Trenchard dismounted, and taking a distracted stable-boy by the arm, bade him see to their horses. The fellow endeavoured to swing himself free of the other's tenacious grasp.
"Let me go," he cried. "I am for the Duke!"
"And so are we, my fine rebel," answered Trenchard, holding fast.
"Let me go," the lout insisted. "I am going to enlist."
"And so you shall when you have stabled our nags. See to him, Vallancey; he is brainsick with the fumes of war."
The fellow protested, but Trenchard's way was brisk and short; and so, protesting still, he led away their cattle in the end, Vallancey going with him to see that he performed this last duty as a stable-boy ere he too became a champion militant of the Protestant Cause. Trenchard sped after Wilding, who was elbowing his way through the yokels about the steps. The glare of a newly lighted lamp from the doorway fell full upon his long white face as he advanced, and Venner espied and recognized him.
"Mr. Wilding!" he cried, and there was a glad ring in his voice, for though cobblers, tailors, deserters from the militia, pot-boys, stable-boys, and shuffling yokels had been coming in in numbers during the past few hours since the Declaration had been read, this was the first gentleman that arrived to welcome Monmouth. The soldier stretched out a hand to grasp the newcomer's. "His Grace will see you this instant, not a doubt of it." He turned and called down the passage. "Cragg!" A young man in a buff coat came forward, and to him Venner delivered Wilding and Trenchard that he might announce them to His Grace.
In the room that had been set apart for him abovestairs, Monmouth still sat at table. He had just supped, with but an indifferent appetite, so fevered was he by the events of his landing. He was excited with hope--inspired by the readiness with which the men of Lyme and its neighbourhood had flocked to his banner--and fretted by anxiety that none of the gentry of the vicinity should yet have followed the example of the meaner folk, in answer to the messages dispatched at dawn from Seaton. The board at which he sat was still cumbered with some glasses and platters and vestiges of his repast. Below him on his right sat Ferguson--that prince of plotters--very busy with pen and ink, his keen face almost hidden by his great periwig; opposite were Lord Grey, of Werke, and Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun, whilst, standing at the foot of the table barely within the circle of candlelight from the branch on the polished oak, was Nathaniel Wade, the lawyer, who had fled to Holland on account of his alleged complicity in the Rye House plot and was now returned a major in the Duke's service. Erect and soldierly of figure, girt with a great sword and with the butt of a pistol protruding from his belt, he had little the air of a man whose methods of contention were forensic.