Chapter 26 - Page 2

'He did,' I answered.

'He would fain stand upon both sides of the hedge at once,' said King Monmouth. 'Such a man is very like to find himself on neither side, but in the very heart of the briars. It may he as well, however, that we should move his way, so as to give him the chance of declaring himself.'

'In any case, as your Majesty remembers,' said Saxon, 'we had determined to march Bristolwards and attempt the town.'

'The works are being strengthened,' said I, 'and there are five thousand of the Gloucestershire train-bands assembled within. I saw the labourers at work upon the ramparts as I passed.'

'If we gain Beaufort we shall gain the town,' quoth Sir Stephen Timewell. 'There are already a strong body of godly and honest folk therein, who would rejoice to see a Protestant army within their gates. Should we have to beleaguer it we may count upon some help from within.'

'Hegel und blitzen!' exclaimed the German soldier, with an impatience which even the presence of the King could not keep in bounds; 'how can we talk of sieges and leaguers when we have not a breaching-piece in the army?'

'The Lard will find us the breaching-pieces,' cried Ferguson, in his strange, nasal voice. 'Did the Lard no breach the too'ers o' Jericho withoot the aid o' gunpooder? Did the Lard no raise up the man Robert Ferguson and presairve him through five-and-thairty indictments and twa-and-twenty proclamations o' the godless? What is there He canna do? Hosannah! Hosannah!'

'The Doctor is right,' said a square-faced, leather-skinned English Independent. 'We talk too much o' carnal means and worldly chances, without leaning upon that heavenly goodwill which should be to us as a staff on stony and broken paths. Yes, gentlemen,' he continued, raising his voice and glancing across the table at some of the courtiers, 'ye may sneer at words of piety, but I say that it is you and those like you who will bring down God's anger upon this army.'

'And I say so too,' cried another sectary fiercely.

'And I,' 'And I,' shouted several, with Saxon, I think, among them.

'Is it your wish, your Majesty, that we should be insulted at your very council board?' cried one of the courtiers, springing to his feet with a flushed face. 'How long are we to be subject to this insolence because we have the religion of a gentleman, and prefer to practise it in the privacy of our hearts rather than at the street corners with these pharisees?'

'Speak not against God's saints,' cried a Puritan, in a loud stern voice. 'There is a voice within me which tells me that it were better to strike thee dead--yea, even in the presence of the King--than to allow thee to revile those who have been born again.'

Several had sprung to their feet on either side. Hands were laid upon sword-hilts, and glances as stern and as deadly as rapier thrusts were flashing backwards and