A stream of horsemen was pouring down this track—Parliament men riding from the west to help Lambert with the siege. They rode slowly, and the Nappa men, as they drew rein and looked down the hill, counted two hundred of them. Then came three lumbering waggons, each with a cannon lashed to it by hay-ropes plaited fourfold, and each drawn by a team of plough-horses that roused Squire Metcalf’s envy. Behind the waggons, more horsemen rode at a foot-pace, till it seemed the stream would never end. "Mr. Lambert is needing more artillery, it seems," said Blake drily. "His anxiety must be great, if three cannon need such a heavy escort." The Squire of Nappa did not hear him. For a moment he sat quietly in saddle, his face the mirror of many crowded thoughts. Then suddenly he raised a shout—one that was to sound often through the Yorkshire uplands, like the cock grouse’s note. "A Mecca for the King!" he roared, lifting the pike that was as light as a hazel wand to his great strength of arm. Blake was at his right hand as they charged. He had only his sword, but the speed and fury of the battle made him forget that not long since he had longed for the strength to wield a pike instead, as all the men of Nappa did. It was all confusion, speed of white horses galloping down-hill to the shock, thud of the onset. The Roundhead guard had faced about to meet this swirling, quick assault. They saw a company of giants, carrying pikes as long as their own bodies, and they met them with the stolid Roundhead obstinacy. It was a grim fight, and ever across it rang the Squire of Nappa’s lusty voice. Between the two companies of Roundhead horsemen were the three farm-waggons carrying the guns. Those on the Skipton side were trying to ride uphill to help their comrades; but the din of combat had sent the plough-horses wild. They were big and wilful brutes, and their screams rose high above the babel of men fighting for their lives. Then they bolted, swerved across the road, and brought themselves and all they carried into the ditches on either side. The cannon, as they fell, ripped the waggons into splintered wreckage. Between the fallen horses, through the litter of broken waggons, the men of Nappa drove what had been the rearguard of the convoy. They picked their way through the fifty yards of broken ground, lifted their white horses to the next attack, and charged the second company of Roundheads. Those of the shattered rearguard who could not draw aside were driven down pell-mell into their upcoming friends, bringing confusion with them. And through it all there rang the Squire’s voice, with its keen, insistent cry of "A Mecca for the King!" In that hour the Parliament men learned that the Stuart, too, had downright servants at command, who were not made up of dalliance and lovelocks.