"Oh, by the saints!" he roared; "here’s the rogue who came in last spring, pretty much in the clothes he was born in, after swimming Ouse River—the jolly rogue who swore he’d find Rupert for us."
"At your service, gentlemen—as dry as I was wet when we last encountered. Will none of you fill me a brimmer?"
Lord Newcastle, if something raw in experience of warfare and its tactics, was a great-hearted man of his world, with a lively humour and a sportsman’s relish for adventure. He filled the brimmer himself, and watched Michael drain half of it at one thirsty, pleasant gulp. "Now for your news," he said.
"Why, my lord, I pledged the Metcalf honour that we’d bring Rupert to you, and he lies no further off than Knaresborough."
"Good," laughed the Irishman. "I said you could trust a man who swore by the sword he happened not to be carrying at the moment."
"And your friend?" asked Newcastle, catching sight of Christopher, as he stood moving restlessly from foot to foot.
"Oh, just my brother—the dwarf of our company. Little, but full of meat, as our Yoredale farmers say when they bring small eggs to market. To be precise, Kit here is worth three of me. They call him the White Knight in Oxford."
So Kit in his turn drank the heady wine of praise; and then Michael, with swift return to the prose of everyday, told all he knew of Rupert’s movements, all that he had learned of the famine and dissension outside the city gates.
"The Prince bade you all be ready for the sortie when he came," he finished. "For my part, I think we might sortie now and save him the trouble of scattering these ragabouts."
"Ah, life’s a droll jade," murmured the Irishman. "We fancied they were doing fairly well out yonder, while we were cooped up here like chickens in a pen. Will you give me the sortie, my lord? The light’s waning fast."
"Ay, lead them, Malone," laughed Newcastle. "I shall be glad to give mettled colts their exercise."
The sentry at the Mills postern gate was suffering evil luck to-night. He had scarcely settled himself on his bench inside the gate, a tankard of ale beside him, and a great faith that the odds were all against his being disturbed twice in the same evening, when there came a splutter of running feet outside and a knocking on the door. Memory of the earlier guests was still with him, sharpened by the sting of aches and bruises.