Mistress Wilding (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

by Rafael Sabatini

  "As it is, we'll thrust that throne over with our hands," said he after a 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 we go forth," boomed the voice of Ferguson, quoting from his precious Declaration. "The Lord will do that which seemeth good unto Him."

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

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

  "Common sense will serve us better at the moment," answered Wilding with a touch of sharpness. He turned to the frowning and perplexed Duke — whose mind was being tossed this way and that, like a shuttlecock upon 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 it if 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 to ourselves."

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

  "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 it were the safer course — the surer in the end. I myself may not linger to push forward the task of stirring up the people, for I am already something more than under suspicion. But there are others who will remain to carry on the work after I have departed with Your Grace, if Your Grace thinks well. From the Continent by correspondence we can mature our plans. In a twelvemonth things will be very different, and we can 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 elbow on the table and took his brow in his great bony hand. Wilding's words seemed an echo of those he himself had spoken a week or two ago, only to be overruled by Grey, who swayed the Duke more than did any other — and that he did not do so of fell purpose, and seeking deliberately to work Monmouth's ruin, no man will ever be able to say with certainty.

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

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

  "True," put in Fletcher. "But Henry the Seventh was sure of the support of 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 be swayed 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, and Captain Matthews with me, before we embarked upon this expedition. We were 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 man to draw back, nor do I go so far as Mr. Wilding in counselling such a course. We've set our hands to the plough; let us go forward in God's name. Yet I would remind you that what Mr. Wilding says is true. Had we waited until next year, we had found the usurper's throne tottering under 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," Grey answered.

  "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 at him.

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

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

  "A Monmouth! A Monmouth!" voices shouted.

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

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

  The Duke stirred in his chair, stretched a hand for the bottle and filled a glass. His mercurial spirits were rising again. He smiled at Wilding.

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

  "I have said that which I had it on my conscience to say. Your Grace may have found me over-ready with my counsel; at least you shall find me no less ready with my sword."

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

  "I never doubted it, Mr. Wilding," His Grace replied; "but I should like to hear you say that you are convinced — at least in part," and he waved his hand towards the window. It was almost as if he pleaded for encouragement. 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 was hidden under that calm surface, and the acuteness of the judgment that must be wedded to it. He longed to have the word of such a man that his enterprise was not as desperate as Wilding had seemed at first to paint it. But Wilding made no concession to hopes or desires when he dealt with facts.

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

  "They will come," answered the Duke.

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

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

  The door opened and Ensign Cragg made his appearance. "May it please Your Grace," he announced, "Mr. Battiscomb has just arrived, and asks will Your Grace receive him tonight?"

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

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

  Monmouth turned to Wilding. "It is the agent I sent ahead of me from Holland 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.

  CHAPTER XIV

  HIS GRACE IN COUNSEL

  MR. CHRISTOPHER BATTISCOMB, that mild-mannered Dorchester gentleman, who, like Wade, was by vocation a lawyer, was ushered into the Duke's presence. He was dressed in black, and, like Ferguson, was almost smothered in a great periwig, which he may have adopted for purposes of disguise rather than adornment. Certainly he had none of that air of the soldier of fortune which distinguished his broth
er of the robe. He advanced, hat in hand, towards the table, greeting the company about it, and Wilding observed that he wore silk stockings and shoes, upon which there rested not a speck of dust. Mr. Battiscomb was plainly a man who loved his ease, since on such a day he had travelled to Lyme in a coach. The lawyer bent low to kiss the Duke's hand, and scarce was that formal homage paid than questions poured upon him from Grey, from Fletcher, and from Ferguson.

  "Gentlemen, gentlemen," the Duke entreated them, smiling; and remembering their manners they fell silent.

  As Wilding afterwards told Trenchard, they reminded him of a parcel of saucy lacqueys who take liberties with an upstart master for whom they are wanting in respect.

  "I am glad to see you, Battiscomb," said Monmouth, when quiet was restored, "and I trust I behold in you a bearer of good tidings."

  The lawyer's full face was usually pale; tonight it was, in addition, solemn, and the smile that haunted his lips was a courtesy smile that expressed neither mirth nor satisfaction. He cleared his throat, as if nervous. He avoided the Duke's question as to the quality of the news he brought by answering that he had made all haste to come to Lyme upon hearing of His Grace's landing. He was surprised, he said; as well he might be, for the arrangement was that having done his work he was to return to Holland and report to Monmouth upon the feeling of the gentry.

  "But your news, Battiscomb," the Duke insisted.

  "Aye," put in Grey; "in Heaven's name, let us hear that."

  Again there was the little nervous cough from Battiscomb. "I have scarce had time to complete my round of visits," he temporized. "Your Grace has taken us so by surprise. I . . . I was with Sir Walter Young at Colyton when the news of your landing came some few hours ago." His voice faltered and seemed to die away.

  "Well?" cried the Duke. His brows were drawn together. Already he realized that Battiscomb's tidings were not good, else would he be hesitating less in uttering them. "Is Sir Walter with you, at least?"

  "I grieve to say that he is not."

  "Not?" It was Grey who spoke, and he followed the ejaculation by an oath. "Why not?"

  "He is following, no doubt?" suggested Fletcher.

  "We may hope, sirs," answered Battiscomb, "that in a few days — when he shall have seen the zeal of the countryside — he will be cured of his present lukewarmness." Thus, discreetly, did the man of law break the bad news he bore.

  Monmouth sank back into his chair like one who has lost some of his strength. "Lukewarmness?" he repeated dully. "Sir Walter Young lukewarm!"

  "Even so, Your Grace — alas!" and Battiscomb sighed audibly.

  Ferguson's voice boomed forth again to startle them. "The ox knoweth his owner," he cried, "the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider."

  Grey pushed the bottle contemptuously across the table to the parson. "Drink, man, and get sense," said he, and turned aside to question Battiscomb touching others of the neighbourhood upon whom they had depended.

  "What of Sir Francis Rolles?" he inquired.

  Battiscomb answered the question, addressing himself to the Duke.

  "Alas! Sir Francis, no doubt, would have been faithful to Your Grace, but, unfortunately, Sir Francis is in prison already."

  Deeper grew Monmouth's frown; his fingers drummed the table absently. Fletcher poured himself wine, his face inscrutable. Grey threw one leg over the other and in a voice that was carefully careless he inquired, "And what of Sidney Clifford?"

  "He is considering," said Battiscomb. "I was to have seen him again at the end of the month; meanwhile, he would take no resolve."

  "Lord Gervase Scoresby?" questioned Grey, less carelessly.

  Battiscomb half turned to him, then faced the Duke again as he made answer, "Mr. Wilding, there, can tell you more concerning Lord Gervase."

  All eyes swept round to Wilding who sat in silence, listening; Monmouth's were laden with inquiry and some anxiety. Wilding shook his head slowly, sadly. "You must not depend upon him," he answered; "Lord Gervase was not yet ripe. A little longer and I think I must have won him for Your Grace."

  "Heaven help us!" exclaimed the Duke in petulant vexation. "Is no one coming in?"

  Ferguson swung a hand towards the still open window, drawing attention to the sounds without.

  "Does Your Grace not hear, that ye can ask?" he cried, almost reproachfully; but they scarce heeded him, for Grey was inquiring if Mr. Strode might be depended upon to join, and that was a matter that claimed the greater attention.

  "I think," said Battiscomb, "that he might have been depended upon."

  "Might have been?" questioned Fletcher, speaking now for the first time since Battiscomb's arrival.

  "Like Sir Francis Rolles, he is in prison," the lawyer explained.

  Monmouth leaned forward, and his young face looked careworn now; he thrust a slender hand under the brown curls upon his brow. "Will you tell us, Mr. Battiscomb, upon what friends you think that we may count?" he said.

  Battiscomb pursed his lips a second, pondering. "I think," said he, "that you may count upon Mr. Legge and Mr. Hooper, and possibly upon Colonel Churchill, though I cannot say what following they will bring, if any. Mr. Trenchard, upon whom we counted for fifteen hundred men of Taunton, has been obliged to fly the country to escape arrest."

  "We have heard that from Mr. Trenchard's cousin," answered the Duke. "What of Prideaux, of Ford? Is he lukewarm?"

  "I was unable to elicit a definite promise from him. But he was favourably disposed to Your Grace."

  His Grace made a gesture that seemed to dismiss Prideaux from their calculations. "And Mr. Hucker, of Taunton?"

  Battiscomb's manner grew yet more ill at ease. "Mr. Hucker himself, I am sure, would place his sword at your disposal. But his brother is a red-hot Tory."

  "Well, well," sighed the Duke, "I take it we must not make certain of Mr. Hucker. Are there any others besides Legge and Hooper upon whom you think that we may reckon?"

  "Lord Wiltshire, perhaps," said Battiscomb, but with a lack of assurance.

  "A plague on perhaps!" exclaimed Monmouth, growing irritable; "I want you to name the men of whom you are certain."

  Battiscomb stood silent for a moment, pondering. He looked almost foolish, like a schoolboy who hesitates to confess his ignorance of the answer to a question set him.

  Fletcher swung round, his grey eyes flashing angrily, his accent more Scottish than ever.

  "Is it that ye're certain o' none, Mr. Battiscomb?" he exclaimed.

  "Indeed," said Battiscomb, "I think we may be fairly certain of Mr. Legge and Mr. Hooper."

  "And of none besides?" questioned Fletcher again. "Be these the only representatives of the flower of England's nobility that is to flock to the banner of the cause of England's freedom and religion?" Scorn was stamped on every word of his question.

  Battiscomb spread his hands, raised his brows, and said nothing.

  "The Lord knows I do not say it exulting," said Fletcher; "but I told Your Grace yours was hardly the case of Henry the Seventh, as my Lord Grey would have you believe."

  "We shall see," snapped Grey, scowling at the Scot. "The people are coming in hundreds — aye, in thousands — the gentry will follow; they must."

  "Make not too sure, Your Grace — oh, make not too sure," Wilding besought the Duke. "As I have said, these hinds have nothing to lose but their lives."

  "Faith, can a man lose more?" asked Grey contemptuously. He disliked Wilding by instinct, which was but a reciprocation of the feeling with which Wilding was inspired by him.

  "I think he can," said Mr. Wilding quietly. "A man may lose honour, he may plunge his family into ruin. These are things of more weight with a gentleman than life."

  "Odds death!" blazed Grey, giving a free rein to his dislike of this calm gentleman. "Do you suggest that a man's honour is imperilled in His Grace's service?"

  "I suggest nothing," answered Wilding, unmoved.

  "What I think, I state. If I thoug
ht a man's honour imperilled in this service, you would not see me at this table now. I can make you no more convincing answer."

  Grey laughed unpleasantly, and Wilding, a faint tinge on his cheek-bones, measured him with a stern, intrepid look before which his lordship's shifty glance was observed to fall. Wilding's eye, having achieved that much, passed from him to the Duke, and its expression softened.

  "Your Grace sees," said he, "how well founded were the fears I expressed that your coming has been premature."

  "In God's name, what would you have me do?" cried the Duke, and petulance made his voice unsteady.

  Mr. Wilding rose, moved out of his habitual calm by the earnestness that pervaded him. "It is not for me to say again what I would have Your Grace do. Your Grace has heard my views, and those of these gentlemen. It is for Your Grace to decide."

  "You mean whether I will go forward with this thing? What alternative have I?"

  "No alternative," put in Grey with finality. "Nor is alternative needed. We'll carry this through in spite of timorous folk and birds of ill-omen that croak to affright us."

  "Our service is the service of the Lord," cried Ferguson, returning from the window in the embrasure of which he had been standing; "the Lord cannot but destine it to prevail."

  "Ye said so before," quoth Fletcher testily. "We need here men, money, and weapons — not divinity."

  "You are plainly infected with Mr. Wilding's disease," sneered Grey.

  "Ford," cried the Duke, who saw Wilding's eyes flash fire; "you go too fast. Mr. Wilding, you will not heed his lordship."

  "I should not be likely to do so, Your Grace," answered Wilding, who had resumed his seat.

  "What shall that mean?" quoth Grey, leaping to his feet.