Sir John Mallory, the governor, was one of the men who looked down from the battlements. He had a zealous heart, and his thirty years of life had taught him that it was good to live or die for the King. Below he saw a swarm of giants striding white horses; saw the little messenger he had sent to Nappa fighting as merrily as any Metcalf of them all; saw the Roundheads retreating stubbornly. As he watched, a cannon-ball whistled by, a foot or two above his head, and ruffled his hair in passing as a sharp wind might do.
"My thanks, Lambert," he said impassively. "One needs a breeze after long confinement."
Then he went down the slippery stair; and a little later the drawbridge rattled down, and he rode out with twenty others who were sick from lack of exercise.
It was a stubborn business. The Roundheads left behind with the overturned guns, up the Rylstone road, recaptured the courage that no man doubted, and came driving in at the rear of this pitched battle. Lambert himself, the increasing tumult coming up to him through the still, autumn air, got thirty of the besiegers together. They had ridden in at dawn, and their horses were picketed close at hand. As they galloped up the High Street, they were met by the weight of their own retreating friends from Lancashire; and it was now that Lambert showed the leadership, the power of glamouring his men, which none among the Roundheads had since Hampden died.
"Friends," he said,—the Quaker instinct in him suggesting that odd form of address when battle was in progress—"friends, I trust you."
Just that. He had found the one word that is magical to strong men. They answered him with a rousing shout, and drove up against the King's men. For a moment even the Nappa riders gave back; but the recoil seemed only to help them to a fiercer onset. They had both Cavalier speed and Roundhead weight, these Metcalf men and horses; and Sir John Mallory, fighting beside them for mastery of the High Street, was aware that Yoredale had given the King a finer troop of horse than even Rupert could command.
Across the thick of it Mallory caught Lambert's glance, and an odd smile played about their lips. The same thought came to both between the hurry of the fight. Not long ago they had dined together, had talked of the winter's hunting soon to come, had smoked their pipes in amity. Now each was thanking God that the shifting issues of the battle did not bring them sword to sword; for civil war is always a disastrous and a muddling enterprise.
The glance, and the memories that went to its making, were over in a second. It was a forward plunge again of King's men meeting Roundheads, hard to drive. And suddenly there rose a cry keen as winter in the uplands and strong as sun at midsummer.
"Now, Metcalfs," roared the Squire of Nappa, "into the standing corn—and God for the King, say I!"
Into the standing corn they went, and it was open flight now down the length of Skipton Street. Time after time Lambert strove to rally his men, using oaths that had not been taught him by the Quakers, but the retreat swept him down, carrying him with it. A great gentleman, whichever side he took in this fierce quarrel, was learning for the first time the sickness of defeat.