"So!" laughed Lady Ingilby. "How fierce your loathing burns, you babe just come from the nursery!"
On the moor guarded by the High Cross the Squire of Nappa was pacing lip and down, halting now and then to watch his kinsfolk as they slept beside their horses. He envied them their slumber, would have been glad to share it after the turmoil of the last two days, but, under all casual temptation to lie down and sleep, he knew that he was glad to be awake—awake, with the free sky overhead and the knowledge that so many Metcalfs needed him.
"We ought to do well for the King," was his constant thought. "If we fail, 'twill not be for lack of wakefulness on my part."
As dusk went down the hill, and on the edge of dark a big moon strode above the moor's rim, he heard the faint sound of hoofs. None but ears sharpened by a country life could have caught the sound; but the Squire was already handling his pike. As the rider drew nearer, his big horse scattering stones from the steep drift of shale, Metcalf gripped the shaft of his weapon and swung it gently to and fro.
The moon's light was clear now, and into the mellow gold of it the horseman rode.
"Who goes there?" roared the Squire, lifting his pike.
It was a quavering voice that answered. "Be ye going to fight Ben Waddilove? I'm old and home-weary, and we were lads together."
The Squire's laugh should have roused his company. "Why, Ben, I came near to braining you! What brings you here so far from Nappa?"
"Oh, Miss Joan! She's full of delicate, queer whimsies. Told me, she did, I had to ride up the moor, as if my knees were not raw already! Said li'le Christopher, your son, was sitting on a bench in Ripley, tied hand and foot by Roundhead folk. So he is. I saw him there myself."
Without pause or hesitation, the Squire turned to his sleeping kinsfolk. Some he shook out of slumber, and kicked others to attention. "We're for Ripley, lads!" was all his explanation.