Mistress Wilding Part 28

Colonel Matthews reminded the Duke of Andrew Fletcher's proposal that they should make a raid upon Exeter with a view to seizing arms, of which they stood so sorely in need.

This Mr. Wilding was quick to support. "Not only that, Your Grace," he said, "but I am confident that with very little inducement the greater portion of the militia will desert to us as soon as we appear.

"What a.s.surance can you give of that?" asked Grey, his heavy lip protruded.

"I take it," said Mr. Wilding, "that in such matters no man can give an a.s.surance of anything. I speak with knowledge of the country and the folk from which the militia is enlisted. I offer it as my opinion that the militia is favourably disposed to Your Grace. I can do no more.

"If Mr. Wilding says so, Your Grace," put in Matthews, "I have no doubt he has sound reasons upon which to base his opinion.

"No doubt," said Monmouth. "Indeed, I had already thought of the step that you suggest, Colonel Matthews, and what Mr. Wilding says causes me to look upon it still more favourably."

Grey frowned. "Consider, Your Grace," he said earnestly, "that you are in no case to fight at present."

"What fighting do you suggest there would be?" asked the Duke.

"There is Albemarle between us and Exeter."

"But with the militia," Wilding reminded him; "and if the militia deserts him for Your Grace, in what case will Albemarle find himself?"

"And if the militia does not desert? If you should be proven wrong, sir?

What then? What then?" asked Grey.

"Aye--true--what then, Mr. Wilding?" quoth the Duke, already wavering.

Wilding considered a moment, all eyes upon him. "Even then," said he presently, "I do maintain that in this dash for Exeter lies Your Grace's greatest chance of success. We can deliver battle if need be. Already we are three thousand strong..."

Grey interrupted him rudely. "Nay," he insisted. "You must not presume upon that. We are not yet fit to fight. It is His Grace's business at present to drill and discipline his troops and induce more friends to join him."

"Already we are turning men away because we have no weapons to put into their hands," Wilding reminded them, and a murmur of approval ran round, which but served to anger Grey the more, to render more obstinate his opposition.

"But all that come in are not unprovided," was his lords.h.i.+p's retort.

"There are the Hamps.h.i.+re gentry and their friends. They will come armed, and so will others if we have patience.

"Aye," said Wilding, "and if you have patience enough there will be troops the Parliament will send against us. They, too, will be armed, I can a.s.sure your lords.h.i.+p."

"In G.o.d's name let us keep from wrangling," the Duke besought them. "It is difficult enough to determine for the best. If the dash to Exeter were successful..."

"It cannot be," Grey interrupted again.

The liberties he took with Monmouth and which Monmouth permitted him might well be a source of wonder to all who heard them. Monmouth paused now in his interrupted speech and looked about him a trifle wearily.

"It seems idle to insist," said Mr. Wilding; "such is the temper of Your Grace's counsellors, that we get no further than contradictions." Grey's bold eyes were upon Wilding as he spoke. "I would remind Your Grace, and I am sure that many present will agree with me, that in a desperate enterprise a sudden unexpected movement will often strike terror."

"That is true," said Monmouth, but apparently without enthusiasm, and having approved what was urged on one side, he looked at Grey, as if waiting to hear what might be said on the other. His indecision was pitiful--tragical, indeed, in the leader of so bold an enterprise.

"We should do better, I think," said Grey, "to deal with the facts as we know them."

"It is what I am endeavouring to do, Your Grace," protested Wilding, a note of despair in his voice. "Perhaps some other gentleman will put forward better counsel than mine."

"Aye! In Heaven's name let us hope so," snorted Grey; and Monmouth, catching the sudden flash of Mr. Wilding's eye, set a hand upon his lords.h.i.+p's arm as if to urge him to be gentler. But he continued, "When men talk of striking terror by sudden movements they build on air."

"I had hardly thought to hear that from your lords.h.i.+p," said Mr.

Wilding, and he permitted himself that tight-lipped smile that gave his face so wicked a look.

"And why not?" asked Grey, stupidly unsuspicious.

"Because I had thought you might have concluded otherwise from your own experience at Bridport this morning."

Grey got angrily to his feet, rage and shame flus.h.i.+ng his face, and it needed Ferguson and the Duke to restore him to some semblance of calm.

Indeed, it may well be that it was to complete this that His Grace decided there and then that they should follow Grey's advice and go by way of Taunton, Bridgwater, and Bristol to Gloucester. He was, like all weak men, of conspicuous mental short-sightedness. The matter of the moment was ever of greater importance to him than any result that might attend it in the future.

He insisted that Wilding and Grey should shake hands before the breaking up of that most astounding council, and as he had done last night, he now again imposed upon them his commands that they must not allow this matter to go further.

Mr. Wilding paved the way for peace by making an apology within limitations.

"If, in my zeal to serve Your Grace to the best of my ability, I have said that which Lord Grey thinks fit to resent, I would bid him consider my motive rather than my actual words."

But when all had gone save Ferguson, the chaplain approached the preoccupied and distressed Duke with counsel that Mr. Wilding should be sent away from the army.

"Else there'll be trouble 'twixt him and Grey," the plotting parson foretold. "We'll be having a repet.i.tion of the unfortunate Fletcher and Dare affair, and I think that has cost Your Grace enough already."

"Do you suggest that I dismiss Wilding?" cried the Duke. "You know his influence, and the bad impression his removal would leave."

Ferguson stroked his long lean jaw. "No, no," said he; "all I suggest is that you find Mr. Wilding work to do elsewhere."

"Elsewhere?" the Duke questioned. "Where else?"

"I have thought of that, too. Send him to London to see Danvers and to stir up your friends there. And," he added, lowering his voice, "give him discretion to see Sunderland if he thinks well."

The proposition pleased Monmouth, and it seemed to please Mr. Wilding no less when, having sent for him, the Duke communicated it to him in Ferguson's presence.

Upon this mission Mr. Wilding set out that very night, leaving Nick Trenchard in despair at being separated from him at a time when there seemed to be every chance that such a separation might be eternal.

Monmouth and Ferguson may have conceived they did a wise thing in removing a man who was instinctively spoiling for a little sword-play with my Lord Grey. It is odds that had he remained, the brewing storm between the pair would have come to a head. Had it done so, it is more than likely, from what we know of Mr. Wilding's accomplishments, that he had given Lord Grey his quietus. And had that happened, it is to be inferred from history that it is possible the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion might have had a less disastrous issue.

CHAPTER XVI. PLOTS AND PLOTTERS

Mr. Wilding left Monmouth's army at Lyme on Sunday, the 14th of June, and rejoined it at Bridgwater exactly three weeks later. In the meanwhile a good deal had happened, yet the happenings on every hand had fallen far short of the expectations aroused in Mr. Wilding's mind, now by one circ.u.mstance, now by another. In reaching London he had experienced no difficulty. Men travelling in that direction were not subjected to the scrutiny that fell to the share of those travelling from it towards the West, or, rather, to the scrutiny ordained by the Government; for Wilding had more than one opportunity of observing how very lax and indifferent were the constables and tything-men--particularly in Somerset and Wilts.h.i.+re--in the performance of this duty. Wayfarers were questioned as a matter of form, but in no case did Wilding hear of any one being detained upon suspicion. This was calculated to raise his drooping hopes, pointing as it did to the general favouring of Monmouth that was toward. He grew less despondent on the score of the Duke's possible ultimate success, and he came to hope that the efforts he went to exert would not be fruitless.

But rude were the disappointments that awaited him in town. London, like the rest of the country, was not ready. There were not wanting men who favoured Monmouth; but no rising had been organized, and the Duke's partisans were not disposed to rashness.

Wilding lodged at Covent Garden, in a house recommended to him by Colonel Danvers, and there--an outlaw himself--he threw himself with a will into his task. He heard of the burning of Monmouth's Declaration by the common hangman at the Royal Exchange, and of the bill pa.s.sed by the Commons to make it treason for any to a.s.sert that Lucy Walters was married to the late King. He attended meetings at the "Bull's Head,"

in Bishopsgate, where he met Disney and Danvers, Payton and Lock; but though they talked and argued at prodigious length, they did naught besides. Danvers, who was their hope in town, definitely refused to have a hand in anything that was not properly organized, and in common with the others urged that they should wait until Ches.h.i.+re had risen, as was reported that it must.

Meanwhile, troops had gone west under Kirke and Churchill, and the Parliament had voted nearly half a million for the putting down of the rebellion. London was flung into a fever of excitement by the news that was reaching it. The position was not quite as Monmouth's advisers--before coming over from Holland--had represented that it would be. They had thought that out of fear of tumults about his own person, King James would have been compelled to keep near him what troops he had, sparing none to be sent against Monmouth. This, King James had not done; he had all but emptied London of soldiery, and, considering the general disaffection, no moment could have been more favourable than this for a rising in London itself. The confusion that must have resulted from the recalling of troops would have given Monmouth not only a mighty grip of the West, but would have heartened those who--like Sunderland himself--were sitting on the wall, to declare themselves for the Protestant Champion. This Wilding saw, and almost frenziedly did he urge it upon Danvers that all London needed at the moment was a resolute leader. But the Colonel still held back; indeed, he had neither truth nor valour; he was timid, and used deceit to mask his timidity; he urged frivolous reasons for inaction, and when Wilding waxed impatient with him, he suggested that Wilding himself should head the rising if he were so confident of its success. And Wilding would have done it but that, being unknown in London, he had no reason to suppose that men would flock to him if he raised the Duke's banner.