"Skipton can stand a twelve months' siege. She can whistle when she needs us, like any other likely lass. There's no need to lose a hunting-day till Sir John Mallory needs us."
The Squire found his first disillusionment along this road of glamour. He had thought that a company of picked horsemen, armed for the King and riding with a single purpose, would have swept these huntsmen into line. Some few of them, indeed, had ridden forward a little, as if they liked his message; but the grey-headed horseman, who distrusted all enthusiasm because long since he had lost his faith in life, brought them sharply back.
"It will be all over in a week or two, and the crop-heads back in their kennels. No need to lose a hunting day, my lads."
The white horses, carrying big men, trotted forward, through Starboton and Kettlewell, where the Danes had raided, wooed, and settled long before a Stuart came to reign over gentler times. It was not till they reached Linton, quiet and grey about its clear, trout-haunted stream, that the Squire of Nappa broke silence.
"I told those hunting gentry that the King needed them, and they wouldn't hearken. It seems Royalists are deaf these days to the plain road of honesty."
"They are," said the messenger, with the surprising calm that he had learned from lonely errands, ridden oftener by night than daytime. "So are most men and most women. My heart's singing by that token. I'm bringing in six-score Metcalfs to the King, all as honest as God's sunlight. My luck is in, Squire."
The Squire would have none of blandishment. He could ride a good horse or a grievance hard. "They doffed their hats when I named the King," he growled.
"They did, but not their heart-coverings. If they'd been keen to ride—why, they'd have ridden, and no child's game of deer slaying would have stopped them. Skipton is better off without such laggard arms to help her."
"But the King needs them," said Metcalf stubbornly, "and we showed them the plain road."
They rode on through Cracoe, where the trees were red-gold in their pride of autumn, and again the Squire of Nappa broke the silence. "What does the King ask of us? If it is not to garrison the town——"