open, and strewn with flowers,” Florien declared. “But the main advice I bring is to establish a communication with Scotland, and to compass some union of counsels, if not of forces.”
Lord Grey’s countenance grew as black as night.
“Have you spoken of Scotland to his Grace?” he said.
“Not yet. Probably she has opened the subject in her letter, and I am to continue it.”
“Speak no word on it till it cannot be evaded,” said Lord Grey with emphasis. “What! you must discharge your commission? But if your orders are superseded by higher? You are trustworthy, Florien; and it is needful that you should know what is known only to three persons in this camp besides myself.—All is over in Scotland. His Grace must not hear of this, except from the enemy. If he does,—”
“All over in Scotland!” repeated Florien, thunderstruck.
“All utterly lost! The cause, and every man engaged in it.”
“But why—?”
They looked towards Monmouth: but he was only turning the sheets over, in order to begin the letter again.
“But why conceal news so essential?”
“Because it has been hard enough to prevent his deserting us and these poor people, as it is. If he dreamed of the utter extinction of his cause in the North, nothing would detain him. He would be in Lady Henrietta’s arms by this day week, and would have no thought, no sensibility to spare for the wretches whose heads and quarters would be called for, to set up over every park gate in England.”
Florien did not believe this at the moment, and he looked at his old fellow-conspirator as if searching the countenance of a traitor: but before midnight he could have told a worse tale than Grey had told to him.
“What is to be done? What can be done with such a candidate for the Protestant crown?”
Battiscombe was called in; for he knew the worst.
“What we want,—what is especially wanting to his Majesty,” said he, “is some military success. A victory, however small, would work wonders, or would be a signal to give up.—You smile at the notion of a military success, my Lord Grey: but I do not despair of it,—even though lawyers and merchants lead rustics and tradesmen against soldiers. Nor do I despair of hearing the people glorify their King Monmouth as the finest leader and stoutest soldier they have seen since the Commonwealth.”
“All things are possible,” answered Lord Grey, with a shrug.
“Except that we should waver now,” said Christopher.
“Oh certainly, Mr. Battiscombe. There can be no doubt about that.”
It was not many hours before Christopher’s words were made good. On meeting the royal forces under Lord Feversham, every one saw that the moment for fighting had arrived; and Monmouth was foremost in the attack. It seemed to rouse his spirit that the van of the royal force was commanded by another son of his father.
“It is Grafton,” he observed to his staff. “We must give him a lesson on the succession, and spare his life, that he may go and tell the Usurper what the real King is like.”
And amidst the enthusiasm of his own leaders, and of the troops they led, he rushed to one end of his line, and then to the other, as the five hundred of the Duke of Grafton’s force advanced, rendering one point after another the hardest to hold, and always finding Monmouth there. He harassed them in flank, on the road where they could not change their disposition; and when at length they retreated, they found him on their rear. They left a fifth of their numbers behind them; and their report did not encourage their General to any renewal of the fight. It was soon noised over London that Monmouth was not a Pretender to be derided; that Albemarle had been over-confident in reporting from Taunton of the proclamations he found there being as amusing as a bellman’s rhymes; and not a few citizens changed their opinion at once about the Pretender’s legitimacy, after this first actual fight. It could be no baseborn child of Lucy Walters who had shown himself so princely in his first passage of arms with the Usurper:—it must be the true son of a king who showed his right in such a way as this.
Greater still was the benefit down in Somersetshire. If they could have been armed, the whole population would have followed Monmouth. It was scarcely possible to resist the influence of such acclaims as arose wherever the little army appeared. The young men, seeing what one small success had done, expected that a larger would open to them the road to London. Battiscombe would, but for M. Florien, have been carried away like the rest, in spite of his experience of the horses and men he had to manage,—in spite of his vexation at the ravage of Glastonbury which he loved so well, and of Wells Cathedral, which he could not lend a hand to dismantle, as John Hickes expected of him. Florien told his old pupil, now a foremost champion of Protestant kingship in England, more than he communicated to any one else in the army. He told of the fierce ambition of Lady Henrietta, and of its effect in sending Monmouth to England, believing himself inspired by her heroic, as by his own passionate love. He told of the utter hopelessness of the Scotch expedition from the outset; and of the unexpected, but not unreasonable decision of the Protestant party generally to await King James’s death, and a natural Protestant succession; and of the complete and fatal alienation of the Prince and Princess of Orange from the cousin whom they had humoured and spoiled through compassion from his birth. One hope M. Florien still saw. The Dutch soldiers were fond of Monmouth. There was a chance that they might come over to him, if brought up to fight him: but then, they would be kept out of sight for that very reason,—employed in the north or east while Monmouth was in the west.
Christopher saw something more to hope than this. A great battle would mend or mar all.
“However it may issue,” he said, “we must