*CHAPTER XVII.*
*PRAYER, AND THE BREWING STORM.*
He knew his men. After a rousing charge, and a red lane mown along thetrack their horses took, he had no control of them; they must pillage asthey listed. Before the combat, he could trust their pledge to take nomore than an hour to dine, to be prompt at the muster afterwards, as hetrusted his own honour.
It was an odd hour of waiting. Messengers galloped constantly from theYork road, saying there was no speck of dust to show that Newcastle wascoming with reinforcements. Rupert's men, with the jollity attending ona feast snatched by unexpected chance, began to reassemble. Two o'clockcame, and the heat increasing. Overhead there was a molten sky, and therye-fields where the enemy were camped showed fiery red under the lashof a wild, pursuing wind.
It was not until another hour had passed that Rupert began to lose hiskeen, high spirits. He was so used to war in the open, to the instantsummons and the quick answer, that he could not gauge the trouble ofYork's garrison, the slowness of men and horses who had gone throughmonths of wearisome inaction. It is not good for horse or man to bestabled overlong out of reach of the free pastures and the gallop.
About half after three o'clock some of his company brought in to Ruperta big, country-looking fellow, and explained that they had captured himspying a little too close to the Royalist lines.
"What mun we do to him?" asked the spokesman of the party, in goodWharfedale speech. "We've hammered his head, and ducked him i' th'horse-pond, and naught seems to serve. He willun't say, _Down wi' allCroppies_."
"Then he's the man I'm seeking--a man who does not blow hot and cold inthe half-hour. Your name, friend?"
"Ezra Wood, and firm for the Parliament."
"We hold your life at our mercy," said Rupert, with a sharp, questioningglance. "Tell us the numbers and disposition of Lord Fairfax's army."
"'We hold your life at our mercy,' said Rupert."]
"As man to stark man, I'll tell ye nowt. My mother sat on one stoolwhile she nursed me, not on two."
Rupert had proved his man. The pleasure of it--though Ezra Woodhappened to be fighting on the other side--brought the true Prince outof hiding. Through fatigue of hurried marches, through anxiety becauseYork's garrison lingered on the way, the old Crusader in him showed.
"Is Cromwell with your folk?" he asked.
"He is--staunch in prayer and staunch indeed."
"Then go free, and tell him that Prince Rupert leads the right wing ofthe attack. I have heard much of his Ironsides, and trust to meet themon the left wing."
Ezra Wood had no subtleties, which are mistaken now and then formanners. He looked Rupert in the face with a hard sort of deference."So thou'rt the man they call Rupert?" he said. "Well, ye look it, Iown, and I'll carry your message for ye gladly."
"And you will return, under safe-conduct, with his answer."
About five of the afternoon--all Marston Moor ablaze with a red,unearthly light--the first of the York men came in. Rupert's impulsivewelcome grew chilly when he saw that Lord Eythin led them; and Boye,whose likes and dislikes were pronounced, ran forward growling.
"Whistle your dog off, sir--whistle him off," said Eythin irritably.
Rupert, with a lazy smile, watched Boye curvet round Eythin in narrowingcircles. "Why should I?" he asked gently. "He never bites a friend."
Eythin reddened. Memory of past years returned on him, though he hadthought the record drowned in wine and forgotten out of sight. He askedfussily what plans Rupert had made for the coming battle.
"Monstrous!" he snapped. "Oh, I grant you've a knowledge of the charge,with ground enough in front to gather speed. But what are your cavalryto make of this? You stand to wait their onset, and their horses areheavy in the build."
Rupert nodded curtly. "Get your men into line, sir. You are here tofight under orders, not to attend a council of war."
As Eythin withdrew sullenly, a sudden uproar came down the wind. Thenthe shouting, scattered and meaningless at first, grew to a rousing cryof "A Mecca for the King!" Michael glanced at Christopher, and pride ofrace showed plainly in their faces.
"Ah," laughed Rupert, "it was so they came when we played pageantrybefore the King at Oxford. Go bring your folk to me, Mr. Metcalf."
They came, drew up with the precision dear to Rupert's heart, salutedbriskly. "Gentlemen," he said, "I am proud to have you of my company.Is my Lord Newcastle near Marston yet?"
The Squire of Nappa explained that those under Newcastle's command hadsuffered during the late siege--men and horses were so weak from illnessthat no zeal in the world could bring them faster than a foot-pace. Heknew this, because he had passed them on the road, had had speech ofthem. Lord Newcastle himself, a man no longer young, had kept a longillness at bay until the siege was raised, and now he was travelling inhis coach, because he had no strength to sit a horse.
"Oh, I had forgotten!" said Rupert. "All's in the losing, if they takeoverlong. I should have remembered, though, that the garrison neededone night's sleep at least."
While they talked, Ezra Wood returned with the trooper sent to give himsafe-conduct through the lines and back again. He did notsalute--simply regarded Rupert with dour self-confidence. "GeneralCromwell sends this word to Prince Rupert--that, if his stomach is forfighting, he shall have it filled."
Rupert was silent. Cromwell, it seemed, had missed all the meaning ofthe challenge sent him; war had not taught him yet the nicer issues thatwait on bloodshed. He stooped to pat Boye's head with the carelessnessthat had angered many a council of war at Oxford. Then he glanced atEzra Wood.
"There is no General Cromwell. The King approves all commissions ofthat kind. Go tell Mr. Cromwell that we are waiting for him here."
Cromwell, when Ezra Wood returned and found him, was standing in theknee-deep rye, apart from his company. His eyes were lifted to the sky,but he saw none of the signs of brewing storm. He was looking into theheaven that he had pictured day by day and year by year when he rode inthe peaceful times about his snug estate in Rutland. Then, as now, hewas cursed by that half glimpse of the mystic gleam which hinders a manat times more than outright savagery. Always he was asking more thanthe bread and meat of life; always he was seeking some antidote to thepoisonous self-love, the ambition to be king himself, which was hishidden sore. And now he was praying, with all the simplicity his trickymind permitted, for guidance in his hour of need.
As one coming out of a trance, he listened to Ezra Wood, repeating hismessage for the fourth time. The light--half false because it was halfmystic only--left his face. Its borrowed comeliness passed by. Heshowed features of surprising plainness--eyes heavy-lidded, thicknostrils, and a jaw broad with misplaced obstinacy.
"So he is waiting?" he said grimly. "Well, princes must wait thesedays. We shall seek him by and by."
In that queer mood of his--half prayer and half keen calculation--whichwent before his battles, Cromwell had found a plan of action. Hecrossed the field with quick, unwieldy steps, found the other leaders,and stated his own view of the attack. As usual, his ruggedness of mindand purpose carried the day; and Rupert, down below, was left to wonderwhy the enemy did not take advantage of his rash challenge and attackbefore the main body of his reinforcements came.
It was an eerie day--clouds that came packing up, livid and swollen withrain that would not fall--a wind that was cold and scorching hot byturns--a frightened rustle of the leafage in Wilstrop Wood--a rustlethat sounded across the flat waste of Marston Moor like the sound ofsurf beating on a distant shore. Boye kept close to Rupert's side, andwhined and growled by turns. He knew his master's restlessness, as fourof the afternoon came and still Lord Newcastle had not reached thefield.
At half-past four the pick of Newcastle's men rode in, and weremarshalled into their appointed place between the left wing and theright. Rupert galloped down to give them the good cheer he lackedhimself.
&nbs
p; "Welcome, Whitecoats. You look tired and maimed; but they tell me youhave sworn to dye those coats of yours a good, deep crimson--your ownblood or the Roundheads'."
The sound of his voice, his strong simplicity of purpose that burnedoutward like a fire, lifted their jaded spirits. York was forgotten,and its hardships.
"For God and the King!" they answered lustily.
"I need you, gentlemen," said Rupert, and passed on to where LordNewcastle's coach was standing at the roadside.
He was shocked to see the change in Newcastle--the weariness of mind andbody palpable, now that an end had come to his guardianship of York.
"My lord, you have served the King too well," he said, putting a hand onthe other's shoulder with instinctive deference to age and greatinfirmity.
"Oh, nothing to boast of--a little here and there, to keep our wallssecure. Tell me, is there to be a battle to-day? I'm good for a gallopyet, if the battle does not last too long."
"There's no chance of it at this late hour. They saw our weakness fromthe hill, and yet would not attack. They're tired out, I think, as weare."
"Good," said Newcastle, with his gentle laugh. "For my part, I shallclaim an old man's privilege--to step into my coach and smoke a pipe ortwo, and then get off to sleep. I shall be ready when you need me."
"Would my hound, Boye, disturb you?" asked Rupert, turning after he hadsaid good-night. "I like to have him out of harm's way at these times."
"Is he a good sleeper?" demanded Newcastle whimsically.
"With a friend, the staunchest sleeper that I know."
Boye demurred when he was bidden to get inside the coach; but, likeRupert's cavalry, he knew the tone of must-be-obeyed, and scrambled inwith no good grace.
Near seven of the evening a strange thing happened on Marston Moor. Onthe hill above there was the spectacle of Parliament men standing withbowed heads as Cromwell sent up fervent prayers. On the moor below, thechaplain of the King's men was reading evensong. Over both armies was asky of sullen wrath.
As the service closed, Lord Eythin protested, with an oath, that nowthis child's play was over, he proposed to go in search of food.
"My lord," said Rupert sharply, "wise men do not mock at prayer, in faceof what is waiting for us all to-morrow."
Eythin, nettled by the hum of approbation, lost his temper. "I wasnever wise, your Highness, as you know, but wise enough to advise youthat this escapade is madness."
"We shared another battle, long ago when you were General King."Rupert's voice was icy. "Do you remember it?"
The Riding Metcalfs, this once again, were dismayed by the privatequarrels, the jealousies, that were threaded through the skein of war.Eythin's insolence of bearing, his subtle incitement to distrust of hiscommander, asked no less from Rupert; but the pity of it, to bluffSquire Metcalf, single of heart, owing none a grudge except the King'senemies, was hard to bear.
From the extreme left of the camp, just as the Royalists were settlingdown for a brief night's slumber, there came a running yelp, a baying,and a splutter of wild feet. Lord Newcastle had left the window of hiscoach open when he had smoked his third pipe and found the sleep heneeded; and Boye, his patience ended, had leaped out into the freedomthat spelt Rupert to him. When he found him, he got to his hind legs,all but knocked down his master in his tender fury, and licked his facewith a red and frothy tongue.
"Boye!" said Rupert. "Oh, down, Boye--you smother me. I was to have alonely supper, I fancied, and you come. There's all in the world I carefor, come to sup with me."
From over the hill, where the Parliament men had scarcely finished theirdevotions, there came a clap of thunder and a light spit of rain.
"We shall be wet to the skin to-night, Boye, you and I," laughed Rupert."We've proved my tent, and it is not weather-sound."
He had scarcely finished some beef collops, ready for him in his tent,and was cajoling Boye to perform a newly-taught trick of begging for amorsel, when the flap was pulled aside. Michael Metcalf, framed by thered light out of doors, showed bigger even than his wont.
"They are coming down from the rye-fields," he said, with a recklesslaugh. "Let it go how it will, sir, so long as we drive Cromwell out ofbounds."
"I have promised him as much," said Rupert gravely.
The White Horses Page 17
