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"A plague on perhaps!" exclaimed Monmouth, growing irritable; "I want you to name the men of whom you are certain." Battiscomb stood silent for a moment, pondering. He looked almost foolish, like a schoolboy who hesitates to confess his ignorance of the answer to a question set him. Fletcher swung round, his grey eyes flashing angrily, his accent more Scottish than ever.
He was surprised, he said; as well he might be, for the arrangement was that having done his work he was to return to Holland and report to Monmouth upon the feeling of the gentry. "But your news, Battiscomb," the Duke insisted. "Aye," put in Grey; "in Heaven's name, let us hear that." Again there was the little nervous cough from Battiscomb.
"Drink, man, and get sense, said he, and turned aside to question Battiscomb touching others of the neighbourhood upon whom they had depended. "What of Sir Francis Rolles?" he inquired. Battiscomb answered the question, addressing himself to the Duke. "Alas! Sir Francis, no doubt, would have been faithful to Your Grace, but, unfortunately, Sir Francis is in prison already."
Certainly he had none of that air of the soldier of fortune which distinguished his brother of the robe. He advanced, hat in hand, towards the table, greeting the company about it, and Wilding observed that he wore silk stockings and shoes, upon which there rested not a speck of dust. Mr. Battiscomb was plainly a man who loved his ease, since on such a day he had travelled to Lyme in a coach.
"We may hope, sirs," answered Battiscomb, "that in a few days when he shall have seen the zeal of the countryside he will be cured of his present luke-warmness." Thus, discreetly, did the man of law break the bad news he bore. Monmouth sank back into his chair like one who has lost some of his strength. "Lukewarmness?" he repeated dully. "Sir Walter Young lukewarm!"
"Does Your Grace not hear, that ye can ask?" he cried, almost reproachfully; but they scarce heeded him, for Grey was inquiring if Mr. Strode might be depended upon to join, and that was a matter that claimed the greater attention. "I think," said Battiscomb, "that he might have been depended upon."
And Wilding, who was better informed on that score, kept silence. Mr. Christopher Battiscomb, that mild-mannered Dorchester gentleman, who, like Wade, was by vocation a lawyer, was ushered into the Duke's presence. He was dressed in black, and, like Ferguson, was almost smothered in a great periwig, which he may have adopted for purposes of disguise rather than adornment.
Scorn was stamped on every word of his question. Battiscomb spread his hands, raised his brows, and said nothing. "The Lord knows I do not say it exulting," said Fletcher; "but I told Your Grace yours was hardly the case of Henry the Seventh, as my Lord Grey would have you believe." "We shall see," snapped Grey, scowling at the Scot.
"I can't tell you. But of this I am sure, His Grace is incapable of anything so rash. Certain is it that he'll not stir until Battiscomb returns to Holland, and Battiscomb is still in Cheshire sounding the Duke's friends." "Yet were I you, I should not marry just at present." Wilding smiled. "If you were me, you'd never marry at all." "Faith, no!" said Trenchard.
"Is it that ye're certain o' none, Mr. Battiscomb?" he exclaimed. "Indeed," said Battiscomb, "I think we may be fairly certain of Mr. Legge and Mr. Hooper." "And of none besides?" questioned Fletcher again. "Be these the only representatives of the flower of England's nobility that is to flock to the banner of the cause of England's freedom and religion?"
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