The constable and a couple of his fellows won through; others were rousing the stable and getting to horse, and in the courtyard all was bustle and commotion. Meanwhile, however, Mr. Wilding and Trenchard had made the most of their start, and were thundering through the town.
Chapter XII.
At The Ford
As Mr. Wilding and Nick Trenchard rode hell-to- leather through Taunton streets they never noticed a horseman at the door of the Red Lion Inn. But the horseman noticed them. He looked up at the sound of their wild approach, started upon recognizing them, and turned in his saddle as they swept past him to call upon them excitedly to stop.
“Hi!” he shouted. “Nick Trenchard! Hi! Wilding!” Then, seeing that they either did not hear or did not heed him, he loosed a volley of oaths, wheeled his horse about, drove home the spurs, and started in pursuit. Out of the town he followed them and along the road towards Walford, shouting and clamouring at first, afterwards in a grim and angry silence.
Now, despite their natural anxiety for their own safety, Wilding and Trenchard had by no means abandoned their project of taking cover by the ford to await the messenger whom Albemarle and the others would no doubt be sending to Whitehall; and this mad fellow thundering after them seemed in a fair way to mar their plan. As they reluctantly passed the spot they had marked out for their ambush, splashed through the ford and breasted the rising ground beyond, they took counsel. They determined to stand and meet this rash pursuer. Trenchard calmly opined that if necessary they must shoot him; he was, I fear, a bloody-minded fellow at bottom, although, it is true he justified himself now by pointing out that this was no time to hesitate at trifles. Partly because they talked and partly because the gradient was steep and their horses needed breathing, they slackened rein, and the horseman behind them came tearing through the water of the ford and lessened the distance considerably in the next few minutes.
He bethought him of using his lungs once more. “Hi, Wilding! Hold, damn you!”
“He curses you in a most intimate manner,” quoth Trenchard.
Wilding reined in and turned in the saddle. “His voice has a familiar sound,” said he. He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked down the slope at the pursuer, who came on crouching low upon the withers of his goaded beast.
“Wait!” the fellow shouted. “I have news – news for you!”
“It’s Vallancey!” cried Wilding suddenly. Trenchard too had drawn rein and was looking behind him. Instead of expresing relief at the discovery that this was not an enemy, he swore at the trouble to which they had so needlessly put themselves, and he was still at his vituperations when Vallancey came up with them, red in the face and very angry, cursing them roundly for the folly of their mad career, and for not having stopped when he bade them.
“It was no doubt discourteous,” said Mr. Wilding “but we took you for some friend of the Lord-Lieutenant’s.”
“Are they after you?” quoth Vallancey, his face of a sudden very startled.
“Like enough,” said Trenchard, “if they have found their horses yet.”
“Forward, then,” Vallancey urged them in excitement, and he picked up his reins again. “You shall hear my news as we ride.”
“Not so,” said Trenchard. “We have business here down yonder at the ford.”
“Business? What business?”
They told him, and scarce had they got the words out than he cut in impatiently. “That’s no matter now.
“Not yet, perhaps,” said Mr. Wilding; “but it will be if that letter gets to Whitehall.”
“Odso!” was the impatient retort, “there’s other news travelling to Whitehall that will make small-beer of this – and belike it’s well on its way there already.”
“What news is that?” asked Trenchard. Vallancey told them. “The Duke has landed – he came ashore this morning at Lyme.”
“The Duke?” quoth Mr. Wilding, whilst Trenchard merely stared. “What Duke?”
“What Duke! Lord, you weary me! What dukes be there? The Duke of Monmouth, man.”
“Monmouth!” They uttered the name in a breath. “But is this really true?” asked Wilding. “Or is it but another rumour?”
“Remember the letter your friends intercepted,” Trenchard bade him.
“I am not forgetting it,” said Wilding.
“It’s no rumour,” Vallancey assured them. “I was at White Lackington three hours ago when the news came to George Speke, and I was riding to carry it to you, going by way of Taunton that I might drop word of it for our friends at the Red Lion.”
Trenchard needed no further convincing; he looked accordingly dismayed. But Wilding found it still almost impossible – in spite of what already he had learnt – to credit this amazing news. It was hard to believe the Duke of Monmouth mad enough to spoil all by this sudden and unheralded precipitation.
“You heard the news at Whitp Lackington?” said he slowly. “Who carried it thither?”
“There were two messengers,” answered Vallancey, with restrained impatience, “and they were Heywood Dare – who has been appointed paymaster to the Duke’s forces – and Mr. Chamberlain.”
Mr. Wilding was observed for once to change colour. He gripped Vallancey by the wrist. “You saw them?” he demanded, and his voice had a husky, unusual sound. “You saw them?”
“With these two eyes,” answered Vallancey, “and I spoke with them.”
It was true, then! There was no room for further doubt.
Wilding looked at Trenchard, who shrugged his shoulders and made a wry face. “I never thought but that we were working in the service of a hairbrain,” said he contemptuously.
Vallancey proceeded to details. “Dare and Chamberlain,” he informed them, “came off the Duke’s own frigate at daybreak to-day. They were put ashore at Seatown, and they rode straight to Mr. Speke’s with the news, returning afterwards to Lyme.”
“What men has the Duke with him, did you learn?” asked Wilding.
“Not more than a hundred or so, from what Dare told us.”
“A hundred! God help us all! And is England to be conquered with a hundred men? Oh, this is midsummer frenzy.”
“He counts on all true Protestants to flock to his banner,” put in Trenchard, and it was not plain whether he expressed a fact or sneered at one.
“Does he bring money and arms, at least?” asked Wilding.
“I did not ask,” answered Vallancey. “But Dare told us that three vessels had come over, so that it is to be supposed he brings some manner of provision with him.”
“It is to be hoped so, Vallancey; but hardly to be supposed,” quoth Trenchard, and then he touched Wilding on the arm and pointed with his whip across the fields towards Taunton. A cloud of dust was rising from between tall hedges where ran the road. “I think it were wise to be moving. At least, this sudden landing of James Scott relieves my mind in the matter of that letter.”
Wilding, having taken a look at the floating dust that announced the oncoming of their pursuers, was now lost in thought. Vallancey, who, beyond excitement at the news of which he was the bearer, seemed to have no opinion of his own as to the wisdom or folly of the Duke’s sudden arrival, looked from one to the other of these two men whom he had known as the prime secret agents in the West, and waited Trenchard moved his horse a few paces nearer the hedge, whence he “Whither now, Anthony?” he asked suddenly.
“You may ask, indeed!” exclaimed Wilding, and his voice was as bitter as ever Trenchard had heard it. “`S heart! We are in it now! We had best make for Lyme – if only that we may attempt to persuade this crack-brained boy to ship back to Holland again, and ship ourselves with him.”
“There’s sense in you at last,” grumbled Trenchard. “But I misdoubt me he’ll turn back after having come so far. Have you any money?” he asked. He could be very practical at times.
“A guinea or two. But I can get money at Ilminster.”
“And how do you propose to reach Ilminster with these gentlemen by way of cutting us off?”
“We’ll double back as far as the cross-roads,” said Wilding promptly, “and strike south over Swell Hill for Hatch. If we ride hard we can do it easily, and have little fear of being followed. They’ll naturally take it we have made for Bridgwater.”
They acted on the suggestion there and then, Vallancey going with them; for his task was now accomplished, and he was all eager to get to Lyme to kiss the hand of the Protestant Duke. They rode hard, as Wilding had said they must, and they reached the junction of the roads before their pursuers hove in sight. Here Wilding suddenly detained them again. The road ahead of them ran straight for almost a mile, so that if they took it now they were almost sure to be seen presently by the messengers. On their right a thickly grown coppice stretched from the road to the stream that babbled in the hollow. He gave it as his advice that they should lie hidden there until those who hunted them should have gone by. Obviously that was the only plan, and his companions instantly adopted it. They found a way through a gate into an adjacent field, and from this they gained the shelter of the trees. Trenchard, neglectful of his finery and oblivious of the ubiquitous brambles, left his horse in Vallancey’s care and crept to the edge of the thicket that he might take a peep at the pursuers.