There were two horses only, left behind because unfit for battle. They looked oddly lonesome, with the six empty stalls beside them stretching out into the lights and shadows thrown by the lantern. "A man’s saddle," said Lady Ingilby briskly. "You’ll find it in the harness chamber yonder." Kit, when the livelier of the two horses was ready, understood why she had chosen a man’s saddle. It carried a holster; and into this, after looking at the priming and uncocking it with masculine precision, she slipped the pistol that had over-watched Cromwell’s slumbers not long ago. And his wonder grew; for, during months of intimacy with Ripley’s household, he had learned that Lady Ingilby, at usual times, was motherly, unwarlike, afraid of powder and the touch of sharpened steel. As he led her horse to the mounting-steps at the far side of the stable-yard, the lilt of tired hoofs came up the roadway. Young dawn was busy up the hills, and into the grey and rosy light rode Michael. He was not dressed for a banquet. His clothes were yellow with the clay of Marston Moor, his face disordered by wounds lately dried by the night’s east wind. But the soul of him was Michael’s—wayward and unalterable. "At your service, Lady Ingilby," he said. "I heard a donkey bray just now, and fancied it was Elizabeth, crying over milk spilled at Marston." "It was no white milk, Mr. Metcalf, by the look of you." "The thunder-rain was red in the ditches. It was a good fight, and it’s ended. So, baby Kit, we’re first to the tryst, we two. I’ve been wondering, all from Marston hitherto, whether you were dead or living." Christopher found one heartache stanched. The sense that Michael was here, instead of on the wet ground of the Moor out yonder, was vivid happiness. "Elizabeth will be glad," he said indifferently. "She was crying for you not long ago." Then he was urgent that Michael should be left here on guard, and he had his way. He borrowed the other’s horse; and, after all, Lady Ingilby was glad to have an escort through the roads. "You have news of my husband?" she asked Michael, without hope of any answer that sufficed. "None," said Michael, "save that we were in the thick of it—Kit, and he, and I—and I heard a man near me say that Ingilby was fighting as if three men’s strength were in his body." "That is no news," said the other drily. "He was ever that sort of man." When they had ridden out, she and Kit, and had come to the hollow where dog-roses and honeysuckle were blooming spendthrift to the warmer air of dawn; she turned in saddle. "Your brother spoke of coming to a tryst. What tryst?" "It was this way. Before the relief of York, it was agreed among the Riding Metcalfs that, if the battle sped, Ripley could look to its own needs. If the fight was lost, we were to come soon or syne—those left of us—to guard you."