CHAPTER XVII.

_ON THE WAR-PATH._

"Uncle, I cannot help it! I will do nothing to injure any who bear my name! I will change that name if needs be--but I must go! I cannot stay behind, knowing nothing of what is happening save what the voice of rumour whispers. I must see and know for myself. None shall be hurt through me. But prithee let me go. It may be that I will be able to send thee word of things that thou wouldst fain know. Hinder me not, good uncle, for needs must that I fare forth with the King!"

My uncle regarded me reflectively and gravely, as I poured forth these words early upon the Sunday morning that had so little of Sabbath stillness in the air. I had been up and about already, although the day was yet young. I had heard that the camp was to be broken up forthwith, and a march made towards Bridgewater. The thought of seeing the King and all his soldiers march away, and of remaining behind in the city a prey to all sorts of fancied terrors, and in suspense as to what might be happening elsewhere, seemed intolerable to me. The fever of war had got into my blood, and though I knew I could never be a soldier, I felt that I must needs see war, or I should die of disappointment.

Perhaps my uncle felt sympathy with me; more possibly he thought that such a hot partisan of the new-made King was more of a peril to him in his house than following upon the path of the soldiers in that mob which always waits upon the steps of an army. There few would know or take note of me. Here I was known by pretty well every one in the city. If I was resolved upon throwing in my lot with the army, I might be in less peril myself and cause less danger to others there than in the town of Taunton. So after steadily regarding me for a while, and revolving the matter slowly in his mind, after his fashion, he answered,--

"Well, well, well, a wilful lad will go his own way. Thou must e'en choose thine own path, Dicon. I will not keep thee here against thy will, but I counsel thee not to run into greater danger than needs must be. We may all be in peril of our lives for all I know ere this matter be settled; and where the greater danger lies Heaven knows and not I. Wherefore take thine own way, but use all prudence and caution. Thou hast a good head of thine own, and quick wits when thou dost use them aright. See that thou walkest as warily as may be in the perilous days that be like to fall upon us."

"I will be careful, I will be wary," I answered eagerly. And in great excitement and joy at having so easily won my uncle's good-will, I ran to tell Meg and Will Wiseman, and then to groom and feed Blackbird, and decide what to take with me in my saddle-bags; for I knew little as to what might lie before me, but desired to be at charges with no man, and to pay for everything that I might need.

Meg, whose heart was almost as much in the cause as mine, gave me some crown pieces out of her store for my needs, and my aunt did the like. I had money of mine own too, and some of this I took; yet I would not dip too deeply into my hoard, because I had a feeling that I must keep it for other needs than mine own. Should evil days fall upon us, and should I have cause to keep the pledge I had made to my lord the Viscount, I might need the golden guineas I had earned bit by bit by my letter-writing, and so forth, and had stored away so carefully these two past years in a secret receptacle of mine own. The silver coins I took with me, but the golden guineas I left where they were. A few groats would go far to keep me; to say nothing of shillings and crowns, of which I had many. But gold might prove a peril, and I would none of it.

Out into the streets I went next, to find the citizens in hot discussion together, and not all of them well pleased at what was doing. There were many amongst them who had confidently hoped that before the Duke left he would have raised up fortifications around the city, have built up the ancient walls, and left there a garrison to keep and defend the place for him.

Colonel Hucker was the centre of this group, and he was speaking warmly in favour of this thing.

"What use to the cause is a city without walls?" he was asking. "Why, if we march out to-day, the Duke of Albemarle can march in to-morrow, and none can let or hinder him!" [And in very truth that was just what did happen, for the new King's army left on Sunday afternoon, and the Duke of Albemarle was in the city on Tuesday, albeit he made no long stay, but continued his pursuit of our army towards the north.] "What we want is to leave behind us garrisoned cities holding for his Majesty. If one King can pull down fortifications, surely another can build them up! Taunton has held her own gallantly in times of war, and has stood notable sieges in a good cause; nor has the temper of her citizens changed. Give her but walls and towers and a few good soldiers to lead and direct her citizens, and she would hold out as gallantly as ever. What do you say, fellow-townsmen? Shall not Taunton be restored to her former glories? Can she not do even as she did before?"

"Ay, ay; that she can."--"Give us walls and soldiers, and we will show the usurping tyrant what Taunton can do."--"Where is the King? Let him but give the word, and every man among us will become for the nonce a stonemason, that we may begin to build our walls afresh!"

Such were the cries of the citizens, and such their enthusiasm in the cause. There is nothing so catching as the martial fever, except it be the panic which sometimes sets in afterwards. But though the zeal of the city was great, the young King could not be brought to see the matter as Colonel Hucker sought to show it him. He said there was no time to build walls--which was true enough--and that he could not spare men to garrison it if it were fortified even in a most hasty and rapid way.

Colonel Hucker, who had looked to be made captain of the garrison and Keeper of the City, was not a little disappointed, and all Taunton with him; but there was too much right on the King's side for us to urge the matter beyond a certain point; and as the Viscount said to me, as we rode out at last towards Bridgewater,--

"If we can once secure Bristol, there we shall have a fortified city at our command forthwith. That is the task we should set ourselves to do without delay. Would that we were already before its walls! These delays will be the undoing of us, I fear. Already has the King in London had ten days in which to muster and send forces out west. Had we been quicker, we might have had a fortress of our own already. Heaven send there be no more such tardiness!"

My Lord Vere was one of those men who seem to be soldiers born. He had not had the training and experience of some of the others, including our new King himself, yet it seemed to me that if his counsels had but been followed from the first we should have been marching to victory now, and making the usurper shake upon his tottering throne. As we rode along I could not but tell my lord of the witch we had visited, and of what she had told us. I hoped that it might give him more heart (for I knew by many signs that he thought the enterprise well-nigh desperate), but he only gave me one of his curious smiles.

"A wise woman truly, Dicon, to foresee more blood than glory in this undertaking."

"Nay, but, good my lord, she said that the usurper would die in exile. How may that be, if our gracious King be not victorious?"

"It may be that thou wilt live to see such a thing one day, Dicon," answered my lord, "and yet not see King Monmouth on the throne. Knowest thou not that there be men who have already fixed their eyes upon the Prince of Orange, husband to the King's daughter, as a possible saviour and deliverer? The witch knows more of such things, I trow, than thou dost, boy, in spite of all thy learning."

"The witch hath a familiar who tells her what the future will bring forth," I answered quickly, for I liked not to hear my learning compared with that of an ignorant old woman, who would be nothing without her familiar. And at that my lord smiled again, but said nothing; and indeed I forgot the whole matter next moment, for we saw approaching us from behind, in hot haste, Lord Lonsdale himself, whose face wore a look of such anxiety and pain that I was quite sorry for him.

Now it so chanced that the Viscount was not with his company at this time. He had been detained by some duty which the King had set him to do, and had not been able to leave the camp so soon as the soldiers. This was the reason why, when he came riding after us a little later, he had drawn rein upon seeing me on the outskirts of the crowd of followers, and had paused to ask what I did there, and to gently chide me for my folly in leaving a safe shelter for the uncertainties of war.

It was whilst we were riding together thus in the rear, having by this time left behind the crowd who pressed after us on foot--Will Wiseman amongst them, to see the last of us--that we heard the sound of these hasty pursuing horse-hoofs, and turning round beheld Lord Lonsdale riding apace after us. I thought the Viscount's face changed and hardened slightly as he saw his father; but he drew rein and waited till he came up.

"My son, my son," began Lord Lonsdale, in whose face and voice anger and anxious fear seemed to be struggling together, "what madness, what folly is this? A son of mine to be in arms with a rebel Duke, daring to lay claim to the crown of England! Vere, Vere, you are not like these ignorant rustics whom any one can delude by a specious tale. You know that England will never submit to see a base-born King sitting upon the throne. Be the present King never so much the tyrant, he rules by his hereditary right; and you know that this young Duke has no more chance of being England's King than thou hast thyself. Boy, thou canst not look me in the face and tell me that thy heart is in the cause! I know thee too well for that!"

Lord Vere made no attempt to meet this challenge, although he looked his father unflinchingly in the face for all that.

"Sir," he said, in a low, resolute voice, "your remonstrances come too late. I have unsheathed my sword in the cause, be it a good or an evil one; and honour forbids me to sheathe it again until that cause is either lost or won. You know well who and what drove me forth to break a bondage that had become unendurable. If I give you pain now, it is only because you have driven me to it!"

"Boy, boy, what folly is this! Why didst thou not tell me how thine heart was bound up in that maid?"

"I told you many times, sir, that my heart was so bound up with Mary Mead's that death itself would be preferable to life without her. I said all that a man could say, and my reward was that I was made by strategy to appear in public as the plighted husband of Mistress Edith Portman. It was your hand that severed the bond of mutual confidence which once existed between us. I have no more to say. I follow in the steps of one to whom I have done homage as King."

"Vere, Vere, Vere!" cried the agitated father, almost in tears, as it seemed to me, his face pale with agitation, "only come back with me, only give up this mad folly, and thou shalt wed the girl when thou willest. I will say no word against it. Anything is better than that thou shouldst put a halter round thine own neck. Come but back with me, and all shall be as thou desirest!"

There was sadness now in the Viscount's face--sadness and even a little bitterness--but no sign of wavering.

"Sir, it is too late," he answered. "Hadst thou spoken those words but ten short days ago, I would gladly have followed thee home, and given to thee a sweeter daughter than son has ever given to father yet. But it is too late now. Mine honour is pledged, and not even for the sake of my duty towards you nor my love towards the lady can I lay aside that honour and break my plighted word. Nay, were I to do so my lady would be the first to cry shame upon me. She is a soldier's daughter, and holds honour in more esteem than life itself. A deserter from the cause so near her heart would find no favour with her. She might have let love win the day had I not taken up arms for this young King--"

"King!" breathed Lord Lonsdale, in a tone only just audible, but full of bitter scorn; "knowest thou what he is called--he and his army--by all loyal and honest folk? 'King Scott and his vagabonds' is the name he goes by. My son, my son, to think thou shouldst be following such an one as he!"

The Viscount's face wore a look half sad and half bitter--like his voice when he spoke.

"Yes, it seemeth strange sometimes even to me; but there be strange shifts in a man's life, and a Viscount may sometimes come to be ranked amongst vagabonds. Father," and here his tone changed and became softer, "believe me, I am not ungrateful for your care and thought for me, and it pains me to give you pain. But I cannot go back now. I would things had been different with me; but since they are not--since I have been driven to this step--I cannot and I will not draw back. If you lose your only son by a traitor's death, it will be a grievous sorrow to you, I wot well. But even if things go ill with us, there will be many that may hope to escape with life. Perchance I will be one of these. For my Mary's sake as well as yours I shall make a battle for my life."

Lord Lonsdale would have stayed to reason longer, but his son shook his head as though to say that argument was useless, as indeed it was when both father and son thought really alike upon the question, and only a sense of honour bound Lord Vere to the cause he never professed to believe in with his heart or soul.

"Farewell, father," he said softly, and put out his hand; but the Earl drew back with a look of such pain as I shall not soon forget.

"I may not touch the hand of a rebel," he said; and so father and son parted with more bitterness and sorrow than I like to think of even now.

My lord was very grave and silent for a long time after this, as indeed he well might be, but presently rode on ahead of me to join the army.

As for me, I could please myself what I did and what pace I travelled at. The infantry had gone on in advance that morning, and had covered the distance well. I thought that they would reach Bridgewater easily by nightfall, and I decided that for my part I would stop for the night at my own home and tell all the news there.

I was a little depressed by what I had heard between Lord Lonsdale and his son, and perhaps it had slightly damped my enthusiasm in the cause. I began to see that war could be a very hideous and evil thing, and I almost found it in my heart to wish that the Viscount had consented to return with his father, and marry Mistress Mary Mead forthwith, thus saving both (as I trusted it would) from all future perils. I knew that I loved and honoured him for his words, and for ranking honour above life and happiness, and I well knew that could Mistress Mary have been there she would have upheld him with all the earnestness and enthusiasm of her nature. I was resolved that she should one day hear the story, and know what a noble heart she had won; but just for the moment I was sorrowful and sad, and I thought that the welcomes of my family would prove a pleasant diversion for my grief.

Nor was I mistaken. I found all the house in a great stir, my mother more hot and bustling and excited than I had ever seen her; for it seemed that the Duke (I find it hard to say King as I should; wherefore I think in the future I will still call him the Duke, although for many days we all of us gave him the royal title, and were proud and glad to do so) and his company had paused at the farmstead, and had asked refreshment there. His handsome face and courteous ways had won all hearts. My mother and sisters could talk of nothing but his beauty and grace. They had refused all payment for what they had set before him, and he had kissed my mother ere leaving, and set her all in a flutter of excitement. To have been kissed by a King was an honour which none of her friends or relations had ever received. She felt lifted into a region beyond that of her daily life.

I was pounced upon for news, and made to talk the whole of the day and far into the night--a thing very foreign to our home ways--so that when at last I gained my couch I slept as soundly as a dormouse, and was ashamed to find the sun high in the sky when I awoke.

Although my parents and brothers and sisters intermeddled not with such troublous matters as the rightful succession of Kings, and so forth, their hearts were all for the gallant young Duke, and I received a handsome addition to my small stock of money from my father, who bid me good-speed on my journey and a safe and prosperous return. All the country side in these parts believed that the cause of the Duke would be crowned with glory and success; and it was amusing to hear their stories as to how they had evaded giving any help, and put hindrances in the way of those who were on the royal side, but how they did everything to speed the cause of the Duke.

Blackbird was somewhat heavily laden as we started forth to Bridgewater, for my mother was in sore fear lest I should not find enough to eat on the road, and she would fain have hung all manner of things around my saddle, had I not declared that I should be the laughing-stock of all the army.

Then with many adieus I rode off, and was not long in finding my way to Bridgewater, where, as I have before stated, I had another uncle with whom I was familiarly acquainted.

It really seemed to me as I rode into the town that Bridgewater had striven to outdo Taunton in the welcome she gave the Duke. I heard that already he had been proclaimed King there; that the proclamation had been read in great state, the magistrates in their gowns standing by, and, as I also heard, not unwillingly either. Flags were flying, and windows and balconies were decked as in our town, whilst the faces of the people looked as gay and happy as though no such thing as doubt or fear existed.

I made my way with all speed to my uncle's house, which I found as busy as was like to be on such a day. My kinsfolk had scarce time to give me a welcome; but I set about making myself of use to them, and in so doing picked up many a piece of news of a welcome nature.

It seemed that although the recruits were still of the lower class of the people, much money had been collected for the cause in this place, and that the Duke and his officers were in better spirits on that account, and also because of the warmth with which they had been welcomed.

The citizens and common people were beginning to think scorn of those above them, who showed themselves so backward in the good cause, and to whisper amongst themselves upon the subject.

"We wonder the gentlemen come not in," they began to say. "But we will show them that we can do the work without them; and then when we are the masters we will have their estates!"

That evening, as I wandered through the streets of Bridgewater, I suddenly met Lord Vere walking rapidly and hurriedly, with a preoccupied look upon his face. Seeing him thus thoughtful, I was drawing aside--for I feared to presume upon that kindness which he had ever shown me--when he suddenly saw me and paused.

"Ha, Dicon!" he said, "I was just wondering where thou wert to be found. I want speech with thee, boy."

I was at his side in a moment, eager and flattered by his words.

"The matter is this, Dicon," continued my lord, speaking rapidly and in a low voice:--"Thou knowest enough of matters in the camp to understand that it is of the greatest moment for us to win Bristol. If we fail there, I see naught for it but to be destroyed between the two armies which are marching upon us--the Duke of Albemarle in our rear, and Lord Feversham and perchance Lord Churchill (for there are contrary reports brought in daily and hourly) in front, or marching from the eastward. We hear that the people of Bristol are anxiously awaiting us; but even of this there seems no certainty, for they say, too, that the Duke of Beaufort with a large body of troops has recently come into the city to hold it for the King--the King in London, Dicon--and that we shall find it a tough nut to crack. All agree in saying that if once we can get possession of it we shall find arms and money and provision in abundance, and shall have achieved the first step towards a lasting success. But the question is whether we may find entrance there, and if so what will be the wisest plan of attack; and there be few men here who know the city and have friends therein who may be trusted."

"They say Colonel Wade is from Bristol," I remarked; and the Viscount nodded assent.

"He is; but he cannot be spared from the counsels of the Duke. In fine, Dicon, what I have offered to do is to ride alone, or with but one trusty servant at most, into Bristol myself, to see certain men of the city with whom I have some acquaintance, and to learn how matters be there. I am then to return and advise the Duke what he should do; for never was man so beset before with counsellors all advocating different views, and sure never had general such a strange company of captains under him, scarce a man of them trained to war, and some scarce knowing how to handle arms!"

"You are going to Bristol then, my lord?"

"Yes: I shall start with the first light of dawn to-morrow, which will be shortly after three o'clock; and I have sought thee, Dicon, to know if thou wilt be mine esquire for the nonce and ride with me. That black pony of thine will carry thee bravely and well, as I know; and there be few of the steeds our men have of which I could say the same. Thou hast no air of martial valour to raise suspicion. I shall but appear like a traveller upon the road with my servant behind me. I think we shall not be in danger's way till our errand is done, and--"

"My lord, I would follow you to the world's end, be the dangers never so great!" I cried, my heart swelling with pride that he had made choice of me out of all the company in that great army. "I have been longing this many a day to do some service either for you or for our gracious young King. Let me go with you. I will serve you as no servant would, and lay down my life for you if need be."

He smiled at my protestation, and answered kindly,--

"I trust that may not be needful, good Dicon; but if thou wilt thou shalt serve me in this thing. Canst meet me then here in this spot by three of the clock to-morrow morning? Good! I shall look for thee. See to thy steed to-night, for we must travel with all speed. I shall strive to reach Bristol to-morrow, and as early in the day as the distance will permit."

"I will not fail you, my lord," I answered proudly, my heart beating high within me. "And shall we return to the army when you have fulfilled your errand? Shall we see the fight when the foe is before us?"

"Truly I think we shall, Dicon," answered my lord with a smile. "The enemy seems in small haste to attack us; but whether that be a good or an evil sign I wot not. Yes, boy, I mean to be in the thick of that fight whenever it does take place;" and his eyes shone for a moment from beneath their bent brows with the battle light which the thought of action brings into the faces of all true soldiers. "I too would bear my share in that fight, as I see thou wouldst too. But I doubt not we shall be in time for that. It is not fighting, it is this delay, these pageants and proclamations, which sicken me. Would we were intrenched before Bristol now, doing and daring all, instead of trusting that some great thing will come to us. Well, boy, thou and I will see what is like to be our fate in that city. To-morrow before sunrising; and Heaven give us a good journey!"