"There's one perplexity I have," said Rupert, passing the wine across. "Why are your men so sure that they can find fresh horses for the asking at each two-mile stage? Horses are rare to come by since the war broke out."
So Michael explained, with his daft laugh, that a Yorkshireman had some occult gift of scenting a horse leagues away, and a stubborn purpose to acquire him—by purchase if he had the money, but otherwise if Providence ordained it so.
"Has the rider gone to Banbury?" he asked.
"Yes, two hours since, by a messenger I trust, He is from Yorkshire, too—one Nicholas Blake, who never seems to tire."
Kit's eagerness, blunted a little by good fare and ease after months of hardship, was awake again. "Blake?" he asked. "Is he a little man, made up of nerves and whipcord?"
"That, and a pluck that would serve three usual men."
"I'm glad he has the ride to Banbury. It was he who first brought us out of Yoredale into this big fight for the King. When last I saw him, he was limping in the middle of Skipton High Street, with blood running down his coat—I thought he had done his last errand."
"Blake does not die, somehow. Sometimes, looking at him, I think he longs to die and cannot. At any rate, he rode south last autumn with a letter for me, and I kept him for my own private errands. One does not let rare birds escape."
The next moment Rupert, the gay, impulsive Cavalier, as his enemies accounted him, the man with grace and foolhardiness, they said, but little wit, thrust the débris of their supper aside and spread out a map upon the table. It was a good map, drawn in detail by himself, and it covered the whole country from London to the Scottish border.
"I am impatient for the coming of your clan, gentlemen," he said. "Let us get to figures. Mr. Blake is at Banbury already, we'll say, and has found your first outpost. He covers two miles at the gallop, and the next man covers two, and so to Knaresborough. How soon can they win into Oxford?"