Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/Son Christopher - Part 4

by Harriet Martineau

SON CHRISTOPHER.

AN HISTORIETTE. BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.

CHAPTER V. THE TWELFTH OF JUNE IN LYME.

For thirty-six hours the Squire remained on duty before he allowed himself any rest. The difficulty of the case was so extreme to all but those who joined Monmouth’s standard, that the vast number of those who did was less and less to be wondered at. Unless the Mayor was really gone to London, nobody could tell where he was. Sir Henry Foley’s promises of loyal troops, to appear immediately, were not fulfilled; and next morning it became known that the defensive force was to assemble at Bridport. The Red Regiment of Dorsets Militia and the Yellow Regiment of Somersets were already gone there,—the dastardly bearing of the company at Lyme having left a damp on the spirit of the place. Already Monmouth’s force amounted to fifteen hundred men, before he stepped out of Lyme; and the families of those fifteen hundred held the market-place and streets and neighbouring downs for “King Monmouth.” A troop rode in from Taunton, and reported of that place and all Somersetshire being in a passion of loyalty to the Protestant prince. They would take care that the Duke of Albemarle did not get to Bridport without an effective check. The whole country was up; and Monmouth could not be more of a king in Westminster Abbey than he now was in the George Inn at Lyme.

The louder such jubilations, the more assiduous and ubiquitous was the town-guard under the Squire. They served in relays: but he remained, hour after hour, in expectation of the departure of the invaders. When they began to quarrel among themselves, his presence was more needful than ever: and the Duke himself appealed to him to protect the life of one of his own commanders. This Captain Fletcher and the officer who had been recruiting at Taunton quarrelled about a horse,—each being unwilling to ride a steed fresh from the plough. High words, the whip, a pistol-shot followed each other; and the recruiting agent, Dare, lay dead in the street. But for the town-guard, the cavalry officer would have been slain by the people on the spot; and it was with no small difficulty that they protected him to the boats, and back to Monmouth’s ship. This incident quickened the departure of the invaders. They were not quite so popular in Lyme the second day as the first, and therefore more open to remonstrance about allowing the King’s forces time to rally in the west, in the direction of their march.

Yet it was a brave array which wound up the narrow and steep and rocky street of Lyme, and issued forth upon the open country where new companies were waiting to join the march; and where troops might be seen converging to the down through lanes, and up the slopes from the interior country, and across the grassy uplands. When all Lyme was out of town, except the weary authorities, and the loyal gentry who had shut themselves up while the turmoil lasted, the Squire went off duty, and quietly entered his yard from the back,—so haggard and unlike himself that his own good dog Tubal hesitated for an instant to greet him.

There was a person in the yard, however, who greeted him without any hesitation. Reuben Coad came forward from the stables with a smile.

“Reuben!” exclaimed the Squire. “Have you left your master, Reuben?”

“Left him, your worship! No, indeed! He is too good a master to leave in a hurry. My master is here,” pointing to the house. “Bid not your worship know we were coming?”

The Squire did not answer; but the man was entirely satisfied that Christopher’s arrival was unexpected.

The house was very quiet. Most of the servants who were not with the young people at Dunn’s farm had turned out upon the down to see the march of Monmouth’s soldiers out of Lyme. Eleazer, the old butler, unbarred the door for his master; and the only persons in the house besides were his mistress and Elizabeth, and Christopher, who had appeared half an hour before.

The Squire said afterwards that he had never seen such an expression on any human face as that with which Elizabeth now met him. All the three rose as he entered the room where they were in earnest conversation; but Elizabeth went to meet him, putting her arm within his, and looking up into his face as she said—

“Christopher has come to tell us that he is going to join the Duke of Monmouth.”

“I hope—I pray God this is not true, Christopher!” his father exclaimed, in a low and solemn voice.

“It is true, father: and I fully expected that we should be of one mind as to our duty. I cannot believe that you will support the Usurper for an hour after a Protestant king has appeared. No one will imagine such a thing as your holding back—— I can’t bear to put such a thought into words.”

“Leave it unspoken, then, my son. You and I shall never misjudge one another. We will discuss this grave matter; but first we must take care of these precious women. Your mother is in mortal dread, I see, though she will never own it: and this dear child,” caressing Elizabeth,—“we must send her back to the High-Sheriff and his safe roof before worse happens.”

Christopher said there could be no doubt of this, and he had planned to send her, in charge of Reuben and a sufficient escort, if it should be thought safer for her than his own presence.

“I would not trust her with Reuben,” the Squire observed.

“I hoped you would let me stay,” Elizabeth said. “I wish to do exactly what is right. I wish to be worthy of Christopher,” she explained, looking at him with a gaze of pride and love which brought tears into eyes which scarcely knew the feel of them. “He has devoted himself——”

“And you, too,” sighed the father.

“Oh! I bless him for it—that he has devoted me, too,” she continued; “and I desire to be worthy of it; to help where I can, and hinder nothing. I could wish to stay, and do my best: but if you tell me it is right for me to go, I will go—and cheerfully, if I can.”

No one had any doubt. They would have sent her to-night but for the fear of stragglers from Monmouth’s force being about; and she must depart as soon as it was light. A few words explained why she was not at Dunn’s farm with the rest. She had longed to stay and be daughter to Mrs. Battiscombe; and, on the other hand, it was thought that if her brother should send for her, it would be better that she should be on the spot.

Though the supper which the Squire so much needed was short, the grace was long. Never had grace, both before and after meat, been so solemn in that house. This might be the last time that the four would sit down to table together: and it was, almost certainly, the last time they would eat together before events had happened which would decide the fate of their lives, and the destiny of the kingdom.

The conversation which ensued was not very long. Father and son knew what they meant to say, and understood one another perfectly. The Squire could not agree to stake the cause of the Reformation on the chances of the illegitimate son of a licentious king being accepted as his heir. He was not satisfied as to the willingness of the Protestants of the kingdom to welcome a gay worldling like Monmouth, as the representative of their antagonism with the Pope and his forces. From what he had seen of the Duke’s adherents, he doubted their quality and capacity; and he told of the murder of Dare in the street, and the consequent loss of Fletcher as a leader. He would not pledge himself to the Catholic king now ruling; but he would maintain civil order till he could see his way. No man could go further than he in scorn and disgust at the bad faith and cruel temper of the new king; and no man could be more confident that such a method of rule as the present could not continue. God and man would determine, ere long, that there should be a Protestant sovereign. The question for every man’s conscience was whether to accept Monmouth for that office, or to wait for the Protestant princesses who should naturally succeed the present king, if no son of his old age should be born to him. The Squire did not insist on waiting for them: but he must learn more before he marched under Monmouth’s flag.

Christopher believed on high authority, as he declared, that the contents of the Black Box which they had all heard of would prove the Duke the legitimate heir of the late king. If this were so, there could be no doubt how any Protestant should act. But, though there was no need of further self-defence, Christopher had willing and delighted hearers to something more. When he told how many devoted ministers of the Gospel were hoping in their dreary prisons that Monmouth would set them free; when he told how friends of his, old and young, were holding themselves ready to rush to Monmouth’s standard at the risk of their lives; when he told how the poor people throughout the kingdom considered this a holy year because it had been revealed that King Monmouth should come; when he told how he and his comrades in the Temple had secretly practised drill for many weeks past, and how they had studied the right way for fresh officers to command raw soldiers, and how he hoped to train for himself a troop worthy of the Commonwealth,—father and mother were almost as much carried away as Elizabeth. All regarded Christopher as a young soldier of the Lord, who might be honoured with a commission to reconquer the kingdom for the Reformation,—the first among an army of Christian heroes who should flock in to the strife when it was seen what one such man could do.

“It may be that such is my son’s commission,” said the Squire, recovering his deliberate mood with an effort; “but the risks—we must keep the risks in full view.”

“No question but Christopher has done that,” Elizabeth answered. “He is no child to be caught by the glitter of honour, nor wilful in forgetting what may be behind. There is no heroism in making a choice like his without a full study of the risks.”

“I bless God,” said the hitherto silent mother, “that my son’s chosen wife speaks so worthily, according to her knowledge. But she cannot know fully what the risks are.”

“She does,” Christopher answered proudly and fondly.

“I believe she does,” his father said solemnly.

“I do,” declared Elizabeth, in the tone in which she might have spoken her marriage vows. Silence followed for some moments. Then the father said:

“Where so much is perilled, it may seem a small matter to think of our repute in regard to worldliness. When we risk the ill-fame of treason, we might be indifferent to blame for self-seeking: but, Christopher, men will say that you and I take different sides as a politic course—to save the property, and to make interest for one another’s life, when it is seen who fails.”

“Yes, it will surely be said, father; but ours is not a name which can be long clouded by such a slander.”

“My dear son!” remonstrated his mother. “Let not these things breed pride in you already. How many better than ourselves have been reviled and cast out—”

She stopped, as her husband was saying, as to himself,

“Despised and rejected—”

“You are right, mother!” said Christopher. “The pride of my words was unseemly. But we cannot govern ourselves by the low thoughts of the watchers for evil.”

“Better confound them by your acts,” Elizabeth observed. “If you joined in bestowing the property on the Cause, keeping back nothing, spiteful tongues would be silenced.”

“And how should we live, dear child?” asked the Squire. “How are my children to be provided for?”

“We shall see at the time,” she replied. “Perhaps we can work: at any rate we could starve: but none who can work need starve, I believe. I am sure this is the time, if ever, for devoting ourselves and all we have.”

“It is so!” “It is so!” all were agreed. During the silence which followed, their thoughts were the same; and they all knew it. There had never before been such a season of deadly risk, nor of such temptation from passion and delusion, nor, therefore, of such need of supreme guidance. When the silence was broken, it was by the father’s voice, saying:

“Now, let us pray!”

 

CHAPTER VI. FROM LYME TO THE CAMP.

The next morning the dispersion of the household was more complete. Before he slept, Christopher wished to make all arrangements for Elizabeth’s return home; and he went out to give his orders to Reuben. But Reuben could not be found. He was certainly not on the premises. Christopher was vexed; but he was confident the man had merely gone down to the beach cottages, to spend the night with his relations;—unless indeed he had started off after Monmouth’s force, impelled thereto by the strength of Hickes’s exhortations, which still reverberated through the town. He would doubtless account for his absence when he next met his master: but he must learn that he must remain strictly under orders.

By sunrise, an escort arrived for Elizabeth. A note from her brother required her instant return, while the road was comparatively safe. In a day or two, the whole county might be overrun.

Did this mean by insurgents, or by soldiers from London?

Nobody could tell; or, if the confidential person who headed the escort could have told the Sheriff’s meaning, he would not.

Elizabeth would not allow her lover to attend her one step beyond his father’s gate. He must go now where his duty led him. The time and his Prince needed him; and when they met in some great future day—— The rest could not be put into words.

In a few minutes after she was out of sight, Christopher was on his road westwards, cheered that his parents could give him their blessing, and respect his proper liberty, while doubting his wisdom in his course. He turned aside to Farmer Dunn’s, which was not more than a mile away from his road, and had a hasty interview with his sisters. His young brothers were out, trying to gather news while they could; for the farmer had announced that if any soldiers should pass that way, he should probably close his gates and his shutters, and keep all within doors. He could at any time stand a short siege, if necessary; and he intended to defend his guests from any sort of intrusion. They came to him to be safe; and safe he would keep them, together with his own children. The boys might go anywhere within sound of his dinner-horn, with which the labourers were called to meals. At the first blast they must run for the farm, or take the chance of being shut out. Such was farmhouse life in those days.

Christopher could not stay, after telling his news, and assuring his sisters that he did not know where he was going, beyond overtaking Monmouth.

“But you say it is westwards that he is gone. Do you think he will go to Taunton?”

“O yes; to Taunton and everywhere else, sooner or later.”

“But how soon to Taunton? O! will you not—— Can you not bring Joanna home? And will you not go to Wells, and see how Madame Lisle fares, or whether she is gone back to Winchester?”

“And will you not——?”

“My dears, I am a soldier now, and belong to my general,” he declared gaily, as he kissed his sisters, and rode away. He checked his horse for a moment, to call out to them that he would not fail to send news of Joanna, after getting to Taunton, unless he sent Joanna herself.

“He is in great spirits,” Arabella observed to her sister, as they stood at the farmyard gate, watching their idol as he galloped away over the Down.

“He is of that quality of man,” replied Judith, “that is lightest under the heaviest burdens. Would we were all of that temper!”

“Elizabeth is,” remarked Arabella; and Judith hoped this was true.

Christopher had special cause for his joyousness this morning. He had overheard his father remark to his mother on the courage that had so unexpectedly appeared in Elizabeth. From such a rearing as hers he should have looked, the Squire said, for a worldling who would shrink from the risks of a Roundhead marriage, when they came to be understood; instead of which, this delicately-reared young creature was the foremost to propose sacrifices, and gayer in the prospect of the gravest perils than in the safest and sunniest hours of maidenly merriment. There must be some strong support for some members of other churches than the Presbyterian:—(he had always believed this; but now he saw it). There must be some holy calling forth of the best faculties—— “Even so,” his wife had replied. “I trust Elizabeth has religion. Indeed, I cannot doubt it: but it is human love which enables her to be what we have seen.” These words, ringing through him in his mother’s voice, were the cause of Christopher’s exaltation of mind and spirits to-day.

Wherever he went, and wherever his family turned, the very air seemed burdened with tidings. News seemed to come in all directions faster than natural means could bring it. It was reported all along Elizabeth’s road to Dorchester, and all over Lyme, that the King and Council and Parliament had gone great lengths on the sole testimony of the mayor of Lyme, having actually passed, in the course of the day after his arrival in London, and without detaining him from his duty, a bill of attainder against Monmouth; and a bill which declared it high treason to call him legitimate. This was true; but it had not taken place when Christopher left London; nor had the mayor,—his acquaintance, Gregory Alford,—arrived in town. It was by Reuben that Christopher had been informed that Monmouth and his force were certainly off Lyme, or in it: and now, after one night-halt at his father’s, this news,—that in believing in and adhering to Monmouth men became guilty by law of high treason,—overtook him, outstripped him, and spread through the western counties before he could reach them.

It was said that, on the one hand the Duke had few supporters among the best class in the kingdom,—the substantial Whigs, the gentry in town and country, the magistrates and professional men, who had been supposed to be waiting only for an opportunity to set up a Protestant sovereign; while, on the other hand, there was no end of the reports of the rejoicings of the country people, and the town shopkeepers and working men and women, that the sacredness of the year was made manifest by the descent upon their shores of King Monmouth. Great folks said the rising was contemptible, and would be put down without disturbing quiet people: yet it was certain that the church bells were ringing wherever townsmen and villagers could get at them; there were to be bonfires all along the coast, and throughout the west that night: the hedges were torn to pieces, partly for timber for the fires, but also for the wild roses and woodbine, with which the people crowned effigies of King Monmouth, and adorned the triumphal arches which rapidly arose in his honour. Some said the Papists were packing up, in readiness for departure at any moment: but in each particular place there seemed to be nothing remarkable about the Catholics, unless it was a sudden quietness which seemed to have descended upon them. The prelatical party was a stranger spectacle, in its striking division on this first application of a test. A considerable proportion of the Church party, from London to Exeter, at once took up the cry for a Protestant King; but a great majority declared for the actual king and a regular succession, and showed a more bitter hostility to the rising than the Papists themselves. It was reported, till it reached Monmouth’s ear and sank his heart, that this violence was no sign of loyalty to James, but rather of impatience and wrath that an interloper should have ventured to cross their plans for a regular and safe Protestant succession, after a few years’ patience with the old man to whom they had sworn faith and loyalty, and who certainly was likely to try their patience to a very great extent. While, of thinking people, some were sunk in despair or quivering in fear, and others were in an exaltation of hope and triumph, the day was one of intense enjoyment to the ignorant and thoughtless, wherever Monmouth’s name was on the lips of the crowd. Three-year old children remembered the day for ever afterwards, by the processions at noon and the bonfires at night, and the tumult of bells, and hurrahs, and trumpet-calls, and singing of songs in the streets and roads: and the most sensible citizens found themselves liable to be carried away by the general impulse.

Among other odd things, rumour said, all over Lyme, that the Mayor had not come home, and was not coming. His own town must take care of itself; for he was going to stir up the country westwards. His messengers had spread the news of the invasion all over Somersetshire and Devon, while he was posting to London; and now it was said that he would not stop short of Exeter, where he knew he should find the best friend of the Stuarts in that region—the son of their restorer, General Monk. That son, the Duke of Albemarle, was in Exeter for the purpose of reviewing the militia; and the idea of reaching him and his forces at the first possible moment seemed to be so much too acute for a Mayor who never thought of sending a messenger to London when he himself was wanted in Lyme, that it was settled by rumour in a trice that Gregory Alford, citizen of Lyme, was commissioned by the King himself, or his council, to act as envoy to the Duke of Albemarle. All Lyme went to look at the Mayor’s house, and to express its feelings, whether of spite, contempt, and rage at the partisan magistrate, or of deference and admiration. The Mayor’s wife and daughters carried themselves high, and considered it the greatest day of their lives,—though much greater ones might follow: and while they sat at the lower windows, grandly dressed, the servants flaunted out at the attic windows, or lounged in the doorways, parading their insolence before the crowd. Before night their insolence would have risen much higher.

 

Christopher knew the country well: but to-day he saw it with new eyes, and it was truly a new scene. It was no uncommon thing to ride thirty miles without seeing a dozen people, or more than three or four inhabited houses; and there were intervals to-day where nobody was in sight, and where he caught glimpses of the red deer in the woods. He saw a boy trapping wheatears on the Down, as if nothing unusual was happening. He saw a pedlar resting under a hedge, and the fellow either knew nothing, or pretended to know nothing, of any commotion in the countryside. But elsewhere it was otherwise. At every forge the blacksmith was over-busy; for the gentry were in a hurry to raise the militia; and every saddle-horse must be sure of its shoes when messengers were going forth in all directions. There were yeomen at the forges too,—always the first to be served when the smith had his way, and eager to be off on some business which might perhaps be something else than raising the militia. There were groups about the posts where roads met; groups about each public-house; and sometimes groups where there was no house at all, but where some ridge of the down afforded a good prospect westward or northward. These were people from the farms. The farm-horses were all carried off in the Duke’s service; and the men stood idle. There were loud complaints to the same effect at each house of entertainment for miles round, the post-horses also having been seized in the Duke’s service. It was clear that the complainants were neither angry nor sorry; and Christopher could see that many of them would fain be where their horses were. He was told that he had better spare his own steed, as he would not get another; and his answer was that men of his profession rode horses which would carry them on occasion a couple of hundred miles in a shorter time than posting. He understood the significance with which he was asked where he was going; and he was understood when he answered that it depended on what he might find the state of the country before him.

Elsewhere he came on some rendezvous where the gentry were mustering and exercising the militia. When he steered clear of such an obstruction as this, he found women or old men spying from afar; and the comment they had to make was that they did not believe those fellows would fight, and that they were mustered just to hinder their following King Monmouth. In more retired spots at some ruined church, where there was good hiding for a few till a sufficient number arrived to make it safe to show themselves, he saw gatherings in the interest of the Duke. The fathers had dismantled the church in the wars of the last generation; and now their sons were crouching behind the grave-stones, or in the tall weeds of the churchyard, or in the damp shadows within the walls, glorying that the day of a Protestant king had come at last, and watching impatiently for such an accession of numbers as would justify them in launching their blue flag, and marching to overtake King Monmouth. There was no difficulty in learning from anybody he met in what direction to ride to overtake the insurgent force. The people going one way had an appointment with the Duke; and those who came the other way had seen or heard something of him. A carrier with a couple of pack-horses looked a shrewd fellow enough; and he and Christopher came to an understanding without much loss of the time which was so precious to them both. His horses had not been spared to him without a reason: he carried something besides what was in his packsaddles,—namely, important news for worthy ears. From him Christopher learned that the Duke of Albemarle and his militia force had actually met the insurgents a few miles behind, after a wonderfully rapid march from Exeter. Christopher thought, as he rode on, of his father’s question,—what he supposed that he, a lawyer, could do with a company of ploughboys and shopkeepers against the trained bands that would be brought up against Monmouth in every county. He had replied by something more than an appeal to the goodness of the cause,—by going back to the beginning of the war of the Commonwealth, when the humblest of the citizens grew into soldiers almost in a day, under the inspiration of a clear mind and settled will. Still he was anxious; for it was uncertain how many of the insurgent force were ignorant idolaters of a handsome and affable young prince, and how few or many might be men who were devoting themselves for the final overthrow of Popery, and the rescue of the Puritan faith and worship from the oppressions and corruptions of the prelatical Church.

Once he had been compelled to halt, to refresh his horse as well as himself; but it was not for long. He had looked out behind him all the morning, with the idea that Reuben would overtake him, and he was half disappointed at having to proceed after his hasty meal of beef and ale without news of his servant, whose absence ruffled him, without creating any serious doubt of the man’s fidelity. The next incident of his journey banished for the moment all speculations of every sort.

A cloud of dust came into view far away over the open land. It came on along the lanes and over the fields, and the hasty tramp of horses was heard. When the riders came near, Christopher knew too many of them, begrimed as they were with dust. One after another of these acquaintances of his drew rein for a moment, and told him that the Duke had been defeated, and that all was lost. Their leader rode up, learned who Christopher was, announced himself as Lord Grey of Wark, and said it was false as hell that the Duke’s cause was lost. No man had ever before been cursed with such a rabble, in the name of cavalry, as he had been that day. The fellows said their horses ran away with them; some cart-horses were as unmanageable as elephants; and none could bear the sight of a line of soldiers; and the consequence was——

The consequence was left for Christopher to conjecture; for there was an alarm of pursuit, from more dust rising westwards, and the whole troop, Lord Grey and all, spurred back to Lyme at their fullest speed, pouring down into the town before night, and alarming almost every household but the Mayor’s, and those of a few Tory magistrates, with news of an immense army under the Duke of Albemarle having scattered the forces and the hopes of Monmouth. The news was left at Farmer Dunn’s by some of the fugitives, and avouched to the Squire in the market-place of Lyme; and carried on to Dorchester, to the High Sheriff, by zealous newsmongers; so that the parents, the sisters, and betrothed of one of the Protestant champions gone forth to the war were all struggling with their apprehensions about what had become of Christopher.

Christopher was in no way disheartened. He had not for an instant thought of turning back with the remnant of Monmouth’s so-called cavalry; and the next people he met told him that it was a false alarm.

Those people were a congregation of country folk assembled at a cross where four roads met, to hear a preacher who had been in the fight. The minister was John Hickes,—the man of all men whom Christopher would at the moment have chosen to see. A dozen words from Hickes sent him forward with more eagerness than ever. Though the cavalry had turned tail, the infantry had not. They had driven the militia at first, then had given way when Grey’s troop had scampered off; but had been easily rallied, and had held their ground. With such reinforcements as were offering every hour, it would be easy to deal with the Exeter forces to-morrow; and the reverend ministers in Monmouth’s train, as being most easily spared, were playing the recruiting officer in all the country round. So Christopher rode on, and Hickes resumed his discourse, satisfying the people that the overthrow of Babylon was at hand, and sending the men in a body to Monmouth’s camp, leaving the women wringing their hands that they could not go too.

The most dubious appearance which presented itself to Christopher was his own welcome to Monmouth’s presence. He had come to offer his sword and his right arm, as any other man might do; and his professional judgment, if occasion required. He found himself welcomed as a great captain, or a noble with a large band of retainers might have been. This seemed to show that there were few real soldiers, and few men of birth or influence in the camp.

“I could not have believed it if I had not seen it,” said Monmouth to him, late that night, in confidential discourse: “but it is too surely true that my own staff of gentlemen,—the men by whom I am represented wherever I go,—the men who induced me to come,—the men who professed to be charged with the public opinion of Protestant England, are——are now, when the critical moment has arrived——I cannot bring myself to say it——”

“Not cowards, I trust,” said Christopher.

“Certainly unequal to the occasion. It is necessary that you should know this: but I cannot utter a needless word about it. You saw yourself how it was with Grey. It was Wade who saved the day. In fight we may rely on him: but in policy——”

“Can doubts have arisen already about your Grace’s course?”

The Duke’s reply was—

“What would you have it to be?—in one word.”

“Drive back the Duke of Albemarle, and march to Exeter.”

“No doubt: but Wade is for going to Bristol.”

“He is a Bristol man: and may have large expectations of support there.”

“He has: but am I to take his word for it? And he leaves me if I do not follow his counsel.”

“That is unpardonable!”

“It seems so to me. Yet there are others who thrust their schemes upon me peremptorily. Heaven forgive me if I wrong them! but I doubt whether it be not,—with some of them, at least,—a device for slipping out of the danger they have brought me into. But I will not speak further of it.”

“I honour your Grace’s discretion. Happily, the next step is plain. The Duke of Albemarle driven back, or his force dispersed, there will be a new clearness in the case. Wavering minds will be settled; and if, as may possibly happen, the trainbands should come over to our side, the country will doubtless rise, and cowards will either grow brave again, or may depart whithersoever they will.”

“You are a cheerful counsellor,” observed Monmouth; “more so than your father, whom I saw in Lyme, and whom I greatly respect. I wish I had so brave a man with me here. But I am thankful to have his son.”

 

(To be continued.)