Without another word, he glanced at the sun, guessed hastily the line of country that pointed to Ripley, and rode forward at the head of his good company. It was rough going, with many turns and twists to avoid wet ground here, a steep face of rock there; but at the end of it they came to a high spur of moor, and beneath them, in a flood of crimson—the sun was near its setting—they saw the tower of Ripley Castle and the long, raking front of house and outbuildings.
The Squire laughed. His face was aglow with pride, like the sunset's. "I've few gifts, lads, but one of them is to know Yorkshire from end to end, as I know my way to bed o' nights. I've led you within sight of Ripley; the rest lies with lad Christopher."
Michael, the black-haired wastrel of the flock, found voice.
"Kit will be saddle-sore if he rides all your errands. Give one o' them to me, sir."
The Squire looked him up and down. "You've a heart and a big body, Michael, but no head. I tell you, Kit must take this venture forward."
So Michael laughed. He was aware that, if wits were asked, he must give place to Kit, whom he loved with an odd, jealous liking.
"What is your errand, sir?" asked Christopher.
The Squire put Lambert's letter into his hand, bade him read it over and over, then snatched it from him. "Have you got it by heart, Kit?"
Kit repeated it word by word, and his father tore the letter into shreds and threw them to the keen west wind that was piping over the moor. "That's the way to carry all messages. If you're taken, lad, they can turn your pockets inside out and search your boots, but they cannot find what's safe inside your head, not if they tap it with a sword-cut."
There was a high deed done on the moor at this hour of the declining day. Without a tremor or regret, the Squire of Nappa sent his son—the one nearest his warm heart—to certain danger, to a hazard from which there might well be no returning.