"There’s nothing to be done to-night, gentles," he said, with a noisy yawn; "and, when there’s nothing to be done, I’ve found a safe and gallant rule of conduct—one sleeps. Some day, if I find the Muse propitious, I shall write an ode to sleep. It is the fabled elixir of life. It defies all fevers of the daytime; it is the coverlet that Nature spreads about her tired children. But, gentlemen, I weary you." "You make me laugh," asserted Michael. "Since I left Yoredale, I’ve met none who had your grasp of life." They settled themselves by and by to sleep, as best they could, on a wet floor, with the warmth of the new day rousing queer odours from their prison-house. There was the stealthy tread of rats about their bodies. It was Barnaby, after all, who was false to his gospel of deep slumber. At the end of half an hour he reached over and woke Michael from a thrifty dream of Yoredale and corn yellowing to harvest. "What is it?" growled Michael. "I cannot sleep, sir. You recall that, in the tavern yesterday, I confessed myself a poet. The rhymes I have made, sir, are like the sands of the sea for multitude. I was never troubled till I came to Banbury." "Then journey forward. There are other towns." "You do not understand me. Towns to be taken by assault, by any rhymes that offer, do not entice me. It is the hardship of attack that tempts your true soldier. You will grant me that?" "I’ll grant you anything, Barnaby, so long as you let me sleep on this wet floor. I dreamed I was lying on a feather-bed." "But the rhyme? You remember how the poem went: ’Here I found a Puritan one, hanging of his cat on a Monday, for killing of a mouse on a Sunday.’ A fine conceit, sir, but I can find no rhyme for _Puritan_ one, as I told you." Kit, for his part, was awake, too, and some jingle of a poem, in praise of his mistress at Ripley in the north, was heating his brain. But the lad was learning wisdom these days, and held his peace; there was no need to bring other men to Joan Grant by undue singing of her praises. "Believe me, this verse-making is a fever in the blood," protested Barnaby. "Naught serves until the rhyme is found. It is a madness, like love of a lad for a maid. There is no rhyme to Puritan." "Friend," said Michael, "I need sleep, if you do not. Remember what I said last night. Puri*tane* one—try it that way. Get your man round to the King’s cause, and he becomes a _sane one_." "But, sir——" Michael smiled happily. "We have a saying in Yoredale: ’I canna help your troubles, friend; I’ve enough of my own.’ Take it or leave it at Puri*tane* one. For myself, I’m going to sleep."