"The Prince sends me with the twenty-seven standards, wife, that beleaguered you."
"Oh, my thanks; but, my lord, he sends me you. What care have I for standards?"
CHAPTER XV.
TWO JOLLY PURITANS.
Three days later Rupert came in, after seeing to the needs of Bolton. He came for rest, before pushing on to York, he asserted; but his way of recreation, here as elsewhere, was to set about the reconstruction of battered walls. Christopher Metcalf, raw not long ago from Yoredale, wondered, as he supped with them that night, why he was privileged to sit at meat with these gentles who had gone through fire and sword, whose attire was muddied and bloodstained, for the most part, but who kept the fire of loyalty like a grace that went before and after the meat they ate hungrily. He was puzzled that Lord Derby toasted him, with the smile his own father might have given him—was bewildered when the men rose to the toast with a joyous roar.
"The young Mecca for the King—the White Knight for the King!"
All he had dreamed in Yoredale was in the doing here. Kit was unsteadied by it, as if wine were mounting to his head.
"My thanks, gentlemen," he said. "Be pleased to nickname me. For my part, I feel like the ass Michael rode to York—patient and long-suffering, but no knight at all."
"How did Michael ride to York?" asked Derby, with a gust of laughter.
So then Kit told the tale, losing his diffidence and pointing the narrative with dry, upland humour.