He stooped sharply and picked it up at the end of his pike. "A good omen, lads!" he cried. "White horses—and the white kerchief for the King!" Then it was forward again; and Joan, looking after them, was aware that already her knight was in the making. And then she fell into a flood of tears, because women are made up of storm and sun, like the queer northern weather. *CHAPTER II.* *SKIPTON-IN-CRAVEN.* "It’s a pity about that corn o’ mine, all the same," said the Squire, with a last backward thought. "There never was such a harvest year, since back into the ’twenties." "There’ll be such a harvest year, I trust," laughed Blake, "as will bring more like you to the King. I would that every dale of the north gave us a company like yours—men and horses riding as if they’d been reared together from the cradle. I tell you sir, Prince Rupert would enrol you all at sight, if there were not more urgent need for you at Skipton." "As a plain man to a plain man, what does the King ask of us?" asked the Squire of Nappa. "Mr. Lambert, you say, is laying siege to Skipton. He should know better. I knew him as a lad, when he lived out yonder at Calton-in-Craven, and he had naught in common with these thick-headed rogues who are out against the King. He’s of the gentry, and always will be." "He has lost his way in the dark, then," said the other drily. "He’s training his cannon on Skipton Castle as if he liked the enterprise." "So you want us to ride through Lambert’s men and into the castle to help garrison it?" asked Squire Metcalf, with his big simplicity, his assurance that the men he led would charge through any weight of odds. "Heaven save us, no! The governor has enough men to feed already, men of usual size; your little company would eat up his larder in a week." "We _have_ fairish appetites," the Squire admitted. "Big sacks need a lot of filling, as the saying goes. Still, you said the King wanted us, and we’ve left a fine harvest to rot where it stands." The messenger captured a happiness he had not known for many days. There were no shams about this Squire. In all sincerity he believed that King Charles had personal and urgent need of him; he asked simply what it was the King commanded. It was so remote, this honesty, from the intrigues of those who fought for places in the Court, and named it loyalty, that the messenger was daunted for a moment. "You are a big company, sir," he said, turning briskly round in saddle; "but you seem oddly undivided in loyalty to the King and one another. Strike one Metcalf, or do him a kindness, and six-score men will repay in kind. You have the gipsy creed, my friends." "Ay, we’re close and trusty. It seems you know the way of us Nappa folk, though I never set eyes on you till yesterday."