As they neared Knaresborough, Michael felt his heart beat again. The sun was free of clouds, and shone full on a town beautiful as a man’s dreams of fairyland. At the foot, Nidd River swirled; and from the stream, tier on tier, the comely houses climbed the steep cliff-face, with trees and gardens softening all its outline. It was a town to live at ease in and dream high dreams, thought Kit, until the wind of a cannon-ball lifted his hat in passing. "Ah, we begin to live," said Michael. "Your hat is doffed to the King, God bless him!" At the turn of the road they found a sortie from the garrison hemmed in by fifty odd of Fairfax’s dour Otley men. So Michael raised a shout of "A Mecca for the King," and Kit bellowed the same cry. The Fairfax men thought an attack in force had come; the sortie party—twenty of them, and all wounded—found new hope, and, when that affair was done, the Metcalfs rode with their new friends through the gateway of the town. "I give you great thanks, gentlemen," said young Phil Amory, the leader of the sortie, as the drawbridge clashed behind them. "But for you, there’d have been no Knaresborough for us again." "Oh, we happened to ride this way," laughed Michael. "Life is like that. And I’m devilish hungry, since you remind me of it." "Sir, I did not remind you. We are trying to forget our stomachs." "You have tobacco in the town?" asked Michael anxiously. "Good! It’s better than a meal. I smoked my last pipeful yesterday." "Good at the fight and the pipe," said Amory. "I like you, sir." So they came in great content—save for three of the company, whose wounds bade them grumble—to the slope that led them to the Castle gateway, and were met here by a handful of friends who were riding to relieve them. The ladies of the garrison ran down from the battlements, and Kit was dizzied by the adulation shown him by the women. They had bright eyes, these ladies, and a great longing for hero-worship in and between the tiresome hardships of the siege. Michael was at home on the instant; battle and ladies’ favours had always been his hobbies. But Kit drew apart and remembered Mistress Joan, and a mantle of surprising gravity was draped about him. There was food of a kind in the dining-hall, with its chimney wide enough to roast an ox. Something that was named beef—though the garrison knew it for cold roast dog—was on the table. There was a steaming bowl of hot-pot, and none inquired what went to strengthening the stew of honest peas and lentils. But there was wine left, as at York, and across the board hale good fellows, and good fellows who were not hale at all, pledged Christopher and Michael. It was a moment of sheer triumph for these two, for no healthy man can resist the praise of soldiers approving tried soldiers in their midst. When the toasting was done, a man in sober garments rose, lifting his glass with a queer contralto chuckle.