Mistress Wilding Page 13

  CHAPTER XIII. "PRO RELIGIONE ET LIBERTATE"

  The evening was far advanced when Mr. Wilding and his two companionsdescended to Uplyme Common from the heights whence as they rode they hadcommanded a clear view of the fair valley of the Axe, lying now under athin opalescent veil of evening mist.

  They had paused at Ilminster for fresh horses, and there Wilding hadpaid a visit to one of his agents from whom he had procured a hundredguineas. Thence they had come south at a sharp pace, and with littlesaid. Wilding was moody and thoughtful, filled with chagrin at thisunconscionable rashness of the man upon whom all his hopes were centred.As they cantered briskly across Uplyme Common in the twilight theypassed several bodies of countrymen, all heading for the town, and onegroup sent up a shout of "God save the Protestant Duke!" as they rodepast him.

  "Amen to that," muttered Mr. Wilding grimly, "for I am afraid that noman can."

  In the narrow lane by Hay Farm a horseman, going in the oppositedirection, passed them at the gallop; but they had met several suchsince leaving Ilminster, for indeed the news was spreading fast, and thewhole countryside was alive with messengers, some on foot and some onhorseback, but all hurrying as if their lives depended on their haste.

  They made their way to the Market-Place where Monmouth'sdeclaration--that remarkable manifesto from the pen of Ferguson--hadbeen read some hours before. Thence, having ascertained where His Gracewas lodged, they made their way to the George Inn.

  In Coombe Street they found the crowd so dense that they could but withdifficulty open out a way for their horses through the human press.Not a window but was open, and thronged with sight-seers--mostly women,indeed, for the men were in the press below. On every hand resounded thecries of "A Monmouth! A Monmouth! The Protestant Religion! Religion andLiberty," which latter were the words inscribed on the standard Monmouthhad set up that evening on the Church Cliffs.

  In truth, Wilding was amazed at what he saw, and said as much toTrenchard. So pessimistic had been his outlook that he had almostexpected to find the rebellion snuffed out by the time they reachedLyme-of-the-King. What had the authorities been about that they hadpermitted Monmouth to come ashore, or had Vallancey's information beenwrong in the matter of the numbers that accompanied the ProtestantChampion? Wilding's red coat attracted some attention. In the dusk itscolour was almost all that could be discerned of it.

  "Here's a militia captain for the Duke!" cried one, and others took upthe cry, and if it did nothing else it opened a way for them throughthat solid human mass and permitted them to win through to the yard ofthe George Inn. They found the spacious quadrangle thronged with men,armed and unarmed, and on the steps stood a tall, well-knit, soldierlyman, his hat rakishly cocked, about whom a crowd of townsmen andcountry fellows were pressing with insistence. At a glance Mr. Wildingrecognized Captain Venner--raised to the rank of colonel by Monmouth onthe way from Holland.

  Trenchard dismounted, and taking a distracted stable-boy by the arm,bade him see to their horses. The fellow endeavoured to swing himselffree of the other's tenacious grasp.

  "Let me go," he cried. "I am for the Duke!"

  "And so are we, my fine rebel," answered Trenchard, holding fast.

  "Let me go," the lout insisted. "I am going to enlist."

  "And so you shall when you have stabled our nags. See to him, Vallancey;he is brainsick with the fumes of war."

  The fellow protested, but Trenchard's way was brisk and short; and so,protesting still, he led away their cattle in the end, Vallancey goingwith him to see that he performed this last duty as a stable-boy ere hetoo became a champion militant of the Protestant Cause. Trenchard spedafter Wilding, who was elbowing his way through the yokels about thesteps. The glare of a newly lighted lamp from the doorway fell full uponhis long white face as he advanced, and Venner espied and recognizedhim.

  "Mr. Wilding!" he cried, and there was a glad ring in his voice,for though cobblers, tailors, deserters from the militia, pot-boys,stable-boys, and shuffling yokels had been coming in in numbers duringthe past few hours since the Declaration had been read, this was thefirst gentleman that arrived to welcome Monmouth. The soldier stretchedout a hand to grasp the newcomer's. "His Grace will see you thisinstant, not a doubt of it." He turned and called down the passage."Cragg!" A young man in a buff coat came forward, and to him Vennerdelivered Wilding and Trenchard that he might announce them to HisGrace.

  In the room that had been set apart for him abovestairs, Monmouth stillsat at table. He had just supped, with but an indifferent appetite,so fevered was he by the events of his landing. He was excited withhope--inspired by the readiness with which the men of Lyme and itsneighbourhood had flocked to his banner--and fretted by anxiety thatnone of the gentry of the vicinity should yet have followed the exampleof the meaner folk, in answer to the messages dispatched at dawn fromSeaton. The board at which he sat was still cumbered with some glassesand platters and vestiges of his repast. Below him on his right satFerguson--that prince of plotters--very busy with pen and ink, his keenface almost hidden by his great periwig; opposite were Lord Grey, ofWerke, and Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun, whilst, standing at the foot ofthe table barely within the circle of candlelight from the branch on thepolished oak, was Nathaniel Wade, the lawyer, who had fled to Hollandon account of his alleged complicity in the Rye House plot and was nowreturned a major in the Duke's service. Erect and soldierly of figure,girt with a great sword and with the butt of a pistol protruding fromhis belt, he had little the air of a man whose methods of contentionwere forensic.

  "You understand, then, Major Wade," His Grace was saying, his voicepleasant and musical. "It is decided that the guns had best be gotashore forthwith and mounted."

  Wade bowed. "I shall set about it at once, Your Grace. I shall not wantfor help. Have I Your Grace's leave to go?"

  Monmouth nodded, and as Wade passed out, Ensign Cragg entered toannounce Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard. The Duke rose to his feet, hisglance suddenly brightening. Fletcher and Grey rose with him; Fergusonpaid no heed, absorbed in his task, which he industriously continued.

  "At last!" exclaimed the Duke. "Admit them, sir."

  When they entered, Wilding coming first, his hat under his arm, the Dukesprang to meet him, a tall young figure, lithe and slender as a blade ofsteel, and of a steely strength for all his slimness. He was dressed ina suit of purple that became him marvellously well, and on his breast astar of diamonds flashed and smouldered like a thing of fire. He wasof an exceeding beauty of face, wherein he mainly favoured that "bold,handsome woman" that was his mother, without, however, any of hismother's insipidity; fine eyes, a good nose, straight and slender, anda mouth which, if sensual and indicating a lack of strength, wasbeautifully shaped. His chin was slightly cleft, the shape of his facea delicate oval, framed now in the waving masses of his brown wig. Somelikeness to his late Majesty was also discernible, in spite of the wart,out of which his uncle James made so much capital.

  There was a slight flush on his cheeks, an added lustre in his eye, ashe took Wilding's hand and shook it heartily before Wilding had time tokiss His Grace's.

  "You are late," he said, but there was no reproach in his voice. "We hadlooked to find you here when we came ashore. You had my letter?"

  "I had not, Your Grace," answered Wilding, very grave. "It was stolen."

  "Stolen?" cried the Duke, and behind him Grey pressed forward, whilsteven Ferguson paused in his writing to raise his piercing eyes andlisten.

  "It is no matter," Wilding reassured him. "Although stolen, it has butgone to Whitehall to-day, when it can add little to the news that isalready on its way there."

  The Duke laughed softly, with a flash of white teeth, and looked pastWilding at Trenchard. Some of the light faded out of his eyes. "Theytold me Mr. Trenchard..." he began, when Wilding, half turning to hisfriend, explained.

  "This is Mr. Nicholas Trenchard--John Trenchard's cousin.

  "I bid you welcome, sir," said the Duke, very agreeably, "and I trustyour cousi
n follows you."

  "Alas," said Trenchard, "my cousin is in France," and in a few briefwords he related the matter of John Trenchard's home-coming on hisacquittal and the trouble there had been connected with it.

  The Duke received the news in silence. He had expected good support fromold Speke's son-in-law. Indeed, there was a promise that when he came,John Trenchard would bring fifteen hundred men from Taunton. He took aturn in the room deep in thought, and there was a pause until Ferguson,rubbing his great Roman nose, asked suddenly had Mr. Wilding seen theDeclaration. Mr. Wilding had not, and thereupon the plotting parson, whowas proud of his composition, would have read it to him there and then,but that Grey sourly told him the matter would keep, and that they hadother things to discuss with Mr. Wilding.

  This the Duke himself confirmed, stating that there were matters onwhich he would be glad to have their opinion.

  He invited the newcomers to draw chairs to the table; glasses werecalled for, and a couple of fresh bottles of Canary went round theboard. The talk was desultory for a few moments, whilst Wilding andTrenchard washed the dust from their throats; then Monmouth broke theice by asking them bluntly what they thought of his coming thus, earlierthan was at first agreed.

  Wilding never hesitated in his reply. "Frankly, Your Grace," said he, "Ilike it not at all."

  Fletcher looked up sharply, his clear intelligent eyes full uponWilding's calm face, his countenance expressing as little as didWilding's. Ferguson seemed slightly taken aback. Grey's thick lips weretwisted in a sneering smile.

  "Faith," said the latter with elaborate sarcasm, "in that case it onlyremains for us to ship again, heave anchor, and back to Holland."

  "It is what I should advise," said Wilding slowly and quietly, "if Ithought there was a chance of my advice being taken." He had a calm,almost apathetic way of uttering startling things which rendered themdoubly startling. The sneer seemed to freeze on Lord Grey's lips;Fletcher continued to stare, but his eyes had grown more round; Fergusonscowled darkly. The Duke's boyish face--it was still very youthfuldespite his six-and-thirty years--expressed a wondering consternation.He looked at Wilding, and from Wilding to the others, and his glanceseemed to entreat them to suggest an answer to him. It was Grey at lastwho took the matter up.

  "You shall explain your meaning, sir, or we must hold you a traitor," heexclaimed.

  "King James does that already," answered Wilding with a quiet smile.

  "D'ye mean the Duke of York?" rumbled Ferguson's Scottish accent withstartling suddenness, and Monmouth nodded approval of the correction."If ye mean that bloody papist and fratricide, it were well so to speakof him. Had ye read the Declaration..."

  But Fletcher cropped his speech in mid-growth. He was ever ashort-tempered man, intolerant of irrelevancies.

  "It were well, perhaps," said he, his accent abundantly proclaiming hima fellow countryman of Ferguson's, "to keep to the matter before us. Mr.Wilding, no doubt, will state the reasons that exist, or that he fanciesmay exist, for giving advice which is hardly worthy of the cause towhich he stands committed."

  "Aye, Fletcher," said Monmouth, "there is sense in you. Tell us what isin your mind, Mr. Wilding."

  "It is in my mind, Your Grace, that this invasion is rash, premature,and ill-advised."

  "Odds life!" cried Grey, and he swung angrily round fully to face theDuke, the nostrils of his heavy nose dilating. "Are we to listen to thismilksop prattle?"

  Nick Trenchard, who had hitherto been silent, cleared his throat sonoisily that he drew all eyes to himself.

  "Your Grace," Mr. Wilding pursued, his air calm and dignified, andgathering more dignity from the circumstance that he proceeded as ifthere had been no interruption, "when I had the honour of conferringwith you at The Hague two months ago, it was agreed that you shouldspend the summer in Sweden--away from politics and scheming, leavingthe work of preparation to your accredited agents here. That work I havebeen slowly but surely pushing forward. It was not to be hurried; men ofposition are not to be won over in a day; men with anything to lose needsome guarantee that they are not wantonly casting their possessions tothe winds. By next spring, as was agreed, all would have been ready.Delay could not have hurt you. Indeed, with every day by which youdelayed your coming you did good service to your cause, you strengthenedits prospects of success; for every day the people's burden ofoppression and persecution grows more heavy, and the people's tempermore short; every day, by the methods that he is pursuing, King Jamesbrings himself into deeper hatred. This hatred is spreading. It wasthe business of myself and those others to help it on, until from thecottage of the ploughman the infection of anger should have spreadto the mansion of the squire. Had Your Grace but given me time, asI entreated you, and as you promised me, you might have marched toWhitehall with scarce the shedding of a drop of blood; had Your Gracebut waited until we were ready, England would have so trembled at yourlanding that your uncle's throne would have toppled over 'neath theshock. As it is..." He shrugged his shoulders, sighed and spread hishands, leaving his sentence uncompleted.

  Monmouth sat sobered by these sober words; the intoxication that hadcome to him from the little measure of success that had attended theopening of the listing on Church Cliffs, deserted him now; he saw thething stark and in its true proportions, and not even the shouting ofthe folk in the streets below, crying his name and acclaiming him theirchampion, served to lighten the gloom that Wilding's words cast likea cloud over his volatile heart. Alas, poor Monmouth! He was ever aweathercock, and even as Wilding's words seemed to strike the courageout of him, so did Grey's short contemptuous answer restore it.

  "As it is, we'll thrust that throne over with our hands," said he aftera moment's pause.

  "Aye," cried Monmouth. "We'll do it, God helping us!"

  "Our dependence and trust is in the Lord of Hosts, in Whose Name wego forth," boomed the voice of Ferguson, quoting from his preciousDeclaration. "The Lord will do that which seemeth good unto Him."

  "An unanswerable argument," said Wilding, smiling. "But the Lord, I amtold by the gentlemen of your cloth, works in His own good time, and myfears are all lest, finding us unprepared of ourselves, the Lord's goodtime be not yet."

  "Out on ye, sir," cried Ferguson. "Ye want for reverence!"

  "Common sense will serve us better at the moment," answered Wildingwith a touch of sharpness. He turned to the frowning and perplexedDuke--whose mind was being tossed this way and that, like a shuttlecockupon the battledore of these men's words. "Your Grace," he said,"forgive me that I speak it if hear it you will, or forbid me to say itif your resolve is unalterable in this matter."

  "It is unalterable," answered Grey for the Duke.

  But Monmouth gently overruled him for once.

  "Nevertheless, speak by all means, Mr. Wilding. Whatever you may say,you need have no fear that any of us can doubt your good intentions toourselves."

  "I thank Your Grace. What I have to say is but a repetition of thefirst words I uttered at this table. I would urge Your Grace even now toretreat."

  "What? Are you mad?" It was Lord Grey who asked the impatient question.

  "I doubt it's over-late for that," said Fletcher slowly.

  "I am not so sure," answered Wilding. "But I am sure that to attempt itwere the safer course--the surer in the end. I myself may not lingerto push forward the task of stirring up the people, for I am alreadysomething more than under suspicion. But there are others who willremain to carry on the work after I have departed with Your Grace, ifYour Grace thinks well. From the Continent by correspondence we canmature our plans. In a twelvemonth things will be very different, and wecan return with confidence."

  Grey shrugged and turned his shoulder upon Wilding, but said no word.There was silence of some few moments. Andrew Fletcher leaned his elbowon the table and took his brow in his great bony hand. Wilding's wordsseemed an echo of those he himself had spoken a week or two ago, only tobe overruled by Grey, who swayed the Duke more than did any other--andthat he did no
t do so of fell purpose, and seeking deliberately to workMonmouth's ruin, no man will ever be able to say with certainty.

  Ferguson rose, a tall, spare, stooping figure, and smote the board withhis fist. "It is a good cause," he cried, "and God will not leave usunless we leave Him."

  "Henry the Seventh landed with fewer men than did Your Grace," saidGrey, "and he succeeded."

  "True," put in Fletcher. "But Henry the Seventh was sure of the supportof not a few of the nobility, which does not seem to be our case."

  Ferguson and Grey stared at him in horror; Monmouth sat biting his lip,more bewildered than thoughtful.

  "O man of little faith!" roared Ferguson in a passion. "Are ye to beswayed like a straw in the wind?"

  "I am no' swayed. Ye ken this was ever my own view. I feel, in my heart,that what Mr. Wilding says is right. It is but what I said myself, andCaptain Matthews with me, before we embarked upon this expedition. Wewere in danger of ruining all by a needless precipitancy. Nay, man,never stare so," he said to Grey, "I am in it now and I am no' the manto draw back, nor do I go so far as Mr. Wilding in counselling such acourse. We've set our hands to the plough; let us go forward in God'sname. Yet I would remind you that what Mr. Wilding says is true. Hadwe waited until next year, we had found the usurper's throne totteringunder him, and, on our landing, it would have toppled o'er of itself."

  "I have said already that we'll overset it with our hands," Greyanswered.

  "How many hands have you?" asked a new voice, a crisp, discordant voice,much steeped in mockery. It was Nick Trenchard's.

  "Have we another here of Mr. Wilding's mind?" cried Grey, staring athim.

  "I am seldom of any other," answered Trenchard.

  "We shall no' want for hands," Ferguson assured him. "Had ye arrivedearlier ye might have seen how readily men enlisted." He had risen andapproached the window as he spoke; he pulled it open, to let in the fullvolume of sound that rose from the street below.

  "A Monmouth! A Monmouth!" voices shouted.

  Ferguson struck a theatrical posture, one long, lean arm stretchedoutward from the shoulder.

  "Ye hear them, sirs," he cried, and there was a gleam of triumph in hiseye. "That is answer enough to those who want for faith, to the fecklessones that think the Lord will abandon those that have set out to serveHim," and his glance comprehended Fletcher, Trenchard, and Wilding.

  The Duke stirred in his chair, stretched a hand for the bottle andfilled a glass. His mercurial spirits were rising again. He smiled atWilding.

  "I think you are answered, sir," said he; "and I hope that like Fletcherthere, who shared your doubts, you will come to agree that since we haveset our hands to the plough we must go forward."

  "I have said that which I had it on my conscience to say. Your Grace mayhave found me over-ready with my counsel; at least you shall find me noless ready with my sword."

  "Odso! That is better." Grey applauded, and his manner was almostpleasant.

  "I never doubted it, Mr. Wilding," His Grace replied; "but I should liketo hear you say that you are convinced--at least in part," and hewaved his hand towards the window. It was almost as if he pleaded forencouragement. In common with most men who came in contact with Wilding,he had felt the latent force of this man's nature, the strength that washidden under that calm surface, and the acuteness of the judgment thatmust be wedded to it. He longed to have the word of such a man that hisenterprise was not as desperate as Wilding had seemed at first to paintit. But Wilding made no concession to hopes or desires when he dealtwith facts.

  "Men will flock to you, no doubt; persecution has wearied many of thecountry-folk, and they are ready for revolt. But they are all untrainedin arms; they are rustics, not soldiers. If any of the men of positionwere to rally round your standard they would bring the militia, andothers in their train; they would bring arms, horses, and money, all ofwhich Your Grace must be sorely needing."

  "They will come," answered the Duke.

  "Some, no doubt," Wilding agreed; "but had it been next year, I wouldhave answered for it that it would have been no handful had ridden into welcome you. Scarce a gentleman of Devon or Somerset, of Dorset orHampshire, of Wiltshire or Cheshire but would have hastened to yourside."

  "They will come as it is," the Duke repeated with an almost womanishinsistence, persisting in believing what he hoped, all evidence apart.

  The door opened and Ensign Cragg made his appearance. "May it pleaseYour Grace," he announced, "Mr. Battiscomb has just arrived, and askswill Your Grace receive him to-night?"

  "Battiscomb!" cried the Duke. Again his cheek flushed and his eyesparkled. "Aye, in Heaven's name, show him up."

  "And may the Lord refresh us with good tidings!" prayed Fergusondevoutly.

  Monmouth turned to Wilding. "It is the agent I sent ahead of me fromHolland to stir up the gentry from here to the Mersey."

  "I know," said Wilding; "we conferred together some weeks since."

  "Now you shall see how idle are your fears," the Duke promised him.

  And Wilding, who was better informed on that score, kept silence.