The White Horses

by Halliwell Sutcliffe

  *CHAPTER XXIII.*

  *YOREDALE.*

  From that day forward, the first strangeness of their gipsy life grew tobe familiar, usual. Little by little the Parliament soldiery went southor westward, to share in the attack on Royalist garrisons stillunaffected by the disastrous news from Yorkshire; but the country wasinfested by roving bands of cut-purses and murderers--men who had hungon the skirts of civil war, ready to be King's men or Levellers, whenthey knew which side claimed the victory.

  It was the exploits of these prowling rascals that set many a storygoing of the outrages committed by true Roundheads, who had no share inthem; but the Squire of Nappa was not concerned with public rumour orthe judgment of generations to come after. His whole heart--all theuntiring watchfulness that had made him a leader of picked cavalry--werecentred in this new, appalling peril. Day by day the raff and jetsom ofthe country moved abroad in numbers that steadily increased. They werenot dangerous in the open against the disciplined men of Knaresboroughand Nappa; but they asked for constant vigilance, as if the wolf-packsof old days had returned to haunt these moorland solitudes.

  They were heading by short stages to Nappa; for, as the Squireexplained, there was room enough in house and outbuildings to house themall, and they might well hold it for the King, if the chance of warbrought the tumult North again.

  "A hard-bitten bull-dog, you," said the Governor of Knaresborough.

  "Ay, maybe. I guard my own, and there's a sort of bite about a Meccawhen he's roused."

  "There is, sir--a Yorkshire bite, they say."

  Their route was hindered, not only by prowling vagabonds, but by the menwho fell sick by the wayside, now that the stress of the big fight wasended, and they had leisure to take count of wounds. Miss Bingham wentamong the fallen, bandaging a wound here, giving a cup of water there,bringing constantly the gift she had of soothing sick men's fancies.

  Once--it was when they camped on Outlaw Moss, and the gloaming found hernursing little Blake--the Governor and Squire Metcalf halted as theymade their round of the camp.

  "So Blake has given in at last," said the Squire. "Pity he didn't learnthat lesson years ago."

  "That is true, sir," said Miss Bingham gravely. "With a broken heart,there's no shame in lying down by the wayside. He should have done itlong since."

  The Governor laughed, as if a child's fancy had intruded into theworkaday routine. "The jest will serve, Miss Bingham. We know Blake,and, believe me, he never had a heart to be broken. Whipcord andsinew--he rides till he drops, with no woman's mawkishness to hinderhim."

  "No mawkishness," she agreed. "I give you good-night, gentlemen. Heneeds me, if he is not to die before the dawn."

  "Oh, again your pardon," said the Governor roughly. "You played inKnaresborough--you were always playing--and we thought you light."

  "So I am, believe me, when men are able to take care of themselves. Itis when they're weak that I grow foolish and a nurse."

  Metcalf and the Governor were silent as they went their round, until theSquire turned abruptly.

  "My wife is like that," he said, as if he had captured some new truth,unguessed by the rest of a dull world. "Ay, and my mother, God resther. Memories of cradle-days return, when we are weak; they show theirangel side."

  "There's only one thing ails Miss Bingham--she's a woman to the core ofher. Eh, Metcalf, it must be troublesome to be a woman. I'd liefertake all my sins pick-a-back, and grumble forward under the weight, andbe free of whimsies."

  Through the short summer's night, Miss Bingham tended Blake. She heardhim talk of Knaresborough and the ferry-steps--always the ferry-steps.She learned all that she had seemed to him, and wondered how any mancould view any woman through such a pleasant mist of worship. Then shelistened to the tale of his rude awakening, and winced as he spoke indelirium words that could never be forgotten. And then again they werewatching Nidd River swirl beneath them, and he was busy with a lover'spromises. When he slept at last, wearied by the speed of his ownfancies, she sat watching him. A round, white moon had climbed over theedge of Outlaw Moss. She saw the lines of hardship in his face--linesbitten in by harsh weather of the world and of the soul.

  "Poor Blake," she thought, "ah, poor li'le Blake!"

  From the foolery that had been her life till now there came a gust ofsickliness. Blake could not live till dawn. She would go afield whilethey were hiding him under the earth, would bring wild flowers and strewthem broadcast over his resting-place. She would pray tenderly at hisgraveside.

  Already she half believed these pious exercises would recompense Blakefor the loss of all he had cared for in this life. He would know thatshe was there, and look down on the fret and burden of his heartbreak asa thing well worth the while. She would smother his dead grief withflowers and penitence.

  It was Blake himself who disordered the well-planned poetry. He did notdie at dawn. They waited three days on Outlaw Moss till they knew thathe would live, and four days afterwards until his old laugh returned,and he could get his knees about a saddle. Then they went forwardanother stage on the slow journey out to Nappa.

  Miss Bingham stood between the old world and the new; and thatexperience, for any man or woman's soul, is hazardous. She saw herselfin true outline. As others gambled with gold and silver pieces, she hadplayed with hearts. She had not known the value of the stakes; but nowshe understood. One by one, in memory's cold procession, she saw thempass--Blake, his young soul on fire with worship; Anstruther, who hadpersisted in throning her among the stars, and who was now, they said,no company for any gentry save those of wayside taverns. She hid hereyes. Spoiled, wayward, she resented the discipline of penance. Day byday she thought more of Christopher, and welcomed his sturdyself-reliance as a shield against her past.

  Day by day, too, Joan Grant grew more silent, more aloof from thehaphazard routine of their life among the hills. And the whole camplooked on, afraid for their idol, Christopher, afraid for Joan, greatloathing for Miss Bingham growing in their midst.

  Miss Bingham, well aware of the hostility, did not know whether herheart were hardened or softened by it. It was as if she stood in thethick of a northern March--sunshine on one side of the hedge, sleet anda bitter wind on the other. But there came a day when she carried hertroubles to a little, ferny glen hidden deep among the pastures and theheather. Their morning's route had brought them near to Hawes, the greyvillage that gathers the spreading Yorkshire dales into its hand as alady holds an open fan. The camp was busy, dining on odds andends--mutton, cabbage, herbs, all stewing fragrantly in a pot rearedgipsy-wise over a fire of wood--and Miss Bingham heard their laughtercome up the breeze.

  They had purchased a barrel of home-brewed ale from a neighbouringtavern, and were toasting Blake at the moment.

  "Here's to li'le Blake, who never tires," said the Squire.

  "Why should he?" put in Michael. "Women have never troubled him, Iwager."

  "At your age, youngster, to go flouting the good sex!" growled theGovernor.

  "Your pardon, sir. The sex has flouted me. I'm envying Blake becausehe had mother-wit to steer wide of trouble. Even Elizabeth, who doteson me, is full of the most devilish caprices."

  Kit grew impatient of it all. He was in no mood for the banter andlight jests that eased the journey home to Nappa. There was a fever inhis blood, a restlessness whose cause was known to every man in campexcept himself. He sought some hiding-place, with the instinct of allwounded folk; and his glance fell on a wooded gorge that showed as asanctuary set in the middle of a treeless land.

  He came down the path between the honeysuckle and the flowering thorns.There was a splash of water down below, and he had in mind to bathe insome sequestered pool and wash away the heat and trouble of the times.

  He found the pool, green with reflected leafage, deep and murmurous, andsaw Miss Bingham seated at its brink. She turned with a smile ofwelcome.

  "I knew t
hat you would come, my Puritan. There is room beside me here.Sit and tell me--all that the waterfall is singing--themight-have-beens, the fret and bubble of this life--the never-endingwonder that men should die for their King when there are easier roads tofollow."

  "Ask the stream." Kit's laugh was unsteady, and his voice seemed tocome from far-away. "To die for the King--it may not be ease, butsurely it is happiness."

  "Talk to me. Tell me how he looked--the King--when you saw him there inOxford. And Rupert? His name alone brings back the old Crusading days,before we grew tired of poetry."

  She beguiled him into talk. She spun a web about him, fine as gossamerand strong as hempen rope. All the route south to Oxford--the return byway of Lathom House--the queer way of their entry into York--took on anew significance and glamour as she prompted him with eager, maidishquestions.

  "So you came to York as a Puritan? There would be no great disguise inthat, as I have told you often. Ah, no wrath, I pray you! Women laughat--at those they care for, lest they care too much."

  Kit seemed to be in some poppyland of dreams. He had travelled thatcountry once already in Miss Bingham's company--at the ferry-steps inKnaresborough. Then he had been weak of body, recovering slowly from asickness she had nursed. Now he was hale and ruddy; but there is aweakness of great health, and this found him now. Gallop and trot overperilous roads, rude bivouacs by night and rough-handed war byday--these had been his life since, long ago, he had left the ripeningYoredale corn. He was weary of the effort, now that it was over; andall the gardens he had known, all the ease and softness of summer skies,were gathered round this woman who shared the glen with him.

  "And there was Marston," she said, breaking the silence.

  "Ay, God knows there was Marston. Rupert, the Squire, and I--the threeof us lying in a bean-field, listening to the wounded there in WilstropWood--I can hear the uproar now."

  "Ah! forget it. It is over and done with. You have earned your ease."

  Kit believed it. The poppy odours were about him, thick as the scent offlowering beans that had all but sent Rupert and himself to their lastsleep at Marston. The strong, up-country gospel whispered at his earthat no man earns his ease this side the grave. He would not heed thewhisper. It was good to be here with the lapping water, the smell ofwoodland growth, the woman who cast pleasant spells about him.

  A great pity stirred in her, against her will. She grew aware of thingsbeyond the dalliance of each day's affairs. Here, weak in her hands,was a man to be made or marred; and he seemed well on the way to loseall because she bade him. Compunction came to her. She was minded tolaugh out of court this grave affair, and send him out, as she had doneothers, with great faith in her own instability.

  Yet she was powerless. The war her men-folk had waged against theadversary--their simple faith in kingship threading all their days, offight and drink and banter, with a golden skein--had touched the heartthat had been cold till now. By his own strength he must win throughthis combat she had forced on him--or by his own weakness he must takeher hand and lead her through the years that must for ever be made up ofbroken vows.

  Kit got to his feet, paced up and down irresolutely. He was fighting forthe kingship of his soul, and all the glen went dizzying by him. It wasa simple matter that brought back the memory of ancient loyalty andfaith--just the song of the water as it splashed down its ferny bed. Heglanced sharply round, saw the fall of the stream, with sunlight and theglint of shadowed leafage on its ripples. He remembered just such awaterfall, just such a sheltered glen, away in Yoredale.

  The poppy-sleep was on him still. Yoredale was far away, and Joan'stongue was barbed with nettle-stings these days. Better to take hisease, and have done with effort. He glanced again at the watersplashing down its steep rock-face; and suddenly he stood at attention,as if the King confronted him. It might be his fancy; it might be somechance play of light and shade, made up of dancing water and leafageswaying in the summer's breeze; but the thing he saw was a sword,silver-bright--a big, two-handed sword with its hilt clear against thesky, and its point hidden in the pool below. He stood for a moment,bewildered. Then a great sob broke up the grief and hardship that hadbeen his since Marston.

  She followed the pointing of his finger, but saw nothing save waterslipping down the cool rock-front.

  Then she glanced at his face, and saw that the days of her sorcery wereended.

  A forlorn self-pity numbed her. If he had broken faith with Joan Grant,she would have recompensed him--have been the tenderest wife inChristendom, because he had found her womanhood for her--had taught herheart to beat, instead of fluttering idly to every breeze that roamed.

  "Sir, I hate you most devoutly," she said. "Get up the wood again. Iused to laugh at all good Puritans, and the memory would hurt me if youstayed."

  Kit was never one to hide his light or darkness from a prying world.The whole camp had seen his madness, had marvelled at the change inhim--his sudden tempers, his waywardness, his hot impatience for fightof some kind--with his fellows or with any roaming band of enemies thatchanced to cross, their path. Now they wondered that he went among themwith a new light about his face, a gaiety that was not so heedless as ofold, but riper and more charitable.

  "The Babe grows up," said Michael to the Squire, as they jogged forwardover sultry roads.

  "It will be a thrifty growth, lad. If I could say as much of thee, I'dbe content."

  "Oh, I'm past gibes, sir. Elizabeth, alone of you all--she understandsme. We have long ears and long wits, she and I. Believe me, we arewise."

  They came at last to their own country, and the Knaresborough menwondered why jest and high spirits ceased among the Riding Metcalfs.They did not guess how rooted in the homeland were the affections ofthese men who had gone abroad to play their part in the big issue ofKing and Parliament. They could not divine the mist of tenderness andyearning that veiled their eyes as they saw the slopes of Yoredale runto meet their eager gallop. Wounds, havoc of battlefields that had seenbrave hopes lost, all were forgotten. They were back among the greeningcorn again.

  The Squire lost courage, for the first time since the riding out, whenhe reached the gate of his own homestead and saw his wife run forward inanswer to the rousing challenge of "A Mecca for the King!"

  She came to his saddle, lifted up her face, as a bride might do for thenuptial kiss. She looked for Kit, the well-beloved, and for Michael.Then her glance ran to and fro among the company, seeking for rememberedfaces; and memory found many gaps. She faced her husband. There wasaccusation in her voice; for she had sat at home with weariness and fearand abnegation, and all her strength was gone.

  "Where are the rest?" she asked.

  "Serving the King, wife, wherever they be. I'll go warrant for a Metcalfbeyond the gates of this world."

  With a coldness that dismayed them, she counted her living Metcalfs. "Ahundred and twenty rode out. Fifty and two return. The sunshine hurtsme."

  "They did well--no man can do more."

  Those looking on saw courage struggle through her weakness, and in theirhearts they knew that warfare had shown nothing finer. "I--I shall praythat this bitterness may go from me. I shall hope to tell them--oh, alittle later on--that it is good to die for the King's Majesty."

  They saw her waver, saw the old, indomitable pride return.

  "Metcalfs, well done--oh, well done! I am proud of my living--and mydead."

  "God rest their souls, wife. They have harvested their corn."

  As the weeks passed on, and grief and wounds alike were healing, a newdisquiet stole in and out among the men quartered in Nappa's hospitablehouse and outbuildings. They were idling here. If Marston Moor hadkilled the cause in the north, there was battle doing further south.

  The Squire's wife watched it brewing, this new menace to all that wasleft of her happiness. She knew, that it was idle to resist or topersuade. She had bred men-sons for the King's service, and must abideby it.

 
Joan Grant was younger to experience. First-love was hindering hervision of what her man must do before he came to his kingdom; and shequarrelled openly with Christopher, as they came home together throughthe gloaming August fields.

  "So you are weary of me in a month?" she said, halting at the stile."Ah, the pity of it. It was here--or have you forgotten?--that I badeyou climb high if you would find my heart. And you climbed and--andfound it, and now you talk of battle--only of battle and the King."

  All his world seemed to fail him--the will to ride out again until therewas no more asked of him but to return and claim her--the certainty thatshe would be the first to give God-speed to his errand--all were drownedin this storm of tears and petulance that broke about him. Yet heremembered the sword that had stood, its point in the woodland stream,its hilt against the clear, blue sky above. He did not waver this time,for his love was no beguilement, but a spur that urged him forward.

  "I go," he said roughly.

  "And if you lose me in the going?"

  "Then I lose you--there's no choice."

  She got down from the stile, rebellious, fitful as a gusty spring. Itwas only when they neared the homestead that she turned, her eyes brightand eager, and touched his hand. "I am glad--oh, I am glad!" she said.

  Late that afternoon Miss Bingham and little Blake had gone for amoorland ride together. Blake had made a false recovery from hisweakness, as soon as he learned that there was to be another riding-out,and had urged that he must get his mare in trim again by daily rides.And Miss Bingham had insisted that his nurse went with him, lest he fellby the way.

  In all her wide experience of men she had not met one so gay, sotranquil, so entirely master of what had been, of what was to come, asthis little Irishman whose health had gone down the stream of highadventure. With a broken heart and a broken body, he thought only ofthe coming rides through lonely night-roads, of Meccas riding again forthe King they served, of the dust and rain of circumstance. Heremembered droll stories, flavoured by Irish wit and heedlessness. Hefell, between whiles, into passionate hope of what was to come, when theKing came to his own in the south country, by help of the RidingMetcalfs, and drove the rebels from the north. Then, with a gentlenessthat laughed at itself, he explained that it was good to have sat on theferry-steps at Knaresborough.

  "I lost--but the stakes were well worth winning. The Blakes were evergamblers."

  She had great skill in tending the wounded. In the man's face she readmany signs of bodily weakness. His voice--his detachment from the grossaffairs of life--told their own tale. But she did not look for it sosoon.

  At the gate of the farmstead, just as he dismounted, Blake fell prone inthe roadway, and tried to rise, and could not.

  When Joan and Kit Metcalf returned--it might be a half-hour later--theyfound Miss Bingham kneeling at the dead man's side. And her face, whenshe lifted it, was a woman's face--grave, charitable, tender with someforward hope.

  "Here's little Blake," she said. "He rides very well, my friends."

  THE END.

  LONDON: WARD, LOCK & Co., LIMITED.