"Bonnie, though I've not seen either since last year's harvest. This King's affair of ride and skirmish is well enough; but there's no time to slip away to Yoredale for a day and smell the wind up yonder. Are Kit and Michael safe?"
"They are in Oxford, accepting flattery with astounding modesty."
"They've found Prince Rupert? The Metcalfs—oh, I touch wood!—keep a bee-line when they know where home lies."
"That is no boast, so why go touching wood? I tell you the King knows what your folk have done and hope to do. The Prince is raising cavalry for the relief of York, and will not rest until you Metcalfs join him. How soon can your company get south?"
The horseman thought the matter over. "It will take five days and a half," he said at last.
"Good for you!" snapped Blake. "Even your brother Christopher, with the starry look o' dreams about his face, was sure that it would take seven days. I wager a guinea to a pinch o' snuff that you're not in Oxford in five days and a half."
"That is a wager?"
"I said as much, sir."
"Then lend me the pinch of snuff. I emptied my box in waiting for you, and was feeling lonely."
Blake laughed as he passed his box over. There was an arresting humour about the man, a streak of the mother-wit that made the Metcalf clan at home in camp or city. "I'll see you to the next stage," he said, reining his horse about—"that is, if you care for an idle man's company. I've nothing in the world to do just now."