We spread the tidings as far as Exeter, where Mr. Blick made some
pretence of handing me over to a schoolmaster, one Hubble, a red-faced,
cheery clergyman, one of the most ardent rebels on our side. Indeed, the
clergymen everywhere supported us, as defenders of the Protestant faith,
which that dastard James would have destroyed. Mr. Hubble made some
excuse for not taking me in at the instant; but gave us letters of
introduction to people in towns further on, so that we could pass the
militia without difficulty, to give the news in western Dorset. So after
waiting for a little while in Exeter, gathering all the news we could of
the whereabouts of the troops of militia, we pushed on eastward, by way
of Sidmouth, to the big town of Dorchester. As we came east, we found
the militia very much more suspicious than they had been on the western
side of Exeter. At every little town we found a strong guard so placed
that no one could enter without passing under the captain's eye. We were
brought before militia captains some two or three times a day. Sometimes
we were searched; sometimes, if the captain happened to be drunk, we
were bullied with threats of the gaol. Mr. Blick in these cases always
insisted on being brought before the magistrate, to whom he would tell
a fine indignant tale, saying what a shame it was that he could not
take his orphan nephew peaceably to school, without being suspected of
complicity in a rebellion. He would then show Mr. Hubble's letters,
or some other papers signed by the Dartmouth magistrates. These always
cleared our characters, so that we were allowed to proceed; but I did
not like the way in which our descriptions were taken. Once on our
journey, shortly after we had left Sidmouth, where the soldiers had been
very suspicious, we turned out of the highway to leave word at a town
called Seaton. We spread the watchword at several villages near the
sea, before we came to Seaton, so that we were rather late in arriving.
Thinking no wrong, we put up at one of the inns in Seaton, intending to
pass the night there. We were at supper in our inn, when some yeomanry
rode up to the door, to ask the landlord if an elderly man had passed
that way with a boy. The landlord, who was a good deal scared by the
soldiers, showed the captain in to us at once. We were quite as much
scared to see him as the landlord had been. The captain of the soldiers
was the very man who had given us such a searching examination in
Sidmouth that morning.
“Well,” he said to Mr. Blick, “I thought you were going to Dorchester.
What brings you here?” “Sir,” said Mr. Blick, “we've been so much
interrupted by soldiers that we hoped to travel away from the
main-roads.”
“Well, sir,” said the captain, “I've had you watched. Since you left
Sidmouth, you've been into every inn upon the road, listening to a lot
of seditious talk about Argyle. That's not my point, though. You gave
out to me that you were going to Dorchester. Instead of that you slink
off the Dorchester road at the first opportunity. You will have to
explain yourself to my superiors. You're under arrest.”
“Sir,” said Mr. Blick, “I am sorry that you should think ill of me. We
will gladly come with you to answer for our conduct to the authorities.
But while the horses are being saddled, perhaps you will join us at
supper. Landlord, bring a couple of bottles more. The captain sups with
us.”
But though the captain drank his couple of bottles of port, he did not
become any gentler with us. As soon as supper was over we had to ride on
again, with the troopers all round us.
“Sir,” said Mr. Blick, “may I ask you where we are going with you?”
“Axminster,” said the captain.
“Well. That's on my way,” said Mr. Blick.
“It'll probably end your way, for some time,” said the captain.
“I'm perfectly willing to abide by the decision of the authorities,” Mr.
Blick answered calmly. “But what is the meaning of all these soldiers
everywhere? I've asked the people; but nobody seems able to give a
straight answer.”
“I think you know what the soldiers mean well enough,” answered the
captain. “If you hadn't known you wouldn't have turned out of the
highway.”
At about midnight we reached Axminster. We were taken before a couple
of officers who sat at work by candlelight over a mass of papers, in
an upper chamber of an inn. They had a wild air of having been without
sleep for some time. Their muddy riding boots were drying in front of
the fire. They had a map of the countryside before them, all stuck about
with little flags, some red, some yellow, to show where the different
troops of militia were stationed. After saluting these officers,
the captain made his report about us, saying that we were suspicious
persons, who had started from Sialmouth, towards Dorchester. He had
waited to receive word from the troops stationed along the highway of
our arrival at various points upon the road; but, failing to hear about
us, he had searched for us, with the result that he had found us at
Seaton, some miles out of our way. The officers questioned us closely
about our plans, making notes of what we said. They kept referring to a
book of letters, as though to verify what we said. Mr. Blick's answers
made them take a favourable view of us; but they told him in a friendly
way that the officer had done right to arrest us. They complimented
the captain on his zeal. Meanwhile, they said, since we were going to
Dorchester, we could not object to going with a military escort. A troop
of cavalry was to start in a couple of hours; we could go with that.
We were in Dorchester for a few days, always under the eye of the
soldiers. It was a bustling, suspicious time full of false alarms. Mr.
Blick told me that the message “King Golden Cap. After six one,” meant
that the Duke was to be expected off Golden Cap, a cliff a few miles
from Lyme Regis, any day after the first of the sixth month. He was
on tenter-hooks to be in Lyme to greet him on his arrival; but this he
could not hope to do. We were watched too carefully to be able to get
away to a place upon the sea-coast. We had to be very careful how we
sent our secret message abroad into the country. I have never known a
time so full of alarms. People would ride in to the town at night with
word that Monmouth was landed, or that there was fighting all along the
coast, or that King James was dead. The drums would beat; the cavalry
would come out clattering. People would be crying out. The loyal would
come to their doorsteps ready to fly further inland. Every night, if
one lay awake, one could hear the noise of spades in back gardens where
misers were burying their money. Then, every day, one would see the
troopers coming in, generally two at a time, with a suspected man led by
a cord knotted to his two thumbs. Dorchester gaol was full of suspected
people, who were kept in prison indefinitely, without trial, in very
great discomfort. King James was afraid, he did not really know of what,
so he took measures not so much to prevent trouble as to avenge his own
fear. Mr. Blick used to send me to the prison every morning with loaves
of fresh bread for the prisoners.
At last, after midnight, in the night of the 11th of June, a memorable
day for the West, riders came in with news which destroyed the night's
rest of the town. Monmouth had landed at Lyme the evening before, after
sailing about in sight of the town all day. That was news indeed. It
made a strange uproar in the streets. The trumpets blew from every
inn-door to summons the billeted soldiers. Officers ran about bawling
for their sergeants; the sergeants hurried about with lanterns, rousing
the men from where they slept. All the streets were full of cavalry men
trying to form in the crowd. At last, when they were formed, a trumpet
sounded, making everyone keep silence. Then in the stillness an officer
shouted out an order, which no one, save a soldier, could understand.
Instantly the kettle-drums began to pound; the swords jingled; the
horses whinnied, tossing up their heads. The soldiers trotted off
smartly towards Bridport, leaving the town strangely quiet, strangely
scared, to discuss the great news from Lyme.
I was watching the crowd at my bed-room window when the horsemen trotted
off. While I stood looking at them, Mr. Blick ran upstairs, bidding me
to come down at once, as now there was a chance to get to Lyme. “Come
quick,” he said. “The troops are gone. We must follow on their tracks.
It'll be too late later in the morning.” In less than twenty minutes we
were trotting after the soldiers at a good pace, passing some scores
of men on foot who were hurrying, as they said, to see the battle. Mr.
Blick wore a sword which clattered as he rode. The people hearing the
noise thought that he was an officer, perhaps a colonel, riding with his
servant. Many of the men asked him where the battle was to be, whether
it would begin before daylight, whether Monmouth was come with the
French, all sorts of questions, to which we answered at random. In the
light summer night we had a fair view of things. When we dismounted to
lead our horses up or down the steep hills of that road, the straggling
sight-seers came all round us as we walked, to hear what we had to tell.
We could see their faces all about us, strange in the dusk, like ghosts,
not like real men. At the top of one hill, Mr. Blick warned them to look
out for themselves. He told them that before morning the highway would
be patrolled by troops who would take them in charge as suspicious
characters trying to join Monmouth, which actually happened the next day
when the militia officers realized that war had begun. His words scared
off a number of them; but many kept on as they were going, to see the
great battle, which, they said, would begin as soon as it was light.
When the sun began to peep, we turned off the highway in order to avoid
Bridport, which we passed a little after dawn. A few miles further on
we felt that we could turn into the road again as we were safe from
the militia at that distance. Then, feeling happy at the thought of
the coming contest, which, we felt sure, would be won by our side,
we pressed our tired nags over the brook towards the steep hill which
separates Charmouth from Lyme.
It was early morning, about five o'clock, when we came to Charmouth;
but the little town was as busy as though it were noon on fair-day. The
street was crowded. People were coming in from all the countryside. A
man was haranguing the crowd from a horseless waggon drawn up at an inn.
The horses had no doubt been pressed into Monmouth's service some hours
before. I should think that there must have been three hundred people
listening to the orator. Men, already half drunk, with green boughs in
their hats, were marching about the town in uneven companies, armed
with clubs torn from the hedges. Weeping women followed them, trying to
persuade their sons or husbands to come home. Other men were bringing
out horses from private stables. People were singing. One man, leaning
out of a window, kept on firing his pistol as fast as he could load.
Waving men cheered from the hill above. The men in the town cheered
back. There was a great deal of noisy joking everywhere. They cheered us
as we rode through them, telling us that Monmouth had arms for all. One
poor woman begged Mr. Blick to tell her man to come home, as without him
the children would all starve. The crowd groaned at her; but Mr. Blick
stopped them, calling the husband, who was in a sad state of drunken
vainglory, to leave the ranks in which he tried to march. “We don't want
fathers of families,” he cried. “We want these tight young bachelors.
They're the boys.” Indeed, the tight young bachelors felt that this was
the case, so the woman got her man again; lucky she was to get him. As
far as I could judge, the crowd imagined us to be great officers; at
any rate our coming drew away the listeners from the waggon. They came
flocking to our heels as though we were the Duke himself. A drummer beat
up a quickstep; the crowd surged forward. We marched across the fields
to Lyme, five hundred strong. One of the men, plucking a sprig of
hawthorn from the hedge, asked me to wear it in my hat as the Duke's
badge, which I did. He called me “Captain.” “Captain,” he said. “We had
a brush with them already, this morning, along the road here. Two on 'em
were killed. They didn't stay for no more.” So fighting had begun then,
the civil war had taken its first fruits of life. There could be no more
shillyshallying; we had put our hands to a big business. In spite of
the noise of the march, my spirits were rather dashed by the thought
of those two men, lying dead somewhere on the road behind us, killed by
their own countrymen.
We are said to be a sober people; but none of those who saw Lyme that
morning would have had much opinion of our sobriety. Charmouth had been
disorderly; Lyme was uproarious. Outside the town, in one of the fields
above the church, we were stopped by a guard of men who all wore white
scarves on their arms, as well as green sprays in their hats. They
stopped us, apparently, because their captain wished to exercise them
in military customs. They were evidently raw to the use of arms. They
handled their muskets like spades. “Be you for Monmouth, masters?” they
asked us, grinning. When we said that we were, this very unmilitary
guard told us to pass on. “Her've got arms for all,” they said. “The
word be 'Fear nothing but God.'” Some of them joked with friends among
our party. They waved their muskets to us.