Michael was one of those who gave his horse, lest a woman should go on foot; and at the courtyard gate, while the press of folk went through, he halted suddenly.
"Kit," he said, "there’s li’le Elizabeth braying as if all her world were lost. ’Twould be a shame to forget her, after what she did for me at York."
Christopher was young to defeat. "It’s no time to think of donkeys, Michael," he snapped, humour and good temper deserting him in need.
"I defend my own, lad, whether Marston Moor is lost or won. I’m fond of Elizabeth, if only for her skew-tempered blandishments."
When he returned from the humble pent-house where they had lodged the ass, the Squire had got his company ready for the march, and was demanding roughly where Michael was.
"Here, sir," said Michael, with the laugh that came in season or out.
"Making friends with your kind, lad," snapped the other. "Well, it’s a thrifty sort of common sense."
The odd cavalcade went out into the dewy, fragrant dawn. About the land was one insistent litany of birds—merle and mavis, sleepy cawing of the rooks, and shrill cry of the curlews and the plover. A warm sun was drinking up lush odours from the rain-washed fields and hedgerows.
"Eh, but to see my growing corn in Yoredale!" sighed Squire Metcalf. "As ’tis, lads, we’re heading straight for Knaresborough, to learn how they are faring there."
Joan Grant had been content, till now, to sit Christopher’s horse and to find him at her stirrup.
"I do not like the Knaresborough country," she said, with gusty petulance.
"Not like it? Their garrison has kept the Cropheads busy."
"Oh, ay, Master Christopher! There’s nothing in the world save sorties and hard gallops. To be sure, we poor women are thrust aside these days."
"What is it, the boy asks. I thought you grown since Yoredale days; and now, Kit, you’re rough and clumsy as when you came a-wooing and I bade you climb a high tree—if, that is, you had need to find my heart."
They rode in silence for a while. Christopher thought that he had learned one thing at least—to keep a still tongue when a woman’s temper ran away with her. But here, again, his wisdom was derided.
"I loathe the tongue-tied folk! Battle, and audience with the King, and wayfaring from Yoredale down to Oxford—have they left you mute?"
