"Oh, we’ll not quarrel, Kit. There’ll be another face for me at the next town we ride through. There are more swans than one, and all turn geese in later life." Squire Mecca, hearing high words from the rear, rode back to learn what the uproar was about. "So you’re at your brawling again, Michael?" he roared. "No, sir. I was wishing Kit good luck for the lady’s favour he is wearing in his hat." "You’re a smooth-tongued rascal! As for you, Kit, lady’s favours can bide till we’re through with this rough work. Moonshine is pretty enough when the day’s over, but the day is just beginning." They rode by way of Tockwith village, long and straggling, and forward over a heath studded thick with gorse and brambles, and set about with black, sullen wastes of bog. Squire Metcalf, for all his hardihood, was full of superstition, as most folk are who have good wits and healthy souls. A little wind—of the sort named "thin" in Yoredale—blew over Marston Moor, chilling the warm sunlight. "There’s a crying in the wind," he said, turning to Kit, who was riding at his bridle-hand. "I trust it’s sobbing for the end of all foul traitors to the King." *CHAPTER VI.* *HOW MICHAEL CAME TO YORK.* They crossed the moor, and so, through Long Marston, made forward on the York road till they reached a hamlet three miles from the city. Here they captured a shepherd, known to the country speech as "an old, ancient man," who was driving a flock of ewes from a neighbouring pasture. They asked him if he knew anything of the to-and-froing of the Parliament troops. "I’ve seen a moil o’ horsemen scummering out to York for three days past. But they asked me no questions, and so I asked them none. Reckoned they were riding to a hunt. Gentlefolk must fill up their time, one way or another." "But, man," snapped old Metcalf, "d’ye live so close to York and not know there’s war between King and Parliament?" "Nay. I’ve been tending sheep. Have they fallen out, like, King and Parliament? Well, let ’em fratch, say I. I’m a simple man myself, with ewes to tend." Squire Metcalf broke into that big laugh of his that seemed to set the world to rights. "Forward, Mecca lads!" he said. "We’ve ewes to tend ourselves; but, bless you, this shepherd brings a wind from Yoredale to us." A half-mile further on they met a company of Fairfax’s horse, foraging for meat and drink. There were fifty of them, and the Metcalfs went through them like a sickle cutting through the bearded corn. Ten were killed, and they let all but one of the retreating forty go. From him, before they freed him, they learned that it was unwise to venture further than a mile on the York road, unless they wished to try conclusions with outposts of the Scots at Micklegate. "One of us must find a way into York Castle," said the Squire, calling a council of war about him.