Micah Clarke by Arthur Conan Doyle (free ebook reader for pc txt) 📕

From my central post by the door I could see the lines of faces on either side of the board, the solemn close-shaven Puritans, sunburned soldiers, and white-wigged moustachioed courtiers. My eyes rested particularly upon Ferguson’s scorbutic features, Saxon’s hard aquiline profile, the German’s burly face, and the peaky thoughtful countenance of the Lord of Wark.

‘If naebody else will gie an opeenion,’ cried the fanatical Doctor, ‘I’ll een speak mysel’ as led by the inward voice. For have I no worked in the cause and slaved in it, much enduring and suffering mony things at the honds o’ the froward, whereby my ain speerit hath plentifully fructified? Have I no been bruised as in a wine-press, and cast oot wi’ hissing and scorning into waste places?’

‘We know your merits and your sufferings, Doctor,’ said the King. ‘The question before us is as to our course of action.’

‘Was there no a voice heard in the East?’ cried the old Whig. ‘Was there no a soond as o’ a great crying, the crying for a broken covenant and a sinful generation? Whence came the cry? Wha’s was the voice? Was it no that o’ the man Robert Ferguson, wha raised himsel’ up against the great ones in the land, and wouldna be appeased?’

‘Aye, aye, Doctor,’ said Monmouth impatiently. ‘Speak to the point, or give place to another.’

‘I shall mak’ mysel’ clear, your Majesty. Have we no heard that Argyle is cutten off? And why was he cutten off? Because he hadna due faith in the workings o’ the Almighty, and must needs reject the help o’ the children o’ light in favour o’ the bare-legged spawn o’ Prelacy, wha are half Pagan, half Popish. Had he walked in the path o’ the Lord he wudna be lying in the Tolbooth o’ Edinburgh wi’ the tow or the axe before him. Why did he no gird up his loins and march straight onwards wi’ the banner o’ light, instead o’ dallying here and biding there like a half-hairted Didymus? And the same or waur will fa’ upon us if we dinna march on intae the land and plant our ensigns afore the wicked toun o’ London—the toun where the Lord’s wark is tae be done, and the tares tae be separated frae the wheat, and piled up for the burning.’

‘Your advice, in short, is that we march on!’ said Monmouth.

‘That we march on, your Majesty, and that we prepare oorselves tae be the vessels o’ grace, and forbear frae polluting the cause o’ the Gospel by wearing the livery o’ the devil’—here he glared at a gaily attired cavalier at the other side of the table—‘or by the playing o’ cairds, the singing o’ profane songs and the swearing o’ oaths, all which are nichtly done by members o’ this army, wi’ the effect o’ giving much scandal tae God’s ain folk.’

A hum of assent and approval rose up from the more Puritan members of the council at this expression of opinion, while the courtiers glanced at each other and curled their lips in derision. Monmouth took two or three turns and then called for another opinion.

‘You, Lord Grey,’ he said, ‘are a soldier and a man of experience. What is your advice? Should we halt here or push forward towards London?’

‘To advance to the East would, in my humble judgment, be fatal to us,’ Grey answered, speaking slowly, with the manner of a man who has thought long and deeply before delivering an opinion. ‘James Stuart is strong in horse, and we have none. We can hold our own amongst hedgerows or in broken country, but what chance could we have in the middle of Salisbury Plain? With the dragoons round us we should be like a flock of sheep amid a pack of wolves. Again, every step which we take towards London removes us from our natural vantage ground, and from the fertile country which supplies our necessities, while it strengthens our enemy by shortening the distance he has to convey his troops and his victuals. Unless, therefore, we hear of some great outbreak elsewhere, or of some general movement in London in our favour, we would do best to hold our ground and wait an attack.’

‘You argue shrewdly and well, my Lord Grey,’ said the King. ‘But how long are we to wait for this outbreak which never comes, and for this support which is ever promised and never provided? We have now been seven long days in England, and during that time of all the House of Commons no single man hath come over to us, and of the lords none gave my Lord Grey, who was himself an exile. Not a baron or an earl, and only one baronet, hath taken up arms for me. Where are the men whom Danvers and Wildman promised me from London? Where are the brisk boys of the City who were said to be longing for me? Where are the breakings out from Berwick to Portland which they foretold? Not a man hath moved save only these good peasants. I have been deluded, ensnared, trapped— trapped by vile agents who have led me into the shambles.’ He paced up and down, wringing his hands and biting his lips, with despair stamped upon his face. I observed that Buyse smiled and whispered something to Saxon—a hint, I suppose, that this was the cold fit of which he spoke.

‘Tell me, Colonel Buyse,’ said the King, mastering his emotion by a strong effort. ‘Do you, as a soldier, agree with my Lord Grey?’

‘Ask Saxon, your Majesty,’ the German answered. ‘My opinion in a Raths-Versammlung is, I have observed, ever the same as his.’

‘Then we turn to you, Colonel Saxon,’ said Monmouth. ‘We have in this council a party who are in favour of an advance and a party who wish to stand their ground. Their weight and numbers are, methinks, nearly equal. If you had the casting vote how would you decide?’ All eyes were bent upon our leader, for his martial bearing, and the respect shown to him by the veteran Buyse, made it likely that his opinion might really turn the scale. He sat for a few moments in silence with his hands before his face.

‘I will give my opinion, your Majesty,’ he said at last. ‘Feversham and Churchill are making for Salisbury with three thousand foot, and they have pushed on eight hundred of the Blue Guards, and two or three dragoon regiments. We should, therefore, as Lord Grey says, have to fight on Salisbury Plain, and our foot armed with a medley of weapons could scarce make head against their horse. All is possible to the Lord, as Dr. Ferguson wisely says. We are as grains of dust in the hollow of His hand. Yet He hath given us brains wherewith to choose the better course, and if we neglect it we must suffer the consequence of our folly.’

Ferguson laughed contemptuously, and breathed out a prayer, but many of the other Puritans nodded their heads to acknowledge that this was not an unreasonable view to take of it.

‘On the other hand, sire,’ Saxon continued, ‘it appears to me that to remain here is equally impossible. Your Majesty’s friends throughout England would lose all heart if the army lay motionless and struck no blow. The rustics would flock off to their wives and homes. Such an example is catching. I have seen a great army thaw away like an icicle in the sunshine. Once gone, it is no easy matter to collect them again. To keep them we must employ them. Never let them have an idle minute. Drill them. March them. Exercise them. Work them. Preach to them. Make them obey God and their Colonel. This cannot be done in snug quarters. They must travel. We cannot hope to end this business until we get to London. London, then, must be our goal. But there are many ways of reaching it. You have, sire, as I have heard, many friends at Bristol and in the Midlands. If I might advise, I should say let us march round in that direction. Every day that passes will serve to swell your forces and improve your troops, while all will feel something is astirring. Should we take Bristol—and I hear that the works are not very strong—it would give us a very good command of shipping, and a rare centre from which to act. If all goes well with us, we could make our way to London through Gloucestershire and Worcestershire. In the meantime I might suggest that a day of fast and humiliation be called to bring down a blessing on the cause.’

This address, skilfully compounded of worldly wisdom and of spiritual zeal, won the applause of the whole council, and especially that of King Monmouth, whose melancholy vanished as if by magic.

‘By my faith, Colonel,’ said he, ‘you make it all as clear as day. Of course, if we make ourselves strong in the West, and my uncle is threatened with disaffection elsewhere, he will have no chance to hold out against us. Should he wish to fight us upon our own ground, he must needs drain his troops from north, south, and east, which is not to be thought of. We may very well march to London by way of Bristol.’

‘I think that the advice is good,’ Lord Grey observed; ‘but I should like to ask Colonel Saxon what warrant he hath for saying that Churchill and Feversham are on their way, with three thousand regular foot and several regiments of horse?’

‘The word of an officer of the Blues with whom I conversed at Salisbury,’ Saxon answered. ‘He confided in me, believing me to be one of the Duke of Beaufort’s household. As to the horse, one party pursued us on Salisbury Plain with bloodhounds, and another attacked us not twenty miles from here and lost a score of troopers and a cornet.’

‘We heard something of the brush,’ said the King. ‘It was bravely done. But if these men are so close we have no great time for preparation.’

‘Their foot cannot he here before a week,’ said the Mayor. ‘By that time we might be behind the walls of Bristol.’

‘There is one point which might be urged,’ observed Wade the lawyer. ‘We have, as your Majesty most truly says, met with heavy discouragement in the fact that no noblemen and few commoners of repute have declared for us. The reason is, I opine, that each doth wait for his neighbour to make a move. Should one or two come over the others would soon follow. How, then, are we to bring a duke or two to our standards?’

‘There’s the question, Master Wade,’ said Monmouth, shaking his head despondently.

‘I think that it might be done,’ continued the Whig lawyer. ‘Mere proclamations addressed to the commonalty will not catch these gold fish. They are not to be angled for with a naked hook. I should recommend that some form of summons or writ be served upon each of them, calling upon them to appear in our camp within a certain date under pain of high treason.’

‘There spake the legal mind,’ quoth King Monmouth, with a laugh. ‘But you have omitted to tell us how the said writ or summons is to be conveyed to these same delinquents.’

‘There is the Duke of Beaufort,’ continued Wade, disregarding the King’s objection. ‘He is President of Wales, and he is, as your Majesty knows, lieutenant of four English counties. His influence overshadows the whole West. He hath two hundred horses in his stables at Badminton, and a thousand men, as I have heard, sit down at his tables every day. Why should not