The Metcalfs, when they said farewell, and he asked where they were lodging for the night, did not explain that they had come in a carrier’s cart to Oxford, without ceremony and entirely without change of gear. They just went out into the street, wandered for an hour among the scent of lilacs, then found a little tavern that seemed in keeping with their own simplicity. The host asked proof of their respectability, and they showed him many guineas, convincing him that they were righteous folk. Thereafter they slept as tired men do, without back reckonings or fear of the insistent morrow. Once only Kit awoke and tapped his brother on the shoulder. "They’ll be here in seven days, Michael," he said, and immediately began to snore. *CHAPTER X.* *THE RIDING IN.* Through the quiet lanes Blake, the messenger, rode out to Banbury. Nightingales were singing through the dusk; stars were blinking at him from a sky of blue and purple; a moth blundered now and then against his face. He understood the beauty of the gloaming, though he seemed to have no time to spare for it. Prince Rupert had sent him spurring with a message to the big rider of a white horse, who was to be found somewhere on the road leading from the north to Banbury; and the password was "A Mecca for the King." That was his business on the road. But, as he journeyed, a strange pain of heart went with him. The nightingales were singing, and God knew that he had forgotten love-songs long ago, or had tried to. Spring, and the rising sap, and the soft, cool scents of eventide are magical to those climbing up the hill of dreams; to those who have ceased to climb, they are echoes of a fairyland once lived in, but now seen from afar. It had all been so long ago. Skirmish and wounds, and lonely rides in many weathers, should have dug a grave deep enough for memories to lie in; but old ghosts rose to-night, unbidden. If it had been his sinning, he could have borne the hardship better; he had the old knightly faith—touched with extravagance, but haloed by the Further Light—that all women are sacrosanct. If he had failed—well, men were rough and headstrong; but it was she who had stooped to meaner issues. And it was all so long ago that it seemed absurd the nightingales should make his heart ache like a child’s.