He put blandishment aside. There was no before or after for him—simply the plain road ahead. Wherever he found a countryman to greet, he drew rein and passed the time of day, and got into talk with him. Before he had covered six miles, he learned that Rigby, with the three thousand men withdrawn from the siege of Lathom, had in fact retreated behind the walls of Bolton, and that the town was strongly fortified. A mile further on his horse cast a shoe, and, while he waited at the door of a wayside smithy, he joined a company of gossips seated on the bench outside. "Thanks be, the Lady o’ Lathom is safe," said a grey old shepherd. "A rare game-bird, she," assented the jolly yeoman on his left. "Ay. She’s plucked a few fine feathers from Rigby. Rigby? I mind the time when he was skulking in and out—trying to find wastrel men who’d pay him to prove black was white in court. And now he calls himself a Captain." "Well, he’s as he was made, and of small account at that," said the yeoman. "The man I blame is Colonel Shuttleworth. One o’ the gentry, he, and likeable. There’s no good comes, say I, when the gentry forget their duty to their King. They go to kirk each Sabbath, and pray for the King’s health—well, they mean it, or they don’t mean it, and there’s no middle way." Kit felt at home. These men were of the country stock he knew by heart. "Friends," he said, "I’m a stranger here in Lancashire. Who is Colonel Shuttleworth?" "Oh, just a backslider!" The yeoman’s face was cheery by long habit, even when he condemned a man. "He’s sent fifteen hundred men to help Rigby garrison the town of Bolton. The likes of him to help the likes of Rigby—it makes us fancy the times are upside down." Kit Metcalf, when his horse was shod, rode forward swiftly. A league this side of Bolton, where the track climbed steep between banks of ling and bilberry, he saw a man striding a white horse. Man and horse were so big that they blotted out a good part of the sky-line; so he knew that there was a kinsman waiting for him. "Yoi-hoi!" yelled Kit. "A Mecca for the King." The horseman shielded his eyes against the sun as he watched the up-coming rider. Then a laugh that Kit remembered floated down-wind to him. "Why, Michael, what are you doing here?" he asked, as he drew near. "To be frank, I was yawning just before you came. I’ve been waiting since daybreak for some messenger from Lathom. And at the end of it you come, white brother of the Metcalf flock—you, who have the luck at every turn." "I had luck this time—fifteen sorties since I saw you last. Michael, you should have been there with us. We brought their mortar in——" "Good," drawled Michael. "You had the luck. For my part, I’ve been sitting on a horse as thirsty as myself for more hours than I remember. Let’s get down to camp and a brew of ale there."