He explained, with a jollity almost boyish, that Banbury was notorious in Northern gossip as a hotbed of disloyalty, its folk ever on the watch to vex and hinder Oxford. So he proposed to sweep the town as clean as might be before riding forward. Soon after dawn the next day, men and horses rested, they set about the enterprise. The sentry posted furthest north of Banbury ran back to give word that the camp was astir; the soldiers and townsmen, not knowing what was in the mind of this company that had been gathering on its borders these six days past, got to arms and waited. And then they heard a roar, as it were of musketry, as the Metcalfs gave their rally-call of "A Mecca for the King!" There was no withstanding these men. They had more than bulk and good horses at their service. The steadfastness that had brought them south, the zeal that was like wine in their veins, made them one resistless whole that swept the street. Then they turned about, swept back again, took blows and gave them. The Banbury men were stubborn. They took the footman’s privilege, when matched against cavalry, of trying to stab the horses; but the Metcalfs loved the white horses a little better than themselves, and those who made an essay of the kind repented it. At the end of it Squire Metcalf had Banbury at command. "We can breakfast now, friends," he said, the sweat streaming from his jolly face. "I told you we could well afford to wait." His happy-go-lucky prophecy found quick fulfilment. Not only was the place rich in the usual good food dear to the Puritans, but it happened that the wives of the town had baked overnight a plentiful supply of the cakes which were to give Banbury its enduring fame. "They’re good cakes," laughed the Squire of Nappa. "Eh, lads, if only Banbury loyalty had the same crisp flavour!" *CHAPTER XII.* *PAGEANTRY.* Oxford was keeping holiday. The Queen, sure that her husband was facing trouble at too short a range, persuaded him—for her own pleasure, she asserted—to hold a pageant in a field on the outskirts of the city. It was good, she said, that well-looking cavaliers should have a chance of preening their feathers until this dull waiting-time was over—good that tired ladies of the Court should get away from men’s jealousies and wrangles, and air their graces. So a masque had been written and arranged within a week, the zest in it running side by side with the constant expectation of the Metcalfs’ coming.