Mistress Wilding Part 21

"Like enough," said Trenchard, "if they have found their horses yet."

"Forward, then," Vallancey urged them in excitement, and he picked up his reins again. "You shall hear my news as we ride."

"Not so," said Trenchard. "We have business here down yonder at the ford."

"Business? What business?"

They told him, and scarce had they got the words out than he cut in impatiently. "That's no matter now.

"Not yet, perhaps," said Mr. Wilding; "but it will be if that letter gets to Whitehall."

"Odso!" was the impatient retort, "there's other news travelling to Whitehall that will make small-beer of this--and belike it's well on its way there already."

"What news is that?" asked Trenchard. Vallancey told them. "The Duke has landed--he came ash.o.r.e this morning at Lyme."

"The Duke?" quoth Mr. Wilding, whilst Trenchard merely stared. "What Duke?"

"What Duke! Lord, you weary me! What dukes be there? The Duke of Monmouth, man."

"Monmouth!" They uttered the name in a breath. "But is this really true?" asked Wilding. "Or is it but another rumour?"

"Remember the letter your friends intercepted," Trenchard bade him.

"I am not forgetting it," said Wilding.

"It's no rumour," Vallancey a.s.sured them. "I was at White Lackington three hours ago when the news came to George Speke, and I was riding to carry it to you, going by way of Taunton that I might drop word of it for our friends at the Red Lion."

Trenchard needed no further convincing; he looked accordingly dismayed.

But Wilding found it still almost impossible--in spite of what already he had learnt--to credit this amazing news. It was hard to believe the Duke of Monmouth mad enough to spoil all by this sudden and unheralded precipitation.

"You heard the news at White Lackington?" said he slowly. "Who carried it thither?"

"There were two messengers," answered Vallancey, with restrained impatience, "and they were Heywood Dare--who has been appointed paymaster to the Duke's forces--and Mr. Chamberlain."

Mr. Wilding was observed for once to change colour. He gripped Vallancey by the wrist. "You saw them?" he demanded, and his voice had a husky, unusual sound. "You saw them?"

"With these two eyes," answered Vallancey, "and I spoke with them."

It was true, then! There was no room for further doubt.

Wilding looked at Trenchard, who shrugged his shoulders and made a wry face. "I never thought but that we were working in the service of a hairbrain," said he contemptuously.

Vallancey proceeded to details. "Dare and Chamberlain," he informed them, "came off the Duke's own frigate at daybreak to-day. They were put ash.o.r.e at Seatown, and they rode straight to Mr. Speke's with the news, returning afterwards to Lyme."

"What men has the Duke with him, did you learn?" asked Wilding.

"Not more than a hundred or so, from what Dare told us."

"A hundred! G.o.d help us all! And is England to be conquered with a hundred men? Oh, this is midsummer frenzy."

"He counts on all true Protestants to flock to his banner," put in Trenchard, and it was not plain whether he expressed a fact or sneered at one.

"Does he bring money and arms, at least?" asked Wilding.

"I did not ask," answered Vallancey. "But Dare told us that three vessels had come over, so that it is to be supposed he brings some manner of provision with him."

"It is to be hoped so, Vallancey; but hardly to be supposed," quoth Trenchard, and then he touched Wilding on the arm and pointed with his whip across the fields towards Taunton. A cloud of dust was rising from between tall hedges where ran the road. "I think it were wise to be moving. At least, this sudden landing of James Scott relieves my mind in the matter of that letter."

Wilding, having taken a look at the floating dust that announced the oncoming of their pursuers, was now lost in thought. Vallancey, who, beyond excitement at the news of which he was the bearer, seemed to have no opinion of his own as to the wisdom or folly of the Duke's sudden arrival, looked from one to the other of these two men whom he had known as the prime secret agents in the West, and waited. Trenchard moved his horse a few paces nearer the hedge, "Whither now, Anthony?" he asked suddenly.

"You may ask, indeed!" exclaimed Wilding, and his voice was as bitter as ever Trenchard had heard it. "'S heart! We are in it now! We had best make for Lyme--if only that we may attempt to persuade this crack-brained boy to s.h.i.+p back to Holland again, and s.h.i.+p ourselves with him."

"There's sense in you at last," grumbled Trenchard. "But I mis...o...b.. me he'll turn back after having come so far. Have you any money?" he asked.

He could be very practical at times.

"A guinea or two. But I can get money at Ilminster."

"And how do you propose to reach Ilminster with these gentlemen by way of cutting us off?"

"We'll double back as far as the cross-roads," said Wilding promptly, "and strike south over Swell Hill for Hatch. If we ride hard we can do it easily, and have little fear of being followed. They'll naturally take it we have made for Bridgwater."

They acted on the suggestion there and then, Vallancey going with them; for his task was now accomplished, and he was all eager to get to Lyme to kiss the hand of the Protestant Duke. They rode hard, as Wilding had said they must, and they reached the junction of the roads before their pursuers hove in sight. Here Wilding suddenly detained them again. The road ahead of them ran straight for almost a mile, so that if they took it now they were almost sure to be seen presently by the messengers.

On their right a thickly grown coppice stretched from the road to the stream that babbled in the hollow. He gave it as his advice that they should lie hidden there until those who hunted them should have gone by.

Obviously that was the only plan, and his companions instantly adopted it. They found a way through a gate into an adjacent field, and from this they gained the shelter of the trees. Trenchard, neglectful of his finery and oblivious of the ubiquitous brambles, left his horse in Vallancey's care and crept to the edge of the thicket that he might take a peep at the pursuers.

They came up very soon, six militiamen in lobster coats with yellow facings, and a sergeant, which was what Mr. Trenchard might have expected. There was, however, something else that Mr. Trenchard did not expect; something that afforded him considerable surprise. At the head of the party rode Sir Rowland Blake--obviously leading it--and with him was Richard Westmacott. Amongst them went a man in grey clothes, whom Mr. Trenchard rightly conjectured to be the messenger riding for Whitehall. He thought with a smile of what a handful he and Wilding would have had had they waited to rob that messenger of the incriminating letter that he bore. Then he checked his smile to consider again how Sir Rowland Blake came to head that party. He abandoned the problem, as the little troop swept unhesitatingly round to the left and went pounding along the road that led northwards to Bridgwater, clearly never doubting which way their quarry had sped.

As for Sir Rowland Blake's connection with this pursuit, the town gallant had by his earnestness not only convinced Colonel Luttrell of his loyalty and devotion to King James, but had actually gone so far as to beg that he might be allowed to prove that same loyalty by leading the soldiers to the capture of those self-confessed traitors, Mr.

Wilding and Mr. Trenchard. From his knowledge of their haunts he was confident, he a.s.sured Colonel Luttrell, that he could be of service to the King in this matter. The fierce sincerity of his purpose shone through his words; Luttrell caught the accent of hate in Sir Rowland's tense voice, and, being a shrewd man, he saw that if Mr. Wilding was to be taken, an enemy would surely be the best pursuer to accomplish it. So he prevailed, and gave him the trust he sought, in Spite of Albemarle's expressed reluctance. And never did bloodhound set out more relentlessly purposeful upon a scent than did Sir Rowland follow now in what he believed to be the track of this man who stood between him and Ruth Westmacott. Until Ruth was widowed, Sir Rowland's hopes of her must lie fallow; and so it was with a zest that he flung himself into the task of widowing her.

As the party pa.s.sed out of view round the angle of the white road, Trenchard made his way back to Wilding to tell him what he had seen and to lay before him, for his enucleation, the problem of Blake's being the leader of it. But Wilding thought little of Blake, and cared little of what he might be the leader.

"We'll stay here," said he, "until they have pa.s.sed the crest of the hill."

This, Trenchard told him, was his own purpose; for to leave their concealment earlier would be to reveal themselves to any of the troopers who might happen to glance over his shoulder.

And so they waited some ten minutes or so, and then walked their horses slowly and carefully forward through the trees towards the road. Wilding was alongside and slightly ahead of Trenchard; Vallancey followed close upon their tails. Suddenly, as Wilding was about to put his mare at the low stone wall, Trenchard leaned forward and caught his bridle.

"Ss!" he hissed. "Horses!"

And now that they halted they heard the hoofbeats clear and close at hand; the crackling of undergrowth and the rustle of the leaves through which they had thrust their pa.s.sage had deafened their ears to other sounds until this moment. They checked and waited where they stood, barely screened by the few boughs that still might intervene between them and the open, not daring to advance, and not daring to retreat lest their movements should draw attention to themselves. They remained absolutely still, scarcely breathing, their only hope being that if these who came should chance to be enemies they might ride on without looking to right or left. It was so slender a hope that Wilding looked to the priming of his pistols, whilst Trenchard, who had none, loosened his sword in its scabbard. Nearer came the riders.

"There are not more than three," whispered Trenchard, who had been listening intently, and Mr. Wilding nodded, but said nothing.

Another moment and the little party was abreast of those watchers; a dark brown riding-habit flashed into their line of vision, and a blue one laced with gold. At sight of the first Mr. Wilding's eyelids flickered; he had recognized it for Ruth's, with whom rode Diana, whilst some twenty paces or so behind came Jerry, the groom. They were returning to Bridgwater.

They came along, looking neither to right nor to left, as the three men had hoped they would, and they were all but past, when suddenly Wilding gave his roan a touch of the spur and bounded forward. Diana's horse swerved so that it nearly threw her. Ruth, slightly ahead, reined in at once; so, too, did the groom in the rear, and so violently in his sudden fear of highwaymen that he brought his horse on to its hind legs and had it prancing and rearing madly about the road, so that he was hard put to it to keep his seat.