It was an odd hour of waiting. Messengers galloped constantly from the York road, saying there was no speck of dust to show that Newcastle was coming with reinforcements. Rupert’s men, with the jollity attending on a feast snatched by unexpected chance, began to reassemble. Two o’clock came, and the heat increasing. Overhead there was a molten sky, and the rye-fields where the enemy were camped showed fiery red under the lash of a wild, pursuing wind. It was not until another hour had passed that Rupert began to lose his keen, high spirits. He was so used to war in the open, to the instant summons and the quick answer, that he could not gauge the trouble of York’s garrison, the slowness of men and horses who had gone through months of wearisome inaction. It is not good for horse or man to be stabled overlong out of reach of the free pastures and the gallop. About half after three o’clock some of his company brought in to Rupert a big, country-looking fellow, and explained that they had captured him spying a little too close to the Royalist lines. "What mun we do to him?" asked the spokesman of the party, in good Wharfedale speech. "We’ve hammered his head, and ducked him i’ th’ horse-pond, and naught seems to serve. He willun’t say, _Down wi’ all Croppies_." "Then he’s the man I’m seeking—a man who does not blow hot and cold in the half-hour. Your name, friend?" "Ezra Wood, and firm for the Parliament." "We hold your life at our mercy," said Rupert, with a sharp, questioning glance. "Tell us the numbers and disposition of Lord Fairfax’s army." [Illustration: "’We hold your life at our mercy,’ said Rupert."] "As man to stark man, I’ll tell ye nowt. My mother sat on one stool while she nursed me, not on two." Rupert had proved his man. The pleasure of it—though Ezra Wood happened to be fighting on the other side—brought the true Prince out of hiding. Through fatigue of hurried marches, through anxiety because York’s garrison lingered on the way, the old Crusader in him showed. "Is Cromwell with your folk?" he asked. "He is—staunch in prayer and staunch indeed." "Then go free, and tell him that Prince Rupert leads the right wing of the attack. I have heard much of his Ironsides, and trust to meet them on the left wing." Ezra Wood had no subtleties, which are mistaken now and then for manners. He looked Rupert in the face with a hard sort of deference. "So thou’rt the man they call Rupert?" he said. "Well, ye look it, I own, and I’ll carry your message for ye gladly." "And you will return, under safe-conduct, with his answer." About five of the afternoon—all Marston Moor ablaze with a red, unearthly light—the first of the York men came in. Rupert’s impulsive welcome grew chilly when he saw that Lord Eythin led them; and Boye, whose likes and dislikes were pronounced, ran forward growling. "Whistle your dog off, sir—whistle him off," said Eythin irritably.