A droll Irishman of the company broke into a roar of laughter. The sentry’s face was so woebegone, his statement of fact so pithy, that even Newcastle smiled grimly. "Soften the message, then, but bring them in." To the sentry’s astonishment, the two Puritans came like lambs at his bidding; and after they were safely ushered into the Castle dining-hall, the sentry mutely thanked Providence for his escape, and went in search of further liquor. As a man of common sense, he reasoned that there would be no second call to-night at a postern that had stood un-challenged for these three weeks past. Michael, when he came into the room, cast a quick glance round the company. He saw Newcastle and Eythin, and a jolly, red-faced Irishman, and many others; and memory ran back along the haps and mishaps of warfare in the open to a night when he had swum Ouse River and met just this band of gentlemen at table. He pulled his steeple-hat over his eyes and stood there, his shoulders drooping, his hands crossed in front of him. "Well," demanded Newcastle, his temper raw and unstable through long caring for the welfare of his garrison. "If we are to discuss any business, you may remove your quaint head-gear, sirs. My equals uncover, so you may do as much." "Puritans do not, my lord," Michael interrupted. "What are men that we should uncover to them?" "Men circumstanced as we are have a short way and a ready with cant and steeple-headed folk." "Yet the password," insisted the other gently. "_Rupert of the Rhine_. It has a pleasant sound. They say he is near York’s gates, and it was we who brought him." The Irishman, thinking him mad or drunk, or both, and irritated beyond bearing by his smooth, oily speech, reached forward and knocked his hat half across the room. "Oh, by the saints!" he roared; "here’s the rogue who came in last spring, pretty much in the clothes he was born in, after swimming Ouse River—the jolly rogue who swore he’d find Rupert for us." "At your service, gentlemen—as dry as I was wet when we last encountered. Will none of you fill me a brimmer?" Lord Newcastle, if something raw in experience of warfare and its tactics, was a great-hearted man of his world, with a lively humour and a sportsman’s relish for adventure. He filled the brimmer himself, and watched Michael drain half of it at one thirsty, pleasant gulp. "Now for your news," he said. "Why, my lord, I pledged the Metcalf honour that we’d bring Rupert to you, and he lies no further off than Knaresborough." "Good," laughed the Irishman. "I said you could trust a man who swore by the sword he happened not to be carrying at the moment." "And your friend?" asked Newcastle, catching sight of Christopher, as he stood moving restlessly from foot to foot.