So they eyed each other for a while, and took their fill of merriment. Then they went forward. What the end of the venture was to be, they hazarded no guess; but at least they had papers and a garb that would pass them safely through the lines at York.
Another Royalist was abroad, as it happened, on a venture that to her own mind was both hazardous and lonely. The donkey that had helped Michael to secure his first entry into York—the patient, strong-minded ass that had followed the Riding Metcalfs south and had grown to be the luck of their superstitious company—had been lost on the march between Lathom House and Skipton. She had been stolen by a travelling pedlar, who found her browsing in a thistle-field a mile behind the army she hoped to overtake a little later on. He owned her for a day; and then, high spirit getting the better of dejection, she bided her time, shot out two hind-feet that left him helpless in the road, and set out on the quest that led to Michael—Michael, who might command her anything, except to go forward in the direction of her head.
To Elizabeth—her name among the Metcalfs—the forward journey was full of trouble and bewilderment. She followed them easily enough as far as Skipton, and some queer instinct guided her up the High Street and into the country beyond Otley. Then tiredness came on her, and she shambled forward at haphazard. At long last she blundered into Ripley; and, either because she knew the look of the Castle gateway, or because she gave up all for lost, she stood there and brayed plaintively.
A sentry peered from the top of the gate-tower. "Who goes there?" he demanded gruffly.
Elizabeth lifted up her head and brayed; and presently William Fullaboy, guardian of the little door set in the main gateway, opened and peered out into the flood of moonlight. Lady Ingilby came running, with Joan Grant, to learn the meaning of the uproar; alarms and sharp assaults had been frequent since the Metcalfs left to find Prince Rupert.
"Why, 'tis Elizabeth, my lady," laughed William—"Elizabeth, the snod, li'le donkey we grew so fond of."
"Give her supper and a warm bed for the night," said Lady Ingilby. "The luck comes home at last."
"But does it?" asked Joan Grant, a pitiful break in her voice. "We have lain warm abed while Kit was nursing his wounds on the open moors——"
"True, girl. He'll be none the worse for it. Lovers have a trick of coming home, like their four-footed kindred."
She would listen to no further trouble of Joan's, but patted Elizabeth's smooth ears, and talked to her, and fed her. The wife of a strong man, and the mother of strong sons, is always tender with four-footed things.