Mr. Wilding, as we know, was to remain at Bridgwater for the purpose of
collecting from Mr. Newlington the fine which had been imposed upon him.
It is by no means clear whether Monmouth realized the fullness of
the tragedy at the merchant's house, and whether he understood that,
stricken with apoplexy at the thought of parting with so considerable a
portion of his fortune, Mr. Newlington had not merely fainted, but had
expired under His Grace's eyes. If he did realize it he was cynically
indifferent, and lest we should be doing him an injustice by assuming
this we had better give him the benefit of the doubt, and take it that
in the subsequent bustle of departure, his mind filled with the prospect
of the night attack to be delivered upon his uncle's army at-Sedgemoor,
he thought no more either of Mr. Newlington or of Mr. Wilding. The
latter, as we know, had no place in the rebel army; although a man of
his hands, he was not a trained soldier, and notwithstanding that he may
fully have intended to draw his sword for Monmouth when the time came,
yet circumstances had led to his continuing after Monmouth's landing the
more diplomatic work of movement-man, in which he had been engaged for
the months that had preceded it.
So it befell that when Monmouth's army marched out of Bridgwater at
eleven o'clock on that Sunday night, not to make for Gloucester and
Cheshire, as was generally believed, but to fall upon the encamped
Feversham at Sedgemoor and slaughter the royal army in their beds, Mr.
Wilding was left behind. Trenchard was gone, in command of his troop of
horse, and Mr. Wilding had for only company his thoughts touching the
singular happenings of that busy night.
He went back to the sign of The Ship overlooking the Cross, and, kicking
off his sodden shoes, he supped quietly in the room of which shattered
door and broken window reminded him of his odd interview with Ruth, and
of the comedy of love she had enacted to detain him there. The
thought of it embittered him; the part she had played seemed to his
retrospective mind almost a wanton's part--for all that in name she was
his wife. And yet, underlying a certain irrepressible nausea, came the
reflection that, after all, her purpose had been to save his life. It
would have been a sweet thought, sweet enough to have overlaid that
other bitterness, had he not insisted upon setting it down entirely to
her gratitude and her sense of justice. She intended to repay the debt
in which she had stood to him since, at the risk of his own life
and fortune, he had rescued her brother from the clutches of the
Lord-Lieutenant at Taunton.
He sighed heavily as he thought of the results that had attended his
compulsory wedding of her. In the intensity of his passion, in
the blindness of his vanity, which made him confident--gloriously
confident--that did he make himself her husband, she herself would make
of him her lover before long, he had committed an unworthiness of which
it seemed he might never cleanse himself in life. There was but one
amend, as he had told her. Let him make it, and perhaps she would--out
of gratitude, if out of no other feeling--come to think more kindly
of him; and that night it seemed to him as he sat alone in that mean
chamber that it were a better and a sweeter thing to earn some measure
of her esteem by death than to continue in a life that inspired her
hatred and resentment. From which it will be seen how utterly he
disbelieved the protestations she had uttered in seeking to detain him.
They were--he was assured--a part of a scheme, a trick, to lull him
while Monmouth and his officers were being butchered. And she had gone
the length of saying she loved him! He regretted that, being as he was
convinced of its untruth. What cause had she to love him? She hated him,
and because she hated him she did not scruple to lie to him--once with
suggestions and this time with actual expression of affection--that she
might gain her ends: ends that concerned her brother and Sir Rowland
Blake. Sir Rowland Blake! The name was a very goad to his passion and
despair.
He rose from the table and took a turn in the room, moving noiselessly
in his stockinged feet. He felt the need of air and action; the
weariness of his flesh incurred in his long ride from London was cast
off or forgotten. He must go forth. He picked up his fine shoes of
Spanish leather, but as luck would have it--little though he guessed the
extent just then--he found them hardening, though still damp from the
dews of Mr. Newlington's garden. He cast them aside, and, taking a key
from his pocket, unlocked an oak cupboard and withdrew the heavy muddy
boots in which he had ridden from town. He drew them on and, taking
up his hat and sword, went down the creaking stairs and out into the
street.
Bridgwater had fallen quiet by now; the army was gone and townsfolk were
in their beds. Moodily, unconsciously, yet as if guided by a sort of
instinct, he went down the High Street, and then turned off into the
narrower lane that led in the direction of Lupton House. By the gates
of this he paused, recalled out of his abstraction and rendered aware
of whither his steps had led him by the sight of the hall door standing
open, a black figure silhouetted against the light behind it. What was
happening here? Why were they not abed like all decent folk?
The figure called to him in a quavering voice. “Mr. Wilding! Mr.
Wilding!” for the light beating upon his face and figure from the
open door had revealed him. The form came swiftly forward, its steps
pattering down the walk, another slenderer figure surged in its place
upon the threshold, hovered there an instant, then plunged down into the
darkness to come after it. But the first was by now upon Mr. Wilding.
“What is it, Jasper?” he asked, recognizing the old servant.
“Mistress Ruth!” wailed the fellow, wringing his hands. “She... she has
been... carried off.” He got it out in gasps, winded by his short run
and by the excitement that possessed him.
No word said Wilding. He just stood and stared, scarcely understanding,
and in that moment they were joined by Richard. He seized Wilding by the
arm. “Blake has carried her off,” he cried.
“Blake?” said Mr. Wilding, and wondered with a sensation of nausea was
it an ordinary running away. But Richard's next words made it plain to
him that it was no amorous elopement, nor even amorous abduction.
“He has carried her to Feversham... for her betrayal of his to-night's
plan to seize the Duke.”
That stirred Mr. Wilding. He wasted no time in idle questions or idler
complainings. “How long since?” he asked, and it was he who clutched
Richard now, by the shoulder and with a hand that hurt.
“Not ten minutes ago,” was the quavering answer.
“And you were at hand when it befell?” cried Wilding, the scorn in his
voice rising superior to his agitation and fears for Ruth. “You were at
hand, and could neither prevent nor follow him?”
“I'll go with you now, if you'll give chase,” whimpered Richard, feeling
himself for once the craven that he was.
“If?” echoed Wilding scornfully, and dragged him past the gate and up
towards the house even as he spoke. “Is there room for a doubt of it?
Have you horses, at least?”
“To spare,” said Richard as they hurried on. They skirted the house and
found the stable door open as Blake had left it. Old Jasper followed
with a lamp which burned steadily, so calm was the air of that July
night. In three minutes they had saddled a couple of nags; in five they
were riding for the bridge and the road to Weston Zoyland.
“It is a miracle you remained in Bridgwater,” said Richard as they rode.
“How came you to be left behind?”
“I had a task assigned me in the town against the Duke's return
to-morrow,” Wilding explained, and he spoke almost mechanically, his
mind full of--anguished by--thoughts of Ruth.
“Against the Duke's return?” cried Richard, first surprised and then
thinking that Wilding spoke at random. “Against the Duke's return?” he
repeated.
“That is what I said?”
“But the Duke is marching to Gloucester.”
“The Duke is marching by circuitous ways to Sedgemoor,” answered
Wilding, never dreaming that at this time of day there could be the
slightest imprudence in saying so much, indeed, taking little heed of
what he said, his mind obsessed by the other, to him, far weightier
matter.
“To Sedgemoor?” gasped Westmacott.
“Aye--to take Feversham by surprise--to destroy King James's soldiers in
their beds. He should be near upon the attack by now. But there! Spur on
and save your breath if we are to overtake Sir Rowland.”
They pounded on through the night at a breakneck pace which they never
slackened until, when within a quarter of a mile or so of Penzoy Pound,
where the army was encamped and slumbering by now, they caught sight of
the musketeers' matches glowing in the dark ahead of them. An outpost
barred their progress; but Richard had the watchword, and he spurred
ahead shouting “Albemarle,” and the soldiers fell back and gave them
passage. On they galloped, skirting Penzoy Pound and the army sleeping
in utter unconsciousness of the fate that was creeping stealthily upon
it out of the darkness and mists across the moors; they clattered on
past Langmoor Stone and dashed straight into the village, Richard never
drawing rein until he reached the door of the cottage where Feversham
was lodged.
They had come not only at a headlong pace, but in a headlong manner,
without quite considering what awaited them at the end of their ride in
addition to their object of finding Ruth. It was only now, as he drew
rein before the lighted house and caught the sound of Blake's raised
voice pouring through an open window on the ground floor, that Richard
fully realized what manner of rashness he was committing. He was too
late to rescue Ruth from Blake. What more could he look to achieve?
His hope had been that with Wilding's help he might snatch her from Sir
Rowland before the latter reached his destination. But now--to enter
Feversham's presence and in association with so notorious a rebel as Mr.
Wilding were a piece of folly of the heroic kind that Richard did not
savour. Indeed, had it not been for Wilding's masterful presence, it is
more than odds he had turned tail, and ridden home again to bed.
But Wilding, who had leapt nimbly to the ground, stood waiting for
Richard to dismount, impatient now that from the sound of Sir Rowland's
voice he had assurance that Richard had proved an able guide. The young
man got down, but might yet have hesitated had not Wilding caught him
by the arm and whirled him up the steps, through the open door, past
the two soldiers who kept it, and who were too surprised to stay him,
straight into the long, low-ceilinged chamber where Feversham, attended
by a captain of horse, was listening to Blake's angry narrative of that
night's failure.
Mr. Wilding's entrance was decidedly sensational. He stepped quickly
forward, and, taking Blake who was still talking, all unconscious of
those behind him, by the collar of his coat, he interrupted him in the
middle of an impassioned period, wrenched him backwards off his feet,
and dashed him with a force almost incredible into a heap in a corner of
the room. There for some moments the baronet lay half dazed by the shock
of his fall.
A long table, which seemed to divide the chamber in two, stood between
Lord Feversham and his officer and Mr. Wilding and Ruth--by whose side
he had now come to stand in Blake's room.
There was an exclamation, half anger, half amazement, at Mr. Wilding's
outrage upon Sir Rowland, and the captain of horse sprang forward.
But Wilding raised his hand, his face so composed and calm that it was
impossible to think him conceiving any violence, as indeed he protested
at that moment.
“Be assured, gentlemen,” he said, “that I have no further rudeness to
offer any so that this lady is suffered to withdraw with me.” And he
took in his own a hand that Ruth, amazed and unresisting, yielded up to
him. That touch of his seemed to drive out her fears and to restore her
confidence; the mortal terror in which she had been until his coming
dropped from her now. She was no longer alone and abandoned to the
vindictiveness of rude and violent men. She had beside her one in whom
experience had taught her to have faith.
Louis Duras, Marquis de Blanquefort, and Earl of Feversham, coughed with
mock discreetness under cover of his hand. “Ahem!”
He was a comely man with a long nose, good low-lidded eyes, a humorous
mouth, and a weak chin; at a glance he looked what he was, a weak,
good-natured sensualist. He was resplendent at the moment in a blue
satin dressing-gown stiff with gold lace, for he had been interrupted
by Blake's arrival in the very act of putting himself to bed, and his
head--divested of his wig--was bound up in a scarf of many colours.
At his side, the red-coated captain, arrested by the general's sardonic
cough, stood, a red-faced, freckled boy, looking to his superior for
orders.
“I t'ink you 'ave 'urt Sare Rowland,” said Feversham composedly in his
bad English. “Who are you, sare?”
“This lady's husband,” answered Wilding, whereupon the captain stared
and Feversham's brows went up in surprised amusement.
“So-ho! T'at true?” quoth the latter in a tone suggesting that it
explained everything to him. “T'is gif a differen' colour to your
story, Sare Rowlan'.” Then he added in a chuckle, “Ho, ho--l'amour!” and
laughed outright.
Blake, gathering together his wits and his limbs at the same time, made
shift to rise.
“What a plague does their relationship matter?” he began. He would have
added more, but the Frenchman thought this question one that needed
answering.
“Parbleu!” he swore, his amusement rising. “It seem to matter
somet'ing.”
“Damn me!” swore Blake, red in the face from pale that he had been. “Do
you conceive that if I had run away with his wife for her own sake I
had fetched her to you?” He lurched forward as he spoke, but kept his
distance from Wilding, who stood between Ruth and him.
Feversham bowed sardonically. “You are a such flatterer, Sare Rowlan',”
said he, laughter bubbling in his words.
Blake looked his scorn of this trivial Frenchman, who, upon scenting
what appeared to be the comedy of an outraged husband overtaking the
man who had carried off his wife, forgot the serious business, a part
of which Sir Rowland had already imparted to him. Captain Wentworth--a
time-serving gentleman--smiled with this French general of a British
army that he might win the great man's favour.
“I have told your lordship,” said Blake, froth on his lips, “that
the twenty men I had from you, as well as Ensign Norris, are dead in
Bridgwater, and that my plan to carry off King Monmouth has come to
ruin, all because we were betrayed by this woman. It is now my further
privilege to point out to your lordship the man to whom she sold us.”
Feversham misliked Sir Rowland's arrogant tone, misliked his angry,
scornful glance. His eyes narrowed, the laughter faded slowly from his
face.
“Yes, yes, I remember,” said he; “t'is lady, you have tole us, betray
you. Ver' well. But you have not tole us who betray you to t'is lady.”
And he looked inquiringly at Blake.
The baronet's jaw dropped; his face lost some of its high colour. He
was stunned by the question as the bird is stunned that flies headlong
against a pane of glass. He had crashed into an obstruction so
transparent that he had not seen it.
“So!” said Feversham, and he stroked the cleft of his chin. “Captain
Wentwort', be so kind as to call t'e guard.”
Wentworth moved to obey, but before he had gone round the table, Blake
had looked behind him and espied Richard shrinking by the door.
“By heaven!” he cried, “I can more than answer your lordship's
question.”
Wentworth stopped, looking at Feversham.
“Voyons,” said the General.
“I can place you in possession of the man who has wrought our ruin. He
is there,” and he pointed theatrically to Richard.
Feversham looked at the limp figure in some bewilderment. Indeed, he was
having a most bewildering evening--or morning, rather, for it was even
then on the stroke of one o'clock. “An' who are you, sare?” he asked.
Richard came forward, nerving himself for what was to follow. It had
just occurred to him that he held a card which should trump any trick of
Sir Rowland's vindictiveness, and the prospect heartened and comforted
him.
“I am this lady's brother, my lord,” he answered, and his voice was
fairly steady.
“Tiens!” said Feversham, and, smiling, he turned to Wentworth.
“Quite a family party, sir,” said the captain, smiling back.
“Oh! mais tout--fait,” said the General, laughing outright, and then
Wilding created a diversion by leading Ruth to a chair that stood at the
far end of the table, and drawing it forward for her. “Ah, yes,” said
Feversham airily, “let Madame sit.”
“You are very good, sir,” said Ruth, her voice brave and calm.
“But somewhat lacking in spontaneity,” Wilding criticized, which set
Wentworth staring and the Frenchman scowling.
“Shall I call the guard, my lord?” asked Wentworth crisply.
“I t'ink yes,” said Feversham, and the captain gained the door, and
spoke a word to one of the soldiers without.
“But, my lord,” exclaimed Blake in a tone of protest, “I vow you are too
ready to take this fellow's word.”
“He 'as spoke so few,” said Feversham.
“Do you know who he is?”
“You 'af 'eard 'im say--t'e lady's 'usband.”
“Aye--but his name,” cried Blake, quivering with anger. “Do you know
that it is Wilding?”
The name certainly made an impression that might have flattered the man
to whom it belonged. Feversham's whole manner changed; the trivial air
of persiflage that he had adopted hitherto was gone on the instant, and
his brow grew dark.
“T'at true?” he asked sharply. “Are you Mistaire Wildin'--Mistaire
Antoine Wildin'?”
“Your lordship's most devoted servant,” said Wilding suavely, and made a
leg.
Wentworth in the background paused in the act of reclosing the door to
stare at this gentleman whose name Albemarle had rendered so excellently
well known.
“And you to dare come 'ere?” thundered Feversham, thoroughly roused
by the other's airy indifference. “You to dare come 'ere--into my ver'
presence?”
Mr. Wilding smiled conciliatingly. “I came for my wife, my lord,” he
reminded him. “It grieves me to intrude upon your lordship at so late an
hour, and indeed it was far from my intent. I had hoped to overtake Sir
Rowland before he reached you.”
“Nom de Dieu!” swore Feversham. “Ho! A so great effrontery!” He swung
round upon Blake again. “Sare Rowlan',” he bade him angrily, “be so kind
to tell me what 'appen in Breechwater--everyt'ing!”
Blake, his face purple, seemed to struggle for breath and words. Mr.
Wilding answered for him.
“Sir Rowland is so choleric, my lord,” he said in his pleasant, level
voice, “that perhaps the tale would come more intelligibly from
me. Believe me that he has served you to the best of his ability.
Unfortunately for the success of your choice plan of murder, I had news
of it at the eleventh hour, and with a party of musketeers I was able
to surprise and destroy your cut-throats in Mr. Newlington's garden.
You see, my lord, I was to have been one of the victims myself, and I
resented the attentions that were intended me. I had no knowledge that
Sir Rowland had contrived to escape, and, frankly, it is a thing I
deplore more than I can say, for had that not happened much trouble
might have been saved and your lordship's rest had not been disturbed.”
“But t'e woman?” cried Feversham impatiently. “How is she come into this
galare?”
“It was she who warned him,” Blake got out, “as already I have had the
honour to inform your lordship.”
“And your lordship cannot blame her for that,” said Wilding. “The lady
is a most loyal subject of King James; but she is also, as you observe,
a dutiful wife. I will add that it was her intention to warn me only
when too late for interference. Sir Rowland, as it happened, was slow
in...”
“Silence!” blazed the Frenchman. “Now t'at I know who you are, t'at make
a so great difference. Where is t'e guard, Wentwort'?”
“I hear them,” answered the captain, and from the street came the tramp
of their marching feet.
Feversham turned again to Blake. “T'e affaire 'as 'appen' so,” he
said, between question and assertion, summing up the situation as he
understood it. “T'is rogue,” and he pointed to Richard, “'ave betray
your plan to 'is sister, who betray it to 'er 'usband, who save t'e Duc
de Monmoot'. N'est-ce pas?”
“That is so,” said Blake, and Ruth scarcely thought it worth while to
add that she had heard of the plot not only from her brother, but from
Blake as well. After all, Blake's attitude in the matter, his action in
bringing her to Feversham for punishment, and to exculpate himself, must
suffice to cause any such statement of hers to be lightly received by
the General.
She sat in an anguished silence, her eyes wide, her face pale, and
waited for the end of this strange business. In her heart she did permit
herself to think that it would be difficult to assemble a group of
men less worthy of respect. Choleric and vindictive Blake, foolish
Feversham, stupid Wentworth, and timid Richard--even Richard did
not escape the unfavourable criticism they were undergoing in her
subconscious mind. Only Wilding detached in that assembly--as he had
detached in another that she remembered--and stood out in sharp relief a
very man, calm, intrepid, self-possessed; and if she was afraid, she was
more afraid for him than for herself. This was something that, perhaps,
she scarcely realized just then; but she was to realize it soon.
Feversham was speaking again, asking Blake a fresh question. “And who
betray you to t'is rogue?”
“To Westmacott?” cried Blake. “He was in the plot with me. He was left
to guard the rear, to see that we were not taken by surprise, and he
deserted his post. Had he not done that, there had been no disaster, in
spite of Mr. Wilding's intervention.”
Feversham's brow was dark, his eyes glittered as they rested on the
traitor.
“T'at true, sare?” he asked him.
“Not quite,” put in Mr. Wilding. “Mr. Westmacott, I think, was
constrained away. He did not intend...”
“Tais-toi!” blazed Feversham. “Did I interrogate you? It is for Mistaire
Westercott to answer.” He set a hand on the table and leaned forward
towards Wilding, his face very malign. “You shall to answer for
yourself, Mistaire Wildin'; I promise you you shall to answer for
yourself.” He turned again to Richard. “Eh, bien?” he snapped. “Will you
speak?”
Richard came forward a step; he was certainly nervous, and certainly
pale; but neither as pale nor as nervous as from our knowledge of
Richard we might have looked to see him at that moment.
“It is in a measure true,” he said. “But what Mr. Wilding has said is
more exact. I was induced away. I did not dream any could know of the
plan, or that my absence could cause this catastrophe.”
“So you went, eh, vaurien? You t'ought t'at be to do your duty, eh? And
it was you who tole your sistaire?”
“I may have told her, but not before she had the tale already from
Blake.”
Feversham sneered and shrugged. “Natural you will not speak true. A
traitor I 'ave observe' is always liar.”
Richard drew himself up; he seemed invested almost with a new dignity.
“Your lordship is pleased to account me a traitor?” he inquired.
“A dam' traitor,” said his lordship, and at that moment the door opened,
and a sergeant, with six men following him, stood at the salute upon the
threshold. “A la bonne heure!” his lordship hailed them. “Sergean', you
will arrest t'is rogue and t'is lady,”--he waved his hand from Richard
to Ruth--“and you will take t'em to lock..up.”
The sergeant advanced towards Richard, who drew a step away from him.
Ruth rose to her feet in agitation. Mr. Wilding interposed himself
between her and the guard, his hand upon his sword.
“My lord,” he cried, “do they teach no better courtesy in France?”
Feversham scowled at him, smiling darkly. “I shall talk wit' you soon,
sare,” said he, his words a threat.
“But, my lord...” began Richard. “I can make it very plain I am no
traitor...”
“In t'e mornin',” said Feversham blandly, waving his hand, and the
sergeant took Richard by the shoulder.
But Richard twisted from his grasp. “In the morning will be too late,”
he cried. “I have it in my power to render you such a service as you
little dream of.”
“Take 'im away,” said Feversham wearily.
“I can save you from destruction,” bawled Richard, “you and your army.”
Perhaps even now Feversham had not heeded him but for Wilding's sudden
interference.
“Silence, Richard!” he cried to him. “Would you betray...?” He checked
on the word; more he dared not say; but he hoped faintly that he had
said enough.
Feversham, however, chanced to observe that this man who had shown
himself hitherto so calm looked suddenly most singularly perturbed.
“Eh?” quoth the General. “An instan', Sergean'. What is t'is, eh?”--and
he looked from Wilding to Richard.
“Your lordship shall learn at a price,” cried Richard.
“Me, I not bargain wit' traitors,” said his lordship stiffly.
“Very well, then,” answered Richard, and he folded his arms
dramatically. “But no matter what your lordship's life may be hereafter,
you will never regret anything more bitterly than you shall regret this
by sunrise if indeed you live to see it.”
Feversham shifted uneasily on his feet. “'What you say?” he asked. “What
you mean?”
“You shall know at a price,” said Richard again.
Wilding, realizing the hopelessness of interfering now, stood gloomily
apart, a great bitterness in his soul at the indiscretion he had
committed in telling Richard of the night attack that was afoot.
“Your lordship shall hear my price, but you need not pay it me until you
have had an opportunity of verifying the information I have to give you.
“Tell me,” said Feversham after a brief pause, during which he
scrutinized the young man's face.
“If your lordship will promise liberty and safe-conduct to my sister and
myself.”
“Tell me,” Feversham repeated.
“When you have promised to grant me what I ask in return for my
information.”
“Yes, if I t'ink your information is wort'”
“I am content,” said Richard. He inclined his head and loosed the
quarrel of his news. “Your camp is slumbering, your officers are all
abed with the exception of the outpost on the road to Bridgwater. What
should you say if I told you that Monmouth and all his army are marching
upon you at this very moment, will probably fall upon you before another
hour is past?”
Wilding uttered a groan, and his hands fell to his sides. Had Feversham
observed this he might have been less ready with his sneering answer.
“A lie!” he answered, and laughed. “My fren', I 'ave myself been
to-night, at midnight, on t'e moore, and I 'ave 'eard t'e army of t'e
Duc de Monmoot' marching to Bristol on t'e road--what you call t'e road,
Wentwort'?”
“The Eastern Causeway, my lord,” answered the captain.
“Voil!” said Feversham, and spread his hands. “What you say now, eh?”
“That that is part of Monmouth's plan to come at you across the moors,
by way of Chedzoy, avoiding your only outpost, and falling upon you in
your beds, all unawares. Lord! sir, do not take my word for it. Send out
your scouts, and I dare swear they'll not need go far before they come
upon the enemy.”
Feversham looked at Wentworth. His lordship's face had undergone a
change.
“What you t'ink?” he asked.
“Indeed, my lord, it sounds so likely,” answered Wentworth, “that...
that... I marvel we did not provide against such a contingency.”
“But I 'ave provide'!” cried this nephew of the great Turenne.
“Ogelt'orpe is on t'e moor and Sare Francis Compton. If t'is is true,
'ow can t'ey 'ave miss Monmoot'? Send word to Milor' Churchill at once,
Wentwort'. Let t'e matter be investigate'--at once, Wentwort'--at once!”
The General was dancing with excitement. Wentworth saluted and turned to
leave the room. “If you 'ave tole me true,” continued Feversham, turning
now to Richard, “you shall 'ave t'e price you ask, and t'e t'anks of t'e
King's army. But if not...”
“Oh, it's true enough,” broke in Wilding, and his voice was like a
groan, his face over-charged with gloom.
Feversham looked at him; his sneering smile returned.
“Me, I not remember,” said he, “that Mr. Westercott 'ave include you in
t'e bargain.”
Nothing had been further from Wilding's thoughts than such a suggestion.
And he snorted his disdain. The sergeant had fallen back at Feversham's
words, and his men lined the wall of the chamber. The General bade
Richard be seated whilst he waited. Sir Rowland stood apart, leaning
wearily against the wainscot, waiting also, his dull wits not quite
clear how Richard might have come by so valuable a piece of information,
his evil spirit almost wishing it untrue, in his vindictiveness, to the
end that Richard might pay the price of having played him false and Ruth
the price of having scorned him.
Feversham meanwhile was seeking--with no great success--to engage
Mr. Wilding in talk of Monmouth, against whom Feversham harboured in
addition to his political enmity a very deadly personal hatred; for
Feversham had been a suitor to the hand of the Lady Henrietta Wentworth,
the woman for whom Monmouth--worthy son of his father--had practically
abandoned his own wife; the woman with whom he had run off, to the great
scandal of court and nation.
Despairing of drawing any useful information from Wilding, his lordship
was on the point of turning to Blake, when quick steps and the rattle of
a scabbard sounded without; the door was thrust open without ceremony,
and Captain Wentworth reappeared.
“My lord,” he cried, his manner excited beyond aught one could have
believed possible in so phlegmatic-seeming a person, “it is true. We are
beset.”
“Beset!” echoed Feversham. “Beset already?”
“We can hear them moving on the moor. They are crossing the Langmoor
Rhine. They will be upon us in ten minutes at the most. I have roused
Colonel Douglas, and Dunbarton's regiment is ready for them.”
Feversham exploded. “What else 'ave you done?” he asked. “Where is
Milor' Churchill?”
“Lord Churchill is mustering his men as quietly as may be that they may
be ready to surprise those who come to surprise us. By Heaven, sir, we
owe a great debt to Mr. Westmacott. Without his information we might
have had all our throats cut whilst we slept.”
“Be so kind to call Belmont,” said Feversham. “Tell him to bring my
clot'es.”
Wentworth turned and went out again to execute the General's orders.
Feversham spoke to Richard. “We are oblige', Mr. Westercott,” said he.
“We are ver' much oblige'.”
Suddenly from a little distance came the roll of drums. Other sounds
began to stir in the night outside to tell of a waking army.
Feversham stood listening. “It is Dunbarton's,” he murmured. Then, with
some show of heat, “Ah, pardieu!” he cried. “But it was a dirty t'ing
t'is Monmoot' 'ave prepare'. It is murder; it is not t'e war.
“And yet,” said Wilding critically, “it is a little more like war than
the Bridgwater affair to which your lordship gave your sanction.”
Feversham pursed his lips and considered the speaker. Wentworth
reentered, followed by the Earl's valet carrying an armful of garments.
His lordship threw off his dressing-gown and stood forth in shirt and
breeches.
“Mais duche-toi, donc, Belmont!” said he. “Nous nous battons! Ii faut
que je m'habille.” Belmont, a little wizened fellow who understood
nothing of this topsy-turveydom, hastened forward, deposited his armful
on the table, and selected a finely embroidered waistcoat, which he
proceeded to hold for his master. Wriggling into it, Feversham rapped
out his orders.
“Captain Wentwort', you will go to your regimen at once. But first,
ah--wait. Take t'ose six men and Mistaire Wilding. 'Ave 'im shot at
once; you onderstan', eh? Good. Allons, Belmont! my cravat.”