Again she resented his young, hot mastery, peeping out through the bondage she had woven round him. "To wear at your heart? But, Kit, you have not proved your right to wear it. Come back from slaying Roundheads, and ask for it again." Blake, the messenger, meanwhile, had been fidgeting about the Nappa garden, wondering what was meant by the absence of all men from house and fields. His appetite, too, was sharpened by a sound night’s sleep. Remembering the well-filled table indoors, he turned about, then checked himself with a laugh. Even rough-riding gentry could not break fast until the host arrived. Presently, far down the road, he heard the lilt of horse-hoofs moving swiftly and in tune. The uproar grew, till round the bend of the way he saw what the meaning of it was. Big men on big white horses came following the Squire of Nappa up the rise. All who could gather in the courtyard reined up; the rest of the hundred and twenty halted in the lane. They had rallied to the muster with surprising speed, these men of Yoredale. All that the messenger had suffered already for the cause, all that he was willing to suffer later on, were forgotten. Here were volunteers for the King—and, faith, what cavaliers they were! And the big men, striding their white horses, liked him the better because his heart showed plainly in his face. The messenger laughed suddenly, standing to the the height of five-foot-six that was all Providence had given him. "Gentlemen," he said, with the music of galloping horses in his voice, "gentlemen, the King!" The Squire and he, after they had breakfasted, and the mistress had carried the stirrup-cup from one horseman to another, rode forward together on the track that led to Skipton. For a mile they went in silence. The Squire of Nappa was thinking of his wife, and youngsters of the Metcalf clan were thinking of maids who had lately glamoured them in country lanes. Then the lilt of hoof-beats, the call of the open hazard, got into their blood. A lad passed some good jest, till it ran along the company like fire through stubble; and after that each man rode blithely, as if it were his wedding-day. A mile further on they saw a little lady gathering autumn flowers from the high bank bordering the road. She had spent a restless night on Kit’s account, had he known it, and was early abroad struggling with many warring impulses. The Squire, who loved Christopher, knew what the lad most needed now. He drew rein sharply. "Men of Nappa, salute!" he cried, his voice big and hearty as his body. Joan Grant, surprised in the middle of a love-dream, saw a hundred and twenty men lifting six-foot pikes to salute her. The stress of it was so quick and overwhelming that it braced her for the moment. She took the salute with grace and a smile that captured these rough-riding gentry. Then, with odd precision, she dropped her kerchief under the nose of Kit’s horse.