The Metcalf men rode quietly toward Skipton. For the first time since their riding out from Nappa, they felt lonely. They had fought twice, and their appetite was whetted; but no other battle showed ahead. They were young to warfare, all of them, and thought it one happy road of skirmish, uproar, and hard blows, from end to end of the day’s journey.
The only break in the monotony came as they rode up the steep track to Embsay Moor. At the top of the hill, dark against the sunlit sky, a solitary horseman came into view, halted a moment to breathe his horse, then trotted down at a speed that the steepness of the road made foolhardy. He did not see the Metcalf company until it was too late to turn about, and trotted forward, since needs must.
"On which side of the battle?" asked Squire Metcalf, catching the bridle.
"The King’s, but you are not. No King’s man ever bandies questions; he answers straight to the summons which side he stands for."
They found a message after diligent searching of his person. The message was in Lambert’s neat Quakerish handwriting, and was addressed to a captain of horse in Ripon, bidding him take his men to Ripley and keep watch about the Castle. "That termagant, Lady Ingilby, is making her house a meeting-place for Cavaliers," the message read. "Her husband at the wars is one man only. She rallies twenty to the cause each day. See to it, and quickly."
"Ay," said the Squire, with his rollicking laugh, "we’ll see to it."
It was astonishing to see the change in this man, who until yesterday had been content to tend his lands, to watch the dawn come up and sunset die over the hills he loved, and get to his early sleep. His father and his grandfather had handled big issues in the open, though he himself had chosen a stay-at-home squire’s life; and the thing that is in the blood of a man leaps forward always at the call of need.
Squire Metcalf, with brisk courtesy, claimed the messenger’s horse. "Lest you ride back to Skipton with the news," he explained, "and because a spare horse is always useful these days. For yourself, get back at leisure, and tell Mr. Lambert that the Riding Metcalfs have carried the message for him."
Without another word, he glanced at the sun, guessed hastily the line of country that pointed to Ripley, and rode forward at the head of his good company. It was rough going, with many turns and twists to avoid wet ground here, a steep face of rock there; but at the end of it they came to a high spur of moor, and beneath them, in a flood of crimson—the sun was near its setting—they saw the tower of Ripley Castle and the long, raking front of house and outbuildings.