christopher metcalf had learned the way of hazard, the need to say little and hear all. as he rode from lathom house through the summer's dawn, the land was full of blandishment. last night's heavy rain had brought keen scents to birth—of primrose and leafage in the lanes, of wallflowers in the homestead gardens that he passed. scents tempt a man to retrospect, and he wondered how it was faring with joan—remembered the nearness of her and the fragrance, as they roamed the yoredale hills together in other springs.

he put blandishment aside. there was no before or after for him—simply the plain road ahead. wherever he found a countryman to greet, he drew rein and passed the time of day, and got into talk with him. before he had covered six miles, he learned that rigby, with the three thousand men withdrawn from the siege of lathom, had in fact retreated behind the walls of bolton, and that the town was strongly fortified. a mile further on his horse cast a shoe, and, while he waited at the door of a wayside smithy, he joined a company of gossips seated on the bench outside.

"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 the time when he was skulking in and out—trying to find wastrel men who'd pay him to prove black was white in court. and now he calls himself a captain."

"well, he's as he was made, and of small account at that," said the yeoman. "the man i blame is colonel shuttleworth. one o' the gentry, he, and likeable. there's no good comes, say i, when the gentry forget their duty to their king. they go to kirk each sabbath, and pray for the king's health—well, they mean it, or they don't mean it, and there'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 colonel shuttleworth?"

"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 help rigby garrison the town of bolton. the likes of him to help the likes of rigby—it makes us fancy the times are upside down."

kit metcalf, when his horse was shod, rode forward swiftly. a league this side of bolton, where the track climbed steep between banks of ling and bilberry, he saw a man striding a white horse. man and horse were so big that they blotted out a good part of the sky-line; so he knew that 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 the up-coming rider. then a laugh that kit remembered floated down-wind to him.

"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 waiting since daybreak for some messenger from lathom. and at the end of it you come, white brother of the metcalf flock—you, who have the luck at every 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 been sitting 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, like rabbits. the lady of lathom welcomed us home each night, her eyes on fire."

"no doubt, brother. the tale will warm me by and by. meanwhile i don't care a stiver what fire shone in my lady's eyes—blue, or grey, or black. give me honest ale, of the true nut-brown colour."

"you're a wastrel, michael," laughed the younger brother, glad to pass badinage again with one of his own folk.

"i am, my lad, and know it. there's luck in being a wastrel—folk expect nothing from a man. he goes free, while such as you—babe kit, if you guessed how prisoned up you are! they look for sorties, gallops against odds, moonshine of all sorts every day you live. you've a nickname already in oxford. they name you the white knight."

"oh, be done with banter," snapped christopher. "there's little knighthood about me. let's get down to camp and see the colour of that ale of yours."

when they came to the heathery, rising land wide of bolton, and the sentry had passed them forward, kit found himself face to face with prince 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 siege raised?"

"by your leave," said kit, "the siege is raised. rigby has gone to bolton-le-moors, to hide there. he has what are left of his three thousand men, and fifteen hundred others. the town is strong."

"good, sir!" fire—deep, glowing fire—showed in rupert's eyes. "lady derby is a kinswoman of mine; and if rigby is in bolton, i know where to find the fox she loathes."

a big, tired figure of a man pushed his way through the soldiery. "i heard 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 to be his wife's lover, too. my lord derby, this is mr. metcalf, known otherwise as the white knight. he brings news that rigby the fox has slunk 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 all in 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 a leadership which on grounds of prudence he had refused the other, asked for volunteers. when these were gathered, the whole force marched on bolton and halted within five hundred yards of the stout walls. then the assaulting party came forward at the double.

"not you, mr. metcalf," said rupert, detaining christopher as he ran forward to join in any lively venture. "we cannot spare you."

what followed was a nightmare to the lookers-on. they saw the volunteers reach the wall and clamber up—saw a fierce hand-to-hand struggle on the wall-top, and the assault repulsed. and then they saw the victors on the rampart kill the wounded in cold blood.

some pity, bred of bygone stuart generations, stirred rupert. wrath and tears 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 company together.

"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 see that prince rupert, who had talked of prudence where lives of great men were 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. over the bodies of their friends, massacred against all rules of war, they leaped into the town. the first man lord derby met was a groom, lately in his service at lathom, who had gone over to the enemy. the man struck a blow at him with the clubbed end of a musket, and derby parried it, and gave the rogue a better death than he deserved—at the sword's point.

they pressed forward. once they were hemmed in—six of them—after a fierce rally of the garrison had swept the royalists aside. one of the six was prince rupert; and kit metcalf felt the old yoredale loyalty stir in his veins—a wildness and a strength. he raised a deep-bellied cry of "a mecca for the king!" cut down the thick-set private who was aiming a blow sideways at rupert's head, and then went mad with the lust of slaying. never afterwards could he recall that wonderful, swift lunacy. memory took up the tale again at the moment when their comrades rallied 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. the three went forward with the rest; and, after all was done, they met again in the market-square.

"you, my white knight?" said the prince, touching kit on the arm. "are you 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 the sky if your pike had not been handled nicely. for my part, i saw nothing but roundhead faces leering at me through a crimson mist."

the instinctive, boyish romance came back to christopher. he had always been a hero-worshipper, and turned now to the grey-eyed gentleman, who was bandaging his head with a strip torn from his frilled shirt. "you are 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. and at lathom they told me of your sorties. sir, they thought you dead in your last effort to break through the lines, to bring relief in. they will be glad."

the prince and nowell glanced at each other with a quick smile of sympathy. here, in the reek and havoc of the street, was a simple-minded gentleman, fresh as dawn on the hills that bred him—a man proved many times by battle, yet with a starry reverence for ancient deeds and ancient faith.

"may your nurse rest well where she lies," said roger nowell, the laughter in his grey eyes still. "in spite of a headache that throbs like a blacksmith's anvil, i salute her. she reared a man-child. as for those at lathom, i share their gladness, i admit. a bandaged head is better than none at all."

then all was bustle and uproar once again. men came bringing captured colours to the prince; and in the middle of it lord derby found them.

"welcome, derby," said the prince, "though, for the first time since i knew you, you wear the favours of both parties."

"be pleased to jest," laughed the other. "for my part, i know my wife will soon be seeing me at lathom."

"but, indeed, you wear both favours—rebel blood on your clothes, and a warmer 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 a service rendered freely, not asking for return. "it is permitted, these bleak days, that a man ask grace to love his wife and hurry to her side?"

"get home to lathom, but not just yet. i have a gift for that brave wife 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, his voice lifted for all men to hear. "take them to lady derby as a token of my high regard. tell her that it is easy for men to charge at speed and win their battles, but hard for women to sit behind crumbling walls and hold the siege. if i were my lord derby, i should be proud of such a 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 their talk. a hot-headed band of cavaliers was bringing fifteen prisoners through 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 shrift on the walls! measure for measure, say i, and curse these psalm-singing butchers."

through the laughter of the troop came rupert's voice, harsh and resonant. "who are these, captain sturgis?"

sturgis saluted. he had heard that voice more than once in the thickest of the onset, while rupert was winning his spurs as a leader of light cavalry. the wine of victory left him. "a few crop-headed folk, your highness," he said lamely. "we proposed to make them a warning to other butchers of cromwell's following."

"captain sturgis, i am sorry. we have shared many fights, and yesterday you were a gentleman of the king's."

there was silence in the market-place; and presently sturgis saluted rupert with extreme precision. "to-morrow, by your leave, i shall report 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, some with prisoners, others hurrying to slake their thirst at a convenient tavern.

"where's rigby?" asked lord derby suddenly "i have a long account to settle with him."

a jolly yeoman caught the question as he went by. "gone away, like the fox on a hunting morn. i had a thrust at him myself just now, but missed him; and he leaped the ramparts where we broke it at the coming-in."

"so!" growled derby. "the fox will give us sport another day."

"my lord," said the prince, his voice grave and full of courtesy, "i give you twenty-seven standards, captured from rigby's forces. i give you a hundred of my men as a guard of honour. eat and drink, and then get forward to lathom, where your wife awaits you. let the red fox skulk until a more convenient date."

"and you?"

"i stay on here for a while. it seems to be my business these days to batter walls down, and to stay on afterwards to build them up again. this town is worth defending for the king. tell lady derby that my march to the relief of york will go by way of lathom, if i may claim her hospitality."

kit metcalf found himself among the hundred chosen to accompany lord derby; and he was glad, for in oxford—with its deep, unconquerable love of attaching mystic glamour to a person or a cause—the lady of lathom had grown to be a toast drunk silently, as if she were above and beyond the 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 camp deserted lately by colonel rigby. a sentry challenged them; and lord derby laughed as any boy might do.

"a stanley for the king! have i been away so long, thornthwaite, that you do not know your lord?"

the master, as usual, had the keener vision. in the clear light he had recognised the sentry as one old in service to his household. they passed through; and in the courtyard lady derby was standing near the captured mortar, talking of ways and means with one of her captains.

to kit, looking on, it was like fairyland come true. lady derby heard her 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. there comes seldom to any man and wife so fine a forgetting. it was well, kit thought, to carry three wounds to his knowledge—and some lesser ones that did not count—to have seen these two with the red halo of the sundown round them.

"the prince sends me with the twenty-seven standards, wife, that beleaguered you."

"oh, my thanks; but, my lord, he sends me you. what care have i for standards?"