"A lover’s wind," said Rupert lightly, as a fiercer gust met them up the rise of Greet Hill. "It blows east and west, twice in the same minute."
"It blows for a big storm, your Highness," Kit answered, in all simplicity. "The belly of the hills is crammed with thunder."
"Let it break, then, if it must. Meanwhile, our clothes are dry. And, talking of lover’s weather, Master Christopher, I was entrusted with a message to you from Knaresborough. I met a lady there, as we passed through—a pretty lady, well-gowned and shod in spite of these disastrous times—and she asked me if a little six-foot youth of the Riding Metcalfs were still alive."
"But who should ask for me in Knaresborough?"
"Were there so many, then? I begin to doubt you, my White Knight."
It was later, as they neared Marston, that the Prince drew Christopher aside. He seemed to have a queer tenderness for this lad to whom life showed a face of constancy and trust. "I told Miss Bingham you were in rude health; and I break confidence, maybe, when I tell you that her eyes filled with tears. Well, forget her till after this day’s work is done."
Kit answered nothing, and showed instinctive wisdom. Miss Bingham was no more than a pleasant ghost who had nursed his weakness, and afterwards had sat beside him on the ferry-steps that dipped to the waters of Nidd River. His thoughts lately had been all of battle and of high endurance; but now, as he remembered Joan Grant and the way of her, and the primroses that had starred the lanes of his wooing time in Yoredale, he knew that he must do well at Marston Moor.
The dust and swelter of the ride grew burdensome. Boye, the hound, ran beside his master with lolling tongue.
"Never look so woebegone," laughed Rupert, leaning from saddle to pat the brute’s head. "We’re to have a glorious day, Boye, and you the luck of it."
Kit had first realised at Oxford how deeply Boye was embroiled in this war of King and Parliament. To the Royalists he was their talisman, the touchstone of success. To the enemy he was a thing accursed, the evil spirit harbouring the body of a dog; they had essayed to shoot and poison him, and found him carrying a charmed life. Their unkempt fancy ran so wild as to name him the worst Papist of the Stuart following, because he went often with Rupert to kirk, and showed great reverence in a place holy to his master. Christopher recalled how the Prince had laughed once when a friend had told him what the Roundhead gossip was. "It’s an odd charge to lay against a dog," he had said, "that he’s a better Catholic than they."