Guided half by the music of her voice, half by recollection of the spot where he had picketed her, he found the donkey. Two hundred yards or so behind he heard the restless clamour of the besieging camp. In front was the open country. In the moonlight Michael and the donkey regarded each other gravely. "I came back for you, old sinner," he explained. The brute seemed to understand him, and put a cool snout into his hand. "I had a thought of riding you," went on Michael, pursuing his heedless mood, "but consider the stride of my legs. We’ll just have to jog forward on our six feet, you and I." Michael had a sound knowledge of any country he had trodden once, and came without mishap or loss of route to the clump of woodland where his people waited for him. Old Squire Metcalf, as he went out to meet him, broke into a roar of laughter. "Here’s Michael and one of the company he’s wont to keep." "True, sir," assented Michael. "Look after this friend of mine; she has had little to eat to-day, and I begin to love her." For an hour they could not persuade him to tell them what he had learned in York. All his kinsmen’s misunderstanding of him in old days—their distrust of the one man among them, except Christopher, who asked more than the routine of every day—came to a head. He was like the donkey he had brought back from York—answerable to discipline, if it came by way of sympathy and quiet persuasion. The Squire understood this scapegrace son of his better than he thought. "There, you’ll bear no grudge, lad," he said, with quick compunction. "I only jested." There was a look in Michael’s face that none of them had seen there in the old days. "Was it a jest, sir?" "A jest. No more." "Then I’ll tell you what I learned at York. The Roundheads have eaten bare the countryside. Their leaders are at variance. Within the city the garrison is eating horseflesh, and little of that. Lord Newcastle bade me give you the one message. Find Rupert, and bring him here to raise the siege. That is the message." "Then we’ve work to do," said the Squire. "_I_ have work to do," put in Michael peremptorily. "I took the hazard, sir. See you, the business would be noised abroad if six-score of us went galloping across to Lancashire, or to Oxford, wherever he may be. I pledge myself to find Rupert and to bring him." "Since when did you find gravity?" asked the Squire testily. Then Michael laughed, but not as he had done of yore. "Since I found my comrade and bought her for two guineas, with some market produce thrown into the bargain. Our folk will see to the welfare of this donkey, sir? She’s our luck." An hour later, as he was getting to horse, he saw Christopher come through the clump of woodland. "What did you learn in York, Michael?" he asked.