The King asked too much of himself and others, maybe, stood head and shoulders above the barter and cold common sense of everyday. The Metcalf spirit was his own, and through the dust and strife he talked with them, as if he met friends in a garden where no eavesdroppers were busy.
They went out by and by, the Queen insisting, with her gay, French laugh, that the donkey should be presented to her later on. They found themselves in the street, with its pageantry of busy folk.
"Well, Kit," asked Michael. "We've fought for the King, and taken a wound or so. Now we've seen him in the flesh. How big is he, when dreams end?"
"As big as dawn over Yoredale pastures. I never thought to meet his like."
"So! You're impulsive, lad, and always were, but I half believe you."
They came again into the High Street. It was not long, so far as time went, since these Nappa men had fancied, in their innocence, that because a messenger rode out to summon them to Skipton, the King and all England must also know of them. Now the King did know of them, it seemed. Six months of skirmish, ambush, headlong gallops against odds, had put their names in all men's mouths. Quietly, with a sense of wonder, they tested the wine known as fame, and the flavour of it had a sweetness as of spring before the languor of full summer comes.
"We were strangers here an hour since," said Kit, watching the folk pass, "and now we come from Court."
"What did I tell you, babe Christopher, when I tried in Yoredale to lick your dreaming into shape? Life's the most diverting muddle. One hour going on foot, the next riding a high horse. We'd best find the tennis-court before the King's message cools."
A passer-by told them where to find the place. The door was open to the May sunlight, and, without ceremony or thought of it, they passed inside. Prince Rupert was playing a hard game with his brother Maurice. Neither heard the Metcalfs enter; in the blood of each was the crying need for day-long activity—in the open, if possible, and, failing that, within the closed walls of the tennis-court. The sweat dripped from the players as they fought a well-matched game; then Rupert tossed his racquet up.
"I win, Maurice," he said, as if he had conquered a whole Roundhead army.