Into the middle of it all came two horsewomen; and to Kit, seeing the well-known horses, it was as if a breath of Yoredale and the spring came to him. He knew the old men, too, who guarded the horse-women, front and rear. Under his gladness went an uneasy feeling that yesterday’s hard riding and hard lighting, or Drinkwater’s ale, or both, had rendered him light-headed. It was not possible that she could be here in Ripley. Joan Grant was tired of the uneventful journey, tired of her maid Pansy, whose tongue ran like a brook. "This should be Ripley, at long-last," she said fretfully. "Tell me, girl, am I grey-headed yet? It seems a lifetime since the morning." Pansy, looking through the right-hand window of the coach, saw a tavern-front, its windows soft with candle-light. On the bench in front of it, lit by the ruddy gloaming, was a man bound with ropes, a man who threw gibe for gibe at a company of Ripley’s cowards who baited him. "He carries no knight’s air just now," said Pansy, with a bubble of laughter; "but it was not for naught I found that stirrup-iron at the gate this morning." Joan Grant looked, and, seeing Kit there, friendless and courageous, she felt a quickening of the wayward thing she called her heart. She got down from the carriage, and stepped to the bench that stood under the inn wall; then, seeing the welcome in Kit’s eyes—a welcome near to adoration—she withdrew a little. "So this comes of riding for the King?" she asked, with high disdain. And something stirred in Christopher—a new fire, a rebellion against the glamour that had put his manhood into leading-strings. "If this comes, or worse, I’m glad to ride for the King," he said. "If I loosed your hands and bade you take a seat in my coach——" "I should not take it; there is other work to do." Joan, under the smart of the rebuff, was pleased with this man of hers. Something had happened to him since yesterday. He was no longer the uncouth boy, thinking he could have the moon by asking for it. "You’re rough and uncivil, sir." "I am. These lambs of the Parliament are teaching me new manners." She bowed carelessly, drew her skirts away from the litter of the roadway, and went perhaps ten paces toward her carriage. Then she turned. "I can be of no service to you, then?" she asked coldly. His face grew eager, but not with the eagerness that had pleased and affronted her just now; and he tried to beckon her nearer, forgetting that his hands were tied. She guessed his meaning, and came to his side again; and this time she began cutting at his bonds with a knife borrowed from her coachman; but the villagers intervened, saying they dared not be party to the venture. "Yes, you can be of service," he whispered, when the onlookers had given back again, leaving them to what they fancied was a lovers’ leave-taking. "Lady Ingilby lives close by—it will scarcely be out of your way to take a message to her."