In the north ride, speed and road-dust under the gallop; in the canny muster toward the south, a pace of tiresome slowness. "How long since we came in, Christopher and I?" asked Michael. "Six days," said Rupert. "They’s been leaden days for me, and so I counted them." "Then look for our folk to-morrow, somewhere between dawn and sunset." On the northern road, beyond Banbury, there had been a steady muster of the Metcalfs day by day. Blake, the night-rider, watched the incoming of these northern men—each day a score of them, big on their white horses—with wonder and a keen delight. Those already mustered were so sure of the next day’s company; and these, when they rode in, carried the same air of buoyancy, of man-like hardihood and child-like trust. A new, big dream was stirring round Blake’s heart. Six days ago he had lain awake and heard two sentries talk of Miss Bingham, of the coquetry she practised still in Knaresborough, and his old wound had opened. He had staunched the bleeding with prompt skill; and now his heart was aching, not for fripperies over and done with, but for the thing that Oxford was to see, if all went well. He had ridden out to spur the first Metcalf forward with his message to the north. He would bring this gallant company into the city—he, small of body, used only to the plaudits of barn-owls and farmhouse dogs as he galloped over hill and dale on lonely errands—he would come into the full sunlight of Oxford’s High Street with the stalwarts he had gathered in. There’s no stimulus so fine as a dream nurtured in good soil. Blake went foraging by day, taking his share of other camp work, too; and, when his sleep was earned o’ nights, he lay watching the stars instead and pictured this good entry into Oxford. The dream sufficed him; and, unless a man can feel the dream suffices, he might as well go chewing pasture-grass with other sleepy cattle. On the sixth evening, when a grey heat-mist was hiding the sun an hour before his time, the last of the Metcalfs came in, the old Squire of Nappa at their head. And Blake put a question to the Squire, after they had known each other half an hour—a question that none of the others had known how to answer, though he had asked it often. "We have had excursions and alarms from Banbury, sir—a few skirmishes that taught them the cost of too great inquisitiveness—and I asked your folk why we gathered here, instead of skirting a town so pestilent." "They did not tell you," chuckled the Squire, "because they could not, sir. I am used to asking for obedience. My lads learn the reason later on. But you shall know. I shall never forget, Mr. Blake, that it was you who brought me in my old age to the rarest frolic I ever took part in."