Monmouth, white and horror-stricken, sat and listened first to Wilding, then to Dare, and lastly to Fletcher himself. But it was young Dare--Dare and his followers, who prevailed. They were too numerous and turbulent, and they must at all costs be conciliated, or there was no telling to what extremes they might not go. And so there was an end to the share of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun in this undertaking--the end of the only man who was of any capacity to pilot it through the troubled waters that lay before it. Monmouth placed him under arrest and sent him aboard the frigate again, ordering her captain to sail at once. That was the utmost Monmouth could do to save him.
Wilding continued to plead with the Duke after Fletcher's removal, and to such good purpose that at last Monmouth determined that Fletcher should rejoin them later, when the affair should have blown over, and he sent word accordingly to the Scot. Even in this there were manifestations of antagonism between Mr. Wilding and Lord Grey, and it almost seemed enough that Wilding should suggest a course for Lord Grey instantly to oppose it.
The effects of Fletcher's removal were not long in following. On the morrow came the Bridport affair, and Grey's shameful conduct when, had he stood his ground, victory must have been assured the Duke's forces instead of just that honourable retreat by which Colonel Wade so gallantly saved the situation. Mr. Wilding did not mince his words in putting it that Grey had run away.
In his room at the George Inn, Monmouth, deeply distressed, asked Wilding and Colonel Matthews what action he should take in the matter--how deal with Grey.
"There is no other general in Europe would ask that, Your Grace," answered Matthews gravely, and Mr. Wilding added without an instant's hesitation that His Grace's course was plain.
"It would be an unwise thing to expose the troops to the chance of more such happenings."
Monmouth dismissed them and sent for Grey, and he seemed resolved to deal with him as he deserved. Yet an hour later, when Wilding, Matthews, Wade, and the others were ordered to attend the Duke in council, there was his lordship seemingly on as good terms as ever with His Grace.
They were assembled to discuss the next step which it might be advisable to take, for the militia was closing in around them, and to remain longer in Lyme would be to be caught there as in a trap. It was Grey who advanced the first suggestion, his assurance no whit abated by the shameful thing that had befallen, by the cowardice which he had betrayed.