CHAPTER VIII.

"_LE ROI EST MORT._"

"Dicon! Dicon! Come down, lad; come down! The whole town is beside itself, and we want thine eyes and thy tongue here. Get up and come down. Lose not a moment! Heaven help us all if the thing be true!"

I was roused from my sleep on a bright February morning by the hearty tones of my uncle's sonorous voice. I lost not a moment in springing up and hurrying into my clothes, for there was an urgency in his manner which betokened that something unwonted was afoot.

Truth to tell, I was later abed than was my wont, owing to having aided my Lord Vere to another stolen interview with Mistress Mary the previous evening, followed by a second stolen interview at Mr. Hewling's house, where some important letters had been read and discussed, and where Mr. Speke, from Ilminster, had attended, and had given an encouraging report of the state of public feeling in his part of the world.

It was now known all over the country, I suppose, that the King was grievously ill and like to die; albeit there were many who declared that he would be given back in answer to the prayers from the churches. I suppose all men who had any sort of love for their country or interest in public affairs felt grave anxiety just at this time. For there could be small doubt that it would go hard but that bloodshed of some kind there would be, were the Duke of York to succeed to the throne; and yet there seemed no other to take that place, seeing that the Duke of Monmouth was an exile, and that he would have to fight for the crown ere he could hope to wear it. Men who remembered the horrors of civil war a generation back, the disruption of families, and the bloodshed and confusion, shook their heads mournfully, and advised any submission rather than a repetition of such fearsome things; but we of younger and rasher spirit--we who had never tasted of such horrors, but looked only on the glory and honour to be reaped in warfare--felt very differently. I think I, despite my physical deformities, should have been grieved to the heart had any prophet arisen to say that there would be no fighting in our days. The martial spirit had seized upon me. I, in common with others, watched eagerly the marshalling and exercising of the train-bands and militia whenever they assembled under their leaders; and although we knew right well that they were thus mustered and put through their exercises with a view to showing the towns-folk how useless would be any rising of the rabble, when these bands could at once be brought out to crush it, yet knowing the individual men in the ranks, we were certain that half of them at least were hot in the cause of our Duke, and that if the chance for joining him arose, they would come over, arms, ammunition, bright-coloured uniforms, and all.

But I must return to that day when the great news reached Taunton. I rushed downstairs, finishing my toilet as I did so, to find all the lower rooms filled with excited folk who had come in from the streets the moment the news had got wind, and were so crowding round a travel-stained messenger that it was some time before I could approach near enough to hear what he was saying. But I did not need to do that to know what had happened, for the news was in every mouth,--

"The King is dead! the King is dead! God save us all! The Duke of York is proclaimed King in his stead!"

"The King was poisoned by his brother!" whispered a voice in the crowd. I know not whence it came; but the word was taken up in the lowest of tones, and one heard it go surging along accompanied by a sort of shuddering sigh, as though men half feared to utter the fearful words. Other wild whispers soon got afloat. Some vowed it was the Queen who had administered the poison in her intolerant jealousy; others, that it was the notorious Duchess of Portsmouth; but the favourite and most lasting impression of those who believed that foul means had been employed to put the King out of the way, was that his brother the Duke had contrived to poison him, either through his snuff or in his food,--and since he was the man of all others to reap advantage from that death, the opinion flourished and gained ground amongst his enemies apace.

But crowding round the weary messenger, who had galloped to Taunton with the news since noon the previous day, we strove to learn from him every detail of the calamity; and he told his tale again and again.

That the King had been out of health since the fall of the previous year was a thing known to all the country. Some called it gout, and said it was a matter of small moment; others shook their heads over it, and said it showed a break up of the sound constitution which had hitherto marked the monarch. But although there had been much anxious discussion as to the succession, men were not really prepared for this sudden end to the King's life; and when we heard that he had been only four days actually ill, the end did indeed seem to be sudden.

But the terrible thing to us was the story with which the messenger said that all London was ringing--namely, that upon his death-bed the King had been admitted into the Romish Church; that a priest had been found and brought to him by his brother; and that all the courtiers, with the exception of the Earls of Feversham and Bath, had been turned out of the room whilst extreme unction had been administered, and his Majesty confessed and shrived by the priest found with some difficulty for the office.

This was indeed grave news; for if the Duke of York had acted thus, was there any hope but that he would openly profess the Romish faith when he was set upon the throne? At once a vision of Smithfield fires rose before the mind's eye of numbers and numbers of those who heard the story. It seemed to us that with a Papist King, a man notorious for his cruelty and love of inflicting misery and bloodshed, any sort of horror was possible. What wonder that faces grew pale, that we looked at each other in silent amaze, whilst the women wept aloud and gathered their children into their arms as though to protect them from some menacing peril!

"And the King himself, what did he say?" was asked in many quarters. "Did he speak of the Duke--the Duke of Monmouth? Did he say aught of him and his rights?"

The messenger shook his head as this question reached him. The man was one who knew our Duke and thought well of him. He was a West Country fellow himself, and not yet vitiated by the atmosphere of the Court in which he had lived so long.

"His Majesty called for his other children," said he--meaning, of course, children born out of lawful wedlock; for, as all men know, the Queen was childless, to the great grief of the nation--"but of the Duke of Monmouth no word was spoken. The King did not breathe his name--so, at least, it is averred. None dared to speak of him, the Duke of York standing by. Nay, my friends, I fear me there is no hope for England in that quarter. The Duke of York is King in his brother's stead. But what we may lawfully do to stand by the laws and the rights of our nation and our faith, that let every man do to the utmost that is in him. James may wear the crown and be called King, but we will have no tyrant forcing us to a faith against which we have fought and triumphed years ago. He may rule us indeed, but he shall not make of us Papists nor slaves!"

A muffled cheer went round the room as these words were spoken; but many were there standing by who did not endorse the first part of the speech, but cast looks one at another which seemed to say that it would go hard before they would acknowledge a Papist King!

Then a news-letter was produced, and I was called upon to read it loud whilst the weary messenger supped. Of course it stopped short before the death of his Majesty, but it gave an account of the life of the Court up till the time of the King's seizure; and gay and scandalous, indeed, did the history of the last Sunday evening read to us quiet and sober country folks. Women shook their heads as they heard in whose company the King spent his time, and whispered that death had come as a judgment from heaven. Yet few eyes were dry as the letter spoke of the sufferings of the King, and of his fortitude and courage under them.

"After all he was the King, with all his faults and vices," they said; and we all felt how little there was of kingliness in the dark Duke who had succeeded him.

I conjured up before my mental vision the picture of the other Duke as I had seen him a year or two back, his handsome open face, his winning address, his kindly grace of manner, and his care and love for all his poorer subjects (for so did I call them even now in my heart). How could I help trusting in him as the rightful King, when his touch had made me whole, as only the touch of a true King's hand could do?

I found myself telling the story again almost ere I knew it, and the messenger, who was working steadily at the platter of good victuals before him, kept throwing keen glances at me and at the people round, and making odd sounds the while.

I had hardly finished the reading, and the telling of my well-known tale, before a little stir in the crowd announced an arrival; and looking over the heads of the people--for I was set upon a stool to be better heard and seen--I beheld the cadaverous visage and lantern jaws of Mr. Blewer. He came in looking to right and left with his sharp, ferret-like eyes, and his ears seemed to be on the alert to catch any words that might fall from unwary lips. Something in the sinister aspect of the man, and in the loathing with which I had come to regard him, caused the words I was reading to die away upon my lips, and the sudden silence which fell upon me attracted the attention of all present to the entrance of the new-comer.

Mr. Blewer was little beloved in Taunton. It was firmly held by many that he was nothing more nor less than a spy in the interests of the Duke of York, or the King as we must needs learn to call him; unless, indeed--but such things are best not spoken too openly. There were only too many rogues abroad in the world who lived by selling information to one or other of the different parties at Court, and men were strongly of the opinion that the Rev. Nicholas was one of these miscreants. His very appearing so stealthily in our midst at this time of excitement seemed to augur ill, and the murmur of voices died into silence as he made his way into the room.

"Have a care, good people, have a care!" he said, with a leering smile that was uglier than his scowl. "I thought I heard some suspicious word--some phrases that savoured too much of sedition! Have a care how you let your unruly member run away with you! There be birds in the air to carry such words whither ye would not. If God has thought good to take one monarch to Himself, He has given us another of the same name and race to set upon the throne. Let us thank Him from our hearts for this great goodness, and cry aloud in joy and gratitude, 'Long live King James!'"

As he spoke he lifted his hat and waved it above his head, and all who wore theirs instinctively uncovered, and many amongst us, led by the hearty voice of my uncle, strove to raise the shout, "Long live King James the Second!" But the words seemed to stick in the throats of many; and Mr. Blewer looked sharply round upon us, saying, with that evil smile of his,--

"Why, that is but a sorry shout for a new-made King; but perchance your loyal hearts are too full yet of grief for our noble King Charles to give a right royal welcome to his successor!"

"Ay, sir," said my uncle; "that is the case with us. We can scarce yet rejoice in the thought that any other sits in the place of good King Charles, be he never so great and good a prince. Prosperous and peaceful has England been beneath his fatherly sway; and sad are we to learn that he is no more, though I trow that Taunton men will not be lacking in loving loyalty to his successor."

Many asseverations of this kind were made, and the talk grew animated and general. Being no longer required to read the news-letter, which Mr. Blewer had taken into his own hands, I slipped away through the throng, and found myself face to face with Will Wiseman, who caught me by the arm and drew me forth into the street with him.

"It has come then, Dicon!" he whispered, evidently in great excitement: "the King is dead, and another King must sit upon the throne. But whether King James the Second, as in sooth he will be, will be--"

"Hist, Will, be not so rash!" I exclaimed, drawing him into an entry and looking nervously round; for I had caught some caution from the precept and example of my uncle, and I knew that men had paid dear before now for rash words spoken under stress of excitement. "Take heed how thou speakest. If Mr. Blewer were to hear thee, it might go ill with thee in the days to come."

"A pest upon his ugly face and meddlesome, prying ways!" cried Will hotly; for he hated Mr. Blewer even more than I did, and with some reason, since that worthy had done many an ill turn to his master, and had dealt many cuffs and hard words to the lad himself.

Will, as ill-luck would have it, had in his pocket a piece of chalk, and being gifted with the power of drawing lampoons with a wondrous ease and dexterity, he solaced himself by drawing upon the wall, as we stood, two representations of Mr. Blewer, in both of which his hideous face, lantern jaws, and great cavernous mouth were delineated with more truth than flattery. In the first of these pictures the clergyman was represented as preaching from the pulpit, the ungainly action of the man being hit off with wondrous fidelity. In the other he was portrayed as being whipped by the hangman at the cart's tail--a fate we had amused ourselves by prophesying for him sometimes when reckoning upon the good days which Taunton should enjoy when "King Monmouth" should be upon the throne. In both pictures his mouth was equally wide open, and beneath each Will wrote, in rude letters,--

"THE WORSHIPFUL AND REVEREND MR. NICHOLAS BLEWER EXTOLLING THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS."

I doubled myself up with laughter at the clever picture, and a small crowd of laughing men and boys gathered round to admire. We were passing comments far from flattering to Mr. Blewer, and Will was touching up his handiwork so as to make the likeness a little more frightful, when a sudden scattering of the bystanders and a few words of whispered warning made us turn suddenly, to see Mr. Blewer himself regarding us with a baleful light in his eyes, and such a scowl of malevolence upon his brow that I wished Will's talents anywhere else at that moment. I drew him away as fast as I could, but not before we heard the harsh, grating tones of Mr. Blewer's voice following us,--

"Very good, Will Wiseman, very good. It will not be the fault of Nicholas Blewer if thou dost not taste the discipline of the hangman's whip before he has done with thee."

"O Will, why didst thou do it?" I asked, in an access of fear and trembling. "My uncle ever teaches us to speak with respect of dignitaries, even though they be none of the best. I fear me we were wrong in this, and shall suffer for it. Mr. Blewer is not a man who forgives or forgets."

"Let him remember an he pleases--I care not," answered Will, who had a much higher courage than I, and far more of that reckless daring which I read of with envy and admiration, but never attained to myself. It was one of the things I most admired in him, though it sometimes made me fear that he would get into trouble sooner or later.

We walked back to his home together, talking eagerly of the great news of the day. Personally, we had no especial regrets for his late Majesty, and could not but rejoice in the prospect of the coming strife; for that England would calmly accept James Duke of York as her King was a thing incomprehensible to us, owing to the element of faction in which we had been living. We ourselves so thoroughly believed in the rights of the exiled Monmouth, that we could not credit or understand that these had never been greatly believed in by the mass of the nation, and that the King's brother was likely to obtain all the support of the lovers of established monarchy, as well as of those who, whilst personally regretting the character of the man, would not be a party to a measure of exclusion which should keep the true heir from the throne, or favour a possible usurper.

As days went by the excitement did not lessen. All manner of wild rumours were flying about; but from my lord the Viscount, who came daily into Taunton on one errand or another--in hopes, as I knew, of getting sight or speech of Mistress Mary--I heard the truest tidings.

King James had declared, immediately on succeeding to his new estate, that he would guard the established religion of the country as the choicest treasure of his crown; and a thrill of joy and triumph ran through the country, whilst men swore that the Prince had been sorely maligned, and that whatever his wife might be, he was no Papist at heart.

But then, on the very heels of the first good news, came tidings that the King was going openly to Mass with his wife, that the oratory chapel fitted up for her was to be thrown open for public worship, that the Papists all over the country were rejoicing, and that banished priests and Jesuits were beginning to creep back, certain that good days were in store for them at last.

Then still more ugly whispers (as some thought) got abroad. The King had consented to summon a Parliament, having indeed but small choice in the matter; but it was known in many circles that he had received a large sum of money from the French King in order to make him almost independent of that body, and to bribe and corrupt its members when chosen, that it might be merely an engine for the oppression of the people at the will of a tyrannical monarch.

It was steps like these that so roused the scorn and ire of Lord Vere. Had the new monarch been true and upright in his dealings; had he thrown off the fatal yoke of France, and trusted himself to his loyal people as the House of Tudor (with all their faults) had ever been able to do, I think that even the gentle pleadings of Mistress Mary would scarce have served to turn him back from that loyalty to the crown which was his as by natural inheritance. But this crooked statecraft and treacherous dealing roused all the generous indignation and scorn within him which the young are wont to feel when brought face to face with what is base and false. His father and the elder men might shrug their shoulders, and say that these things had to be; that it was part of the essence of kingcraft; that it was useless to hope for better. But the Viscount could not take this view of the matter. Perhaps he had imbibed more of the opinions and feeling of the towns-folk than he well knew at the time. At any rate, as the days flew by, and we heard more and more of the methods of the new King, a dark frown would often rest upon his brow, and he would say with scornful vehemence, "It is shame that such a man should call himself England's King!"

The dissenters of Taunton--and they were very many--were thrown into great commotion and wrath at the news of the treatment received at the hands of Lord Chief-Justice Jeffreys by that great and good man Richard Baxter, who was brought before him to answer for some rash words spoken in the indignation aroused by the harsh treatment given him for no other offence than declining to use the Book of Common Prayer in public worship. We had just before heard with horror of the inhuman punishment inflicted by the same judge upon Oates and Dangerfield. Not that we felt sympathy with the vile informers who had brought so many innocent persons to the block, but that the ribaldry and cruelty of the judge filled men with horror; and the more so because we knew that this same judge was likely to come again to the West Country for the autumn assizes, and that should any luckless dissenter be brought before him here, he might make up his mind to look for neither justice nor mercy from such a judge. The account of the insults and brutal language to which this aged divine and his friends and advocates were subjected by Lord Jeffreys made the blood boil in the veins of those who read and those who heard. No jury save one chosen by the miserable Sheriffs of London, mere tools in the hand of the government, would have dared to return a verdict of guilty. And when it was known that Jeffreys would have had the good old man whipped at the cart's tail through London, had it not been that for once he was overborne by his brethren on the bench, a sense of horror and loathing arose in the minds of honest and merciful men, not only against the wicked Judge himself, but against the King who could smile approval on such a debauched servant, and actually associate him with Lord Guildford, the Keeper of the Seals, with the evident intention of promoting him still higher if he continued to go about his work in the same way.

The elections and the coronation all added to the dismay of the Protestant party. It was asserted that the King had so greatly shortened the service that it was most meagre and insufficient, and that this was plainly due to his Popish reluctance to take part in any function of the church he had sworn to uphold and revere. His parsimony was bitterly and scornfully commented upon; for the same spirit of greed which had made him refuse the usual splendid obsequies to the late King (so that men spoke of King Charles as having received "the burial of an ass"), caused him to do away with much of the pageantry of his own coronation, and greatly was this resented by the people, who were by no means too friendly towards him from the beginning.

We of Taunton heard these stories with a species of sombre joy. There was more afoot in the city just now than I knew at the time. My uncle kept me busily employed reading and telling the news. I still continued to take the news-letter into Miss Blake's house and read it to the ladies there. I was often sent errands hither and thither into the country, and kept more busy than I had ever been before; and though I was dimly aware that much was seething below the surface in the hearts of our towns-folk, I was not at all certain whither it was tending.

The elections to which I have alluded took place in May, and the returns were most wonderfully against our wishes, and in favour of the Tory and Court party. The King was said to have got just that sort of packed Parliament which he desired, and would in all probability keep it all through his reign. This was a heavy blow to some amongst us, who had hoped that the leaven working through the land would have acted differently. But at least if disappointed, we knew now what to expect. Such a Parliament as ours would be little better than a tool in the hand of a tyrant monarch. Some small protection it might be against the encroachments of arbitrary power, but so small that it was better to hope nothing from it.

I must not close this chapter (which I fear has been but a dull one; only these things have to be made something clear, or what follows cannot well be understood) without some mention of a piece of work going on within the walls of Miss Blake's establishment, which was destined to bring Taunton almost as much fame as anything that happened within its environs during the stirring days to come.

I had noted that immediately upon the death of the King, whenever I had gone to read to the ladies in the parlour, they were deeply engrossed upon some large pieces of silken embroidery work, something different from anything I had seen in their hands before.

Mistress Mary's was on a large and more gorgeous scale than those of the others, and it was always the same; whilst Miss Blake's and Mrs. Musgrave's varied continually, as they seemed to be putting in the outlines of a pattern which other hands would fill up.

But Mistress Mary's steadily grew and grew, and although always carefully covered up, yet revealed much gold and crimson raised work, and altogether began to have such a wonderfully gorgeous effect that I could not keep my eyes from straying to it again and again as I sat and talked. Busy as she was, I saw that she noted these glances, and one day just before I was about to leave she gave me one of her rare sweet smiles, and said,--

"Come, Dicon, thou needst not eat thine heart out in curiosity. I have good reason to know that thou art to be trusted. I will show thee my work." A flush mantled her face as she unpinned and unfolded it, and she added, with a sudden light in her eyes, "It is a banner for my Lord of Monmouth, when kind Providence sends him hither as our deliverer."

Then she displayed before my eyes the gorgeous golden-worked banner, and I saw that the raised letters surmounted by a crown were none other than these of momentous meaning--J.R.

Nor could I doubt for a moment that their meaning was "Jacobus Rex."