If we should wait till you, in solemn council
With due deliberation had selected
The smallest out of four and twenty evils,
'I faith we should wait long.
Dash and through with it--that's the better watchword,
Then after, come what may come.
PICCOLOMINI.
On the following day, the council, consisting of some four or five
gentlemen, were assembled at the Proprietary Mansion. About noon their
number was rendered complete, by the arrival of Colonel George Talbot,
who, mounted on a spirited, milk-white steed that smoked with the hot
vigour of his motion, dashed through the gate and alighted at the door.
A pair of pistols across his saddle-bow, and a poniard, partially
disclosed under his vest, demonstrated the precautions of the possessor
to defend himself against sudden assault, and no less denoted the
quarrelsome aspect of the times. His frame was tall, athletic, and
graceful; his eye hawk-like, and his features prominent and handsome,
at the same time indicative of quick temper and rash resolve. There was
in his dress a manifestation of the consciousness of a good figure--it
was the costume of a gallant of the times; and his bearing was
characteristic of a person accustomed to bold action and gay
companionship.
Talbot was a near kinsman of the Baltimore family, and besides being a
member of the Proprietary's council, he held the post of Surveyor
General, and commanded, also, the provincial militia on the northern
frontier, including the settlements on the Elk River, where he owned a
large manor, upon which he usually resided. At the present time he was
in the temporary occupation of a favourite seat of the Proprietary, at
Mattapany on the Patuxent, whither the late summons had been despatched
to call him to the council.
This gentleman was a zealous Catholic, and an ardent personal friend of
his kinsman, the Proprietary, whose cause he advocated with that
peremptory and, most usually, impolitic determination which his
imperious nature prompted, and which served to draw upon him the
peculiar hatred of Fendall and Coode, and their partisans. He was thus,
although a sincere, it may be imagined, an indiscreet adviser in state
affairs, little qualified to subdue or allay that jealous spirit of
proscription which, from the epoch of the Protectorate down to this
date, had been growing more intractable in the province.
Such was the individual who now with the firm stride and dauntless
carriage of a belted and booted knight of chivalry, to which his
picturesque costume heightened the resemblance, entered the apartment
where his seniors were already convened.
"Well met!" he exclaimed, as he flung his hat and gloves upon a table
and extended his hand to those who were nearest him. "How fares it,
gentlemen? What devil of mutiny is abroad now? Has that pimpled fellow
of fustian, that swiller of the leavings of a tap room, the worshipful
king of the Burgesses, master Jack Coode, got drunk again and begun to
bully in his cups? The falconer who hammered at my door last night, as
if he would have beaten your Lordship's house about my ears, could tell
me nothing of the cause of this sudden convocation, save that Driving
Dick had come in hot haste from James Town with letters that had set
the mansion here all agog, from his Lordship's closet down to the
scullery."
"With proper abatement for the falconer's love of gossip," said the
Proprietary, "he told you true. The letters are there on the table.
When you have read them, you will see that with good reason I might
make some commotion in my house."
Talbot ran his eye over the papers. "Well, and well--an old story!" he
said, as he threw one letter aside and took up another.
"Antichrist--the Red Lady of Babylon--the Jesuits--and the devil: we
have had it so often that the lecture is somewhat stale. The truculent
Papists are the authors of all evil! We had the Geneva band in fashion
for a time; but that wore out with old Noll. And then comes another
flight of kestrels, and we must have the thirty-nine articles served up
for a daily dish. That spider, Master Yeo, has grown to be a crony of
his grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, and is busy to knit his web
around every poor catholic fly of the province."
"This must be managed without temper," said Darnall, the oldest member
present, except the Chancellor. "Our adversaries will find their
advantage in our resolves, if made in the heat of passion."
"You say true," replied Talbot. "I am a fool in my humour; but it doth
move me to the last extremity of endurance to be ever goaded with this
shallow and hypocritical pretence of sanctity. They prate of the
wickedness of the province, forsooth! our evil deportment, and loose
living, and notorious scandal! all will be cured, in the opinion of
these solemn Pharisees, by turning that good man, Lord Charles and his
friends out of his own province, and by setting up parson Yeo in a fat
benefice under the wing of an established church."
"Read on," said Lord Baltimore, "and you shall see the sum of all, in
the argument that it is not fit Papists should bear rule over the
free-born subjects of the English crown; and, as a conclusion to that,
a summary order to discharge every friend of our holy church from my
employ."
Talbot read the letter to the end.
"So be it!" he ejaculated, as he threw the letter from him, and flung
himself back into his chair. "You will obey this high behest? With all
humbleness, we will thank these knaves for their many condescensions,
and their good favours. Your uncle, the Chancellor here, our old
frosted comrade, is the first that your Lordship will give bare-headed
to the sky. As for myself, I have been voted an incarnate devil in a
half dozen conclaves--and so Fendall shall be the surveyor. I hope your
Lordship will remember that I have a military command--a sturdy
stronghold in the fort of Christina--and some stout fellows with me on
the border. It might be hard to persuade them to part company with me."
"Peace, I pray you, peace!" interrupted the Proprietary; "you are
nettled, Talbot, and that is not the mood for counsel."
"These pious cut-throats here," said Talbot, "who talk of our
degeneracy, slander us to the whole world: and, faith, I am not of the
mind to bear it! I speak plainly what I have thought long since--and
would rather do than speak. I would arrest the ring-leaders upon a
smaller scruple of proof than I would set a vagrant in the stocks. You
have Fendall now, my Lord--I would have his fellows before long: and
the space between taking and trying should not add much to the length
of their beards:--between trying and hanging, still less."
"As to that," said the Proprietary, "every day brings us fresh
testimony of the sedition afoot, and we shall not be slow to do justice
on the parties. We have good information of the extent of the plot
against us, and but wait until an open act shall make their guilt
unquestionable. Master Coode is now upon bail only because we were
somewhat too hasty in his arrest. There are associates of Fendall's at
work who little dream of our acquaintance with their designs."
"When does your provincial court hold its sessions?" inquired the
Surveyor.
"In less than a month."
"It should make sure work and speedy," said Talbot. "Master Fendall
should find himself at the end of his tether at the first sitting."
"Ay, and Coode too," said one of the council: "notwithstanding that the
burgesses have stepped forward to protect him. The House guessed well
of the temper against your Lordship in England, when they stood up so
hardily, last month, in favour of Captain Coode, after your Lordship
had commanded his expulsion. It was an unnatural contumacy."
"In truth, we have never had peace in the province," said another,
"since Fendall was allowed to return from his banishment. That man hath
set on hotter, but not subtler spirits than his own. He has a quiet
craftiness which never sleeps nor loses sight of his purpose of
disturbance."
"Alas!" said the Proprietary, "he has not lacked material to work with.
The burgesses have been disaffected ever since my father's death. I
know not in what point of kindness I have erred towards them. God knows
I would cherish affection, not ill-will. My aim has ever been to do
justice to all men."
"Justice is not their aim, my Lord," exclaimed Talbot. "Oh, this zeal
for church is a pretty weapon! and honest Captain Coode, a dainty
champion to handle it! I would cut the spurs from that fowl, if I did
it with a cleaver!"
"He is but the fool in the hands of his betters," interposed Darnall.
"This discontent has a broad base. There are many in the province who,
if they will not take an open part against us, will be slow to rebuke
an outbreak--many who will counsel in secret who dare not show their
faces to the sun."
"These men have power to do us much harm," said Lord Baltimore, "and I
would entreat you, gentlemen, consider, how, by concession to a
moderate point, which may comport with our honour, we may allay these
irritations. Leaving that question for your future advisement, I ask
your attention to the letters. The King has commanded--for it is scarce
less than a royal mandate."
"Your Lordship," said Talbot, sarcastically, "has fallen under his
Majesty's disfavour. You have, doubtless, failed somewhat in your
courtesies to Nell Gwynn, or the gay Duchess; or have been wanting in
some observance of respect to old Tom Killigrew, the King's fool. His
Majesty is not wont to look so narrowly into state affairs."
"Hold, Talbot!" interrupted the Proprietary. "I would not hear you
speak slightingly of the King. He hath been friendly to me, and I will
not forget it. Though this mandate come in his name, King Charles, I
apprehend, knows but little of the matter. He has an easy conscience
for an importunate suitor. Oh, it grieves me to the heart, after all my
father's care for the province--and surely mine has been no less--it
grieves me to see this wayward fortune coming over our hopes like a
chill winter, when we looked for springtide, with its happy and
cheerful promises. I am not to be envied for my prerogative. Here, in
this new world, I have made my bed, where I had no wish but to lie in
it quietly: it has become a bed of thorns, and cannot bring rest to me,
until I am mingled with its dust. Well, since rebellion is the order of
the times, I must e'en myself turn rebel now against this order."
"Wherein might it be obeyed, my Lord?" asked Darnall. "You have already
given all the rights of conscience which the freemen could ask, and the
demand now is that you surrender your own. What servant would your
Lordship displace? Look around you: is Anthony Warden so incapable, or
so hurtful to your service that you might find plea to dismiss him?"
"There is no better man in the province than Anthony Warden," replied
the Proprietary, with warmth; "a just man; a good man in whatever duty
you scan him; an upright, faithful servant to his post. My Lords of the
Ministry would not and could not, if they knew him, ask me to remove
that man. I will write letters back to remonstrate against this
injustice."
"And say you will not displace a man, my Lord, come what may!"
exclaimed Talbot. "This battle must be fought--and the sooner the
better! Your Lordship will find your justification in the unanimous
resolve of your council."
This sentiment was echoed by all present, and by some of the more
discreet an admonition was added, advising the Proprietary to handle
the subject mildly with the ministry, in a tone of kind expostulation,
which, as it accorded with Lord Baltimore's own feeling, met his ready
acquiescence.
After despatching some business of less concern, the members of the
council dispersed.