"In five days," said Michael, with his rose-coloured view of detail.
Prince Rupert challenged his reckoning, and the puzzle of the calculation grew more bewildering as the four men argued about it. They had another bottle to help them, but the only result was that each clung more tenaciously to his opinion. Maurice said the journey, allowing for mischances and the scarcity of horses, would take eight days at least; Kit Metcalf hazarded a guess that seven was nearer the mark; and at last they agreed to wager each a guinea on the matter, and parted with a pleasant sense of expectation, as if a horse race were in the running. Soldiers must take their recreations this way; for they travel on a road that is set thick with hazard, and a gamble round about the winning chance is part of the day's work.
"I give you welcome here to Oxford," said Rupert, as he bade them good-night. "Since the tale of your exploits blew about our sleepy climate, I knew that in the north I had a company of friends. When the Squire of Nappa rides in, I shall tell him that he and I, alone in England, know what light cavalry can do against these men of Cromwell's."
The Metcalfs, when they said farewell, and he asked where they were lodging for the night, did not explain that they had come in a carrier's cart to Oxford, without ceremony and entirely without change of gear. They just went out into the street, wandered for an hour among the scent of lilacs, then found a little tavern that seemed in keeping with their own simplicity. The host asked proof of their respectability, and they showed him many guineas, convincing him that they were righteous folk. Thereafter they slept as tired men do, without back reckonings or fear of the insistent morrow. Once only Kit awoke and tapped his brother on the shoulder.
"They'll be here in seven days, Michael," he said, and immediately began to snore.
CHAPTER X.
THE RIDING IN.
Through the quiet lanes Blake, the messenger, rode out to Banbury. Nightingales were singing through the dusk; stars were blinking at him from a sky of blue and purple; a moth blundered now and then against his face. He understood the beauty of the gloaming, though he seemed to have no time to spare for it. Prince Rupert had sent him spurring with a message to the big rider of a white horse, who was to be found somewhere on the road leading from the north to Banbury; and the password was "A Mecca for the King." That was his business on the road. But, as he journeyed, a strange pain of heart went with him. The nightingales were singing, and God knew that he had forgotten love-songs long ago, or had tried to.
Spring, and the rising sap, and the soft, cool scents of eventide are magical to those climbing up the hill of dreams; to those who have ceased to climb, they are echoes of a fairyland once lived in, but now seen from afar. It had all been so long ago. Skirmish and wounds, and lonely rides in many weathers, should have dug a grave deep enough for memories to lie in; but old ghosts rose to-night, unbidden. If it had been his sinning, he could have borne the hardship better; he had the old knightly faith—touched with extravagance, but haloed by the Further Light—that all women are sacrosanct. If he had failed—well, men were rough and headstrong; but it was she who had stooped to meaner issues. And it was all so long ago that it seemed absurd the nightingales should make his heart ache like a child's.
Fame was his. The Metcalfs, big on big horses, had captured the fancy of all England by their exploits in the open. Yet Blake, the messenger—riding alone for the most part, through perils that had no music of the battle-charge about them—had his own place, his claim to quick, affectionate regard wherever Cavaliers were met together. They laughed at his high, punctilious view of life, but they warmed to the knowledge that he had gone single-handed along tracks that asked for comrades on his right hand and his left. But this was unknown to Blake, who did not ask what men thought of him. It was enough for him to go doing his journeys, carrying a heartache till the end came and he was free to understand the why and wherefore of it all.