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What dukes be there? The Duke of Monmouth, man." "Monmouth!" They uttered the name in a breath. "But is this really true?" asked Wilding. "Or is it but another rumour?" "Remember the letter your friends intercepted," Trenchard bade him. "I am not forgetting it," said Wilding. "It's no rumour," Vallancey assured them.
Blake, whose suspicions of some secret matter to which Vallancey and Richard were wedded, had been earlier excited by Westmacott's indiscretions, was full of sly questions now touching the business which might be taking Vallancey to Scoresby. But Richard was too full of the subject of the fear he had instilled into Wilding to afford his companion much satisfaction on any other score.
If he was to get his man to the ground at all and young Vallancey had a due sense of his responsibilities in that connection it would be well to supply Richard with something to replace the courage that had oozed out overnight. Young Richard, never loath to fortify himself, proved amenable enough to the stiffly laced Canary that his friend set before him.
Then, to divert his mind, Vallancey, with that rash freedom that had made the whole of Somerset know him for a rebel, set himself to talk of the Protestant Duke and his right to the crown of England. He was still at his talk, Richard listening moodily what time he was slowly but surely befuddling himself, when Sir Rowland returning from Scoresby Hall came to bring the news of his lack of success.
"Still, claret never does lie easy on my stomach," Richard explained, intent upon blaming Lord Gervase s wine since he could think of nothing else for his condition. Vallancey looked at him shrewdly. "My cock," said he, "if you're to fight we'll have to mend your temper." He took it upon himself to ring the bell, and to order up two bottles of Canary and one of brandy.
Vallancey," said Trenchard with a wry twist of his sharp features, "you grow prophetic." From Scoresby Hall, near Weston Zoyland, young Westmacott rode home that Saturday night to his sister's house in Bridgwater, a sobered man and an anguished. He had committed a folly which was like to cost him his life to-morrow.
If Richard Westmacott were allowed to live after what had passed, there were too many tall fellows might go in peril of their lives. Richard, meanwhile, had turned to the man on his left young Vallancey, a notorious partisan of the Duke of Monmouth's, a hair-brained gentleman who was his own worst enemy. "May I count on you, Ned?" he asked. "Aye to the death," said Vallancey magniloquently. "Mr.
"You can leave it safely to me, Tony," he growled. "But there is something I wish to say, Nick," answered Mr. Wilding, his manner mild. "By your leave, then." And he turned again to Valiancey. "Will you be so good as to call Mr. Westmacott hither?" Vallancey stared. "For what purpose, sir?" he asked. "For my purpose," answered Mr. Wilding sweetly. "It is no longer my wish to engage with Mr.
"'S a scurvy trick I'm playing the Duke. 'S treason to him treason no less." And he smote the table with his open hand. "What's that?" quoth Blake so sharply, his eyes so suddenly alert that Vallancey made haste to cover up his fellow rebel's indiscretion.
"What a plague do you mean, dallying here at such a time, Anthony?" he cried, to which Vallancey added: "In God's name, let us push on." At that she checked her impulse it may even be that she mistrusted it. She paused, lingering undecided for an instant; then, turning her horse once more, she ambled up the slope to rejoin Diana. The evening was far advanced when Mr.
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