They were heading by short stages to Nappa; for, as the Squire explained, there was room enough in house and outbuildings to house them all, and they might well hold it for the King, if the chance of war brought 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 Mecca when he’s roused."
"There is, sir—a Yorkshire bite, they say."
Their route was hindered, not only by prowling vagabonds, but by the men who fell sick by the wayside, now that the stress of the big fight was ended, and they had leisure to take count of wounds. Miss Bingham went among 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 her nursing little Blake—the Governor and Squire Metcalf halted as they made their round of the camp.
"So Blake has given in at last," said the Squire. "Pity he didn’t learn that 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 it long since."
The Governor laughed, as if a child’s fancy had intruded into the workaday routine. "The jest will serve, Miss Bingham. We know Blake, and, believe me, he never had a heart to be broken. Whipcord and sinew—he rides till he drops, with no woman’s mawkishness to hinder him."
"No mawkishness," she agreed. "I give you good-night, gentlemen. He needs me, if he is not to die before the dawn."
"Oh, again your pardon," said the Governor roughly. "You played in Knaresborough—you were always playing—and we thought you light."
"So I am, believe me, when men are able to take care of themselves. It is when they’re weak that I grow foolish and a nurse."
Metcalf and the Governor were silent as they went their round, until the Squire 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 rest her. Memories of cradle-days return, when we are weak; they show their angel side."
"There’s only one thing ails Miss Bingham—she’s a woman to the core of her. Eh, Metcalf, it must be troublesome to be a woman. I’d liefer take all my sins pick-a-back, and grumble forward under the weight, and be free of whimsies."