He was losing himself in a daydream, when a musket-ball, fired from the city wall, whizzed so close to his cheek that he put a hand up, thinking he had taken a wound. So then he took his cart to the rear of the camp, got the donkey out of harness and picketed it. The soldiery were digging trenches or taking their ease, some reading Bibles, others passing lumbering jests with the women who attend on every camp. He passed among them unheeded, and went the round of York, seeking some way of entry. He saw none, till in the dusk of the April evening he found himself on the river-bank near the grey old bridge. With all his random handling of life, Michael had this in common with the Riding Metcalfs—he answered always to the high call of trust. He was pledged to his folk to make an entry somehow into York, and pass on his message. One way or another he must do it. As he stood there, the lap-lap and gurgle of the river began to thread itself into his thoughts. There must be some road into York—that was the burden of Ouse river’s song. And then the thing grew clear. The way into York was here beside him. He doffed coat and boots, dived in, and came up to the top of the roaring current just under the grey bridge. The stream was strong, but so were his arms, thickened by plough-work, field-sports, and many swims in the deep pool of Yore that lay beneath his home at Nappa. He struck out for the left bank, found it, stepped up the muddy foreshore. When he gained the roadway up above, a sentry came bustling through the April moonlight and challenged him. "A Mecca for the King goes here!" laughed Michael, in high good spirits after his battle with the river. "That’s not the password," said the other, fingering his pike. "It’s all you’ll get, friend. I seek my Lord Newcastle." The sentry, his wits none too sharp at any time, was bewildered by this huge man who had come dripping from the river, this man who talked of the King and my Lord Newcastle. As he halted, Michael rushed forward and snatched his pike from him. "My lord’s lodging—where is it?" he asked, with his big, easy-going air. "Your pike in return for the news. And, by the word of a Mecca, I’ll come back and drown you in the river if you lie to me." The sentry began to surmise that this man was not human, but a ghost risen from the stream that flowed over many dead. Moreover, it was death to him to-morrow if he were found without his weapon at the change of sentry. So he directed Michael to the house where Lord Newcastle was lodged, took the pike in his hands again, and spent a chilly vigil by the river until relief came from his duty for the night.