"Not like it? Their garrison has kept the Cropheads busy."
"Oh, ay, Master Christopher! There's nothing in the world save sorties and hard gallops. To be sure, we poor women are thrust aside these days."
"What is it?"
"What is it, the boy asks. I thought you grown since Yoredale days; and now, Kit, you're rough and clumsy as when you came a-wooing and I bade you climb a high tree—if, that is, you had need to find my heart."
They rode in silence for a while. Christopher thought that he had learned one thing at least—to keep a still tongue when a woman's temper ran away with her. But here, again, his wisdom was derided.
"I loathe the tongue-tied folk! Battle, and audience with the King, and wayfaring from Yoredale down to Oxford—have they left you mute?"
"Less talkative," he agreed; "I've seen men die."
For a moment she lost her petulance. "You are older, graver, more likeable. And yet I—I like you less. There was no need—surely there was no need to—to let others tell me of the ferry-steps at Knaresborough."
"The ferry-steps?"
"So you've forgotten that poor maid as well. I pity Miss Bingham now. Why do women hate each other so? Instead, they should go into some Sisterhood of Pity, hidden away from men."