead, or the siegeraised?"

  "By your leave," said Kit, "the siege is raised. Rigby has gone toBolton-le-Moors, to hide there. He has what are left of his threethousand men, and fifteen hundred others. The town is strong."

  "Good, sir!" Fire--deep, glowing fire--showed in Rupert's eyes. "LadyDerby is a kinswoman of mine; and if Rigby is in Bolton, I know where tofind the fox she loathes."

  A big, tired figure of a man pushed his way through the soldiery. "Iheard someone speak of Lady Derby?" he said.

  Prince Rupert touched him on the shoulder. "_I_ did, friend," he said,with a quiet laugh. "There's none so touchy as a husband who chances tobe his wife's lover, too. My Lord Derby, this is Mr. Metcalf, knownotherwise as the White Knight. He brings news that Rigby the fox hasslunk into Bolton. Best put our hounds in and drive him out of cover."

  "Give me the assault," said Lord Derby drily.

  "I cannot. Your name glamours Lancashire. I will not have you risk allin driving a red fox into the open."

  Derby yielded to the discipline engrained in him, but with a bad grace.The Prince, himself eager for the assault, but ashamed to take aleadership which on grounds of prudence he had refused the other, askedfor volunteers. When these were gathered, the whole force marched onBolton and halted within five hundred yards of the stout walls. Thenthe assaulting party came forward at the double.

  "Not you, Mr. Metcalf," said Rupert, detaining Christopher as he ranforward to join in any lively venture. "We cannot spare you."

  What followed was a nightmare to the lookers-on. They saw the volunteersreach the wall and clamber up--saw a fierce hand-to-hand struggle on thewall-top, and the assault repulsed. And then they saw the victors onthe rampart kill the wounded in cold blood.

  Some pity, bred of bygone Stuart generations, stirred Rupert. Wrath andtears were so mingled that his voice was harsh. "I give you freedom,Derby, to lead the next attack."

  Without pause or word of thanks, Lord Derby got his own companytogether.

  "We fight for my wife, who holds Lathom well," he said to his men.

  Then they ran to the attack. Kit, looking on, was astonished to seethat Prince Rupert, who had talked of prudence where lives of great menwere concerned, was running with the privates of Lord Derby's company.So he, too, ran.

  The fight on the wall was bitter, but the King's men prevailed. Overthe bodies of their friends, massacred against all rules of war, theyleaped into the town. The first man Lord Derby met was a groom, latelyin his service at Lathom, who had gone over to the enemy. The manstruck a blow at him with the clubbed end of a musket, and Derby parriedit, and gave the rogue a better death than he deserved--at the sword'spoint.

  They pressed forward. Once they were hemmed in--six of them--after afierce rally of the garrison had swept the Royalists aside. One of thesix was Prince Rupert; and Kit Metcalf felt the old Yoredale loyaltystir in his veins--a wildness and a strength. He raised a deep-belliedcry of "A Mecca for the King!" cut down the thick-set private who wasaiming a blow sideways at Rupert's head, and then went mad with the lustof slaying. Never afterwards could he recall that wonderful, swiftlunacy. Memory took up the tale again at the moment when their comradesrallied to their help and thrust back the garrison.

  Three of the six were left--the Prince, and Kit, and a debonair,grey-eyed gentleman whose love-locks were ruddied by a scalp-wound. Thethree went forward with the rest; and, after all was done, they
metagain in the market-square.

  "You, my White Knight?" said the Prince, touching Kit on the arm. "Areyou touched? No more than the gash across your cheek? I'm glad of that.Captain Roger Nowell here tells me that I should be lying toes up to thesky if your pike had not been handled nicely. For my part, I sawnothing but Roundhead faces leering at me through a crimson mist."

  The instinctive, boyish romance came back to Christopher. He had alwaysbeen a hero-worshipper, and turned now to the grey-eyed gentleman, whowas bandaging his head with a strip torn from his frilled shirt. "Youare of the Nowells of Reed Hall?" he asked.

  "I am, sir--a queer, hot-headed lot, but I'm one of them."

  "My nurse reared me on tales of what your folk did in days gone by. Andat Lathom they told me of your sorties. Sir, they thought you dead inyour last effort to break through the lines, to bring relief in. Theywill be glad."

  The Prince and Nowell glanced at each other with a quick smile ofsympathy. Here, in the reek and havoc of the street, was asimple-minded gentleman, fresh as dawn on the hills that bred him--a manproved many times by battle, yet with a starry reverence for ancientdeeds and ancient faith.

  "May your nurse rest well where she lies," said Roger Nowell, thelaughter in his grey eyes still. "In spite of a headache that throbslike a blacksmith's anvil, I salute her. She reared a man-child. As forthose at Lathom, I share their gladness, I admit. A bandaged head isbetter than none at all."

  Then all was bustle and uproar once again. Men came bringing capturedcolours to the Prince; and in the middle of it Lord Derby found them.

  "Welcome, Derby," said the Prince, "though, for the first time since Iknew you, you wear the favours of both parties."

  "Be pleased to jest," laughed the other. "For my part, I know my wifewill soon be seeing me at Lathom."

  "But, indeed, you wear both favours--rebel blood on your clothes, and awarmer crimson running from your thigh."

  Derby stooped to readjust the bandage. Sickness of body was nothing.Long battle for the King who did not trust him was forgotten, as aservice rendered freely, not asking for return. "It is permitted, thesebleak days, that a man ask grace to love his wife and hurry to herside?"

  "Get home to Lathom, but not just yet. I have a gift for that bravewife of yours."

  Through the uproar came other zealots, bringing captured colours in,until seven-and-twenty were gathered in the market-square.

  "These speak for the strength of the attack on Lathom," said Rupert, hisvoice lifted for all men to hear. "Take them to Lady Derby as a tokenof my high regard. Tell her that it is easy for men to charge at speedand win their battles, but hard for women to sit behind crumbling wallsand hold the siege. If I were my Lord Derby, I should be proud of sucha wife."

  "Your Highness would," assented Derby with sharp, humorous simplicity."I have husbanded her, and know her mettle."

  Again the ebb and flow of the battle scarcely ended swept across theirtalk. A hot-headed band of Cavaliers was bringing fifteen prisonersthrough at the double.

  The captain of the Royalist band, drunk with the wine of victory,laughed stridently. "To the ramparts with them. Give them short shrifton the walls! Measure for measure, say I, and curse these psalm-singingbutchers."

  Through the laughter of the troop came Rupert's voice, harsh andresonant. "Who are these, Captain Sturgis?"

  Sturgis saluted. He had heard that voice more than once in the thickestof the onset, while Rupert was winning his spurs as a leader of lightcavalry. The wine of victory left him. "A few crop-headed folk, yourHighness," he said lamely. "We proposed to make them a warning to otherbutchers of Cromwell's following."

  "Captain Sturgis, I am sorry. We have shared many fights, and yesterdayyou were a gentleman of the King's."

  There was silence in the market-place; and presently Sturgis salutedRupert with extreme precision. "To-morrow, by your leave, I shallreport myself. I shall spend a sleepless night."

  Rupert laughed pleasantly. "There's no need to waste a night's sleep,Sturgis. It was a madness, and it has left you, that is all."

  Then all again was uproar as men pressed up and down the street, somewith prisoners, others hurrying to slake their thirst at a convenienttavern.

  "Where's Rigby?" asked Lord Derby suddenly "I have a long account tosettle with him."

  A jolly yeoman caught the question as he went by. "Gone away, like thefox on a hunting morn. I had a thrust at him myself just now, butmissed him; and he leaped the ramparts where we broke it at thecoming-in."

  "So!" growled Derby. "The fox will give us sport another day."

  "My lord," said the Prince, his voice grave and full of courtesy, "Igive you twenty-seven standards, captured from Rigby's forces. I giveyou a hundred of my men as a guard of honour. Eat and drink, and thenget forward to Lathom, where your wife awaits you. Let the red foxskulk until a more convenient date."

  "And you?"

  "I stay on here for a while. It seems to be my business these days tobatter walls down, and to stay on afterwards to build them up again.This town is worth defending for the King. Tell Lady Derby that mymarch to the relief of York will go by way of Lathom, if I may claim herhospitality."

  Kit Metcalf found himself among the hundred chosen to accompany LordDerby; and he was glad, for in Oxford--with its deep, unconquerable loveof attaching mystic glamour to a person or a cause--the Lady of Lathomhad grown to be a toast drunk silently, as if she were above and beyondthe noise of praise.

  That evening, as the sundown reddened over Lathom House--the sultry,rain-packed heat aglow on broken battlements--they came through the campdeserted lately by Colonel Rigby. A sentry challenged them; and LordDerby laughed as any boy might do.

  "A Stanley for the King! Have I been away so long, Thornthwaite, thatyou do not know your lord?"

  The master, as usual, had the keener vision. In the clear light he hadrecognised the sentry as one old in service to his household. Theypassed through; and in the courtyard Lady Derby was standing near thecaptured mortar, talking of ways and means with one of her captains.

  To Kit, looking on, it was like fairyland come true. Lady Derby heardher husband's step, glanced up, and ran to meet him.

  "My lord--my dear, dear lord, have you come back?"

  "Ay, like a bridegroom, wife."

  They forgot the onlookers, forgot turmoil and great hardship. Therecomes seldom to any man and wife so fine a forgetting. It was well, Kitthought, to carry three wounds to his knowledge--and some lesser onesthat did not count--to have seen these two with the red halo of thesundown round them.

  "The Prince sends me with the twenty-seven standards, wife, thatbeleaguered you."

  "Oh, my thanks; but, my lord, he sends me you. What care have I forstandards?"