Chapter Chapter 7 · Of the Horseman who rode from the West

My father set to work forthwith preparing for our equipment, furnishing

Saxon out as well as myself on the most liberal scale, for he was

determined that the wealth of his age should be as devoted to the cause

as was the strength of his youth. These arrangements had to be carried

out with the most extreme caution, for there were many Prelatists in

the village, and in the present disturbed state of the public mind any

activity on the part of so well known a man would have at once attracted

attention. So carefully did the wary old soldier manage matters,

however, that we soon found ourselves in a position to start at an

hour’s notice, without any of our neighbours being a whit the wiser.

His first move was to purchase through an agent two suitable horses at

Chichester fair, which were conveyed to the stables of a trusty Whig

farmer living near Portchester, who was ordered to keep them until

they were called for. Of these animals one was a mottled grey, of great

mettle and power, standing seventeen and a half hands high, and well up

to my weight, for in those days, my dears, I had not laid on flesh, and

weighed a little under sixteen stone for all my height and strength.

A critic might have said that Covenant, for so I named my steed, was a

trifle heavy about the head and neck, but I found him a trusty, willing

brute, with great power and endurance. Saxon, who when fully accoutred

could scarce have weighed more than twelve stone, had a light bay

Spanish jennet, of great speed and spirit. This mare he named Chloe,

‘after a godly maiden of his acquaintance,’ though, as my father

remarked, there was a somewhat ungodly and heathenish smack about the

appellation. These horses and their harness were bought and held ready

without my father appearing in the matter in any way.

This important point having been settled, there was the further question

of arms to be discussed, which gave rise to much weighty controversy

between Decimus Saxon and my father, each citing many instances from

their own experiences where the presence or absence of some taslet

or arm-guard had been of the deepest import to the wearer. Your

great-grandfather had set his heart upon my wearing the breastplate

which still bore the dints of the Scottish spears at Dunbar, but on

trying it on we found it was too small for me. I confess that this was a

surprise, for when I looked back at the awe with which I had regarded

my father’s huge proportions, it was marvellous to me to have

this convincing proof that I had outgrown him. By ripping down the

side-leather and piercing holes through which a lace could be passed, my

mother managed to arrange it so that I could wear it without discomfort.

A pair of taslets or thigh-pieces, with guards for the upper arm and

gauntlets, were all borrowed from the old Parliamentary equipment,

together with the heavy straight sword and pair of horse pistols which

formed the usual weapons of a cavalier. My father had chosen me a

head-piece in Portsmouth, fluted, with good barrets, padded inside with

soft leather, very light and yet very strong. When fully equipped,

both Saxon and my father agreed that I had all that was requisite for

a well-appointed soldier. Saxon had purchased a buff-coat, a steel cap,

and a pair of jack-boots, so that with the rapier and pistols which my

father had presented him with, he was ready to take the field at any

time.

There would, we hoped, be no great difficulty in our reaching Monmouth’s

forces when the hour came. In those troublous times the main roads were

so infested by highwaymen and footpads, that it was usual for travellers

to carry weapons and even armour for their protection. There was no

reason therefore why our appearance should excite suspicion. Should

questions be asked, Saxon had a long story prepared, to the effect that

we were travelling to join Henry Somerset, Duke of Beaufort, to whose

household we belonged. This invention he explained to me, with many

points of corroboration which I was to furnish, but when I said

positively that I should rather be hanged as a rebel than speak a

falsehood, he looked at me open-eyed, and shook his head as one much

shocked. A few weeks of campaigning, he said, would soon cure me of my

squeamishness. For himself, no more truthful child had ever carried a

horn-book, but he had learned to lie upon the Danube, and looked upon

it as a necessary part of the soldier’s upbringing. ‘For what are all

stratagems, ambuscades, and outfalls but lying upon a large scale?’ he

argued. ‘What is an adroit commander but one who hath a facility for

disguising the truth? When, at the battle of Senlac, William the Norman

ordered his men to feign flight in order that they might break his

enemy’s array, a wile much practised both by the Scythians of old and by

the Croats of our own day, pray what is it but the acting of a lie? Or

when Hannibal, having tied torches to the horns of great droves of oxen,

caused the Roman Consuls to imagine that his army was in retreat, was it

not a deception or infraction of the truth?--a point well brought out

by a soldier of repute in the treatise “An in bello dolo uti liceat;

an apud hostes falsiloquio uti liceat.” And so if, after these great

models, I in order to gain mine ends do announce that we are bound to

Beaufort when we are in truth making for Monmouth, is it not in accord

with the usages of war and the customs of great commanders?’ All which

specious argument I made no attempt to answer, beyond repeating that he

might avail himself of the usage, but that he must not look to me for

corroboration. On the other hand, I promised to hold my speech and to

say nothing which might hamper him, with which pledge he was forced to

be contented.

And now at last, my patient listeners, I shall be able to carry you out

of the humble life of the village, and to cease my gossip of the men who

were old when I was young, and who are now lying this many a year in

the Bedhampton churchyard. You shall come with me now, and you shall see

England as it was in those days, and you shall hear of how we set forth

to the wars, and of all the adventures which overtook us. And if what

I tell you should ever chance to differ from what you have read in the

book of Mr. Coke or of Mr. Oldmixon, or of any one else who has set

these matters down in print, do ye bear in mind that I am telling of

what I saw with these very eyes, and that I have helped to make history,

which is a higher thing than to write it.

It was, then, towards nightfall upon the twelfth day of June 1685 that

the news reached our part of the country that Monmouth had landed the

day before at Lyme, a small seaport on the boundary between Dorsetshire

and Devonshire. A great beacon blaze upon Portsdown Hill was the first

news that we had of it, and then came a rattling and a drumming

from Portsmouth, where the troops were assembled under arms. Mounted

messengers clattered through the village street with their heads low on

their horses’ necks, for the great tidings must be carried to London,

that the Governor of Portsmouth might know how to act. (Note B,

Appendix.) We were standing at our doorway in the gloaming, watching

the coming and the going, and the line of beacon fires which were

lengthening away to the eastward, when a little man galloped up to the

door and pulled his panting horse up.

‘Is Joseph Clarke here?’ he asked.

‘I am he,’ said my father.

‘Are these men true?’ he whispered, pointing with his whip at Saxon and

myself. ‘Then the trysting-place is Taunton. Pass it on to all whom ye

know. Give my horse a bait and a drink, I beg of ye, for I must get on

my way.’

My young brother Hosea looked to the tired creature, while we brought

the rider inside and drew him a stoup of beer. A wiry, sharp-faced man

he was, with a birth-mark upon his temple. His face and clothes were

caked with dust, and his limbs were so stiff from the saddle that he

could scarce put one foot before another.

‘One horse hath died under me,’ he said, ‘and this can scarce last

another twenty miles. I must be in London by morning, for we hope that

Danvers and Wildman may be able to raise the city. Yester-evening I left

Monmouth’s camp. His blue flag floats over Lyme.’

‘What force hath he?’ my father asked anxiously.

‘He hath but brought over leaders. The force must come from you folk at

home. He has with him Lord Grey of Wark, with Wade, the German Buyse,

and eighty or a hundred more. Alas! that two who came are already lost

to us. It is an evil, evil omen.’

‘What is amiss, then?’

‘Dare, the goldsmith of Taunton, hath been slain by Fletcher of Saltoun

in some child’s quarrel about a horse. The peasants cried out for the

blood of the Scot, and he was forced to fly aboard the ships. A sad

mishap it is, for he was a skilful leader and a veteran soldier.’

‘Aye, aye,’ cried Saxon impatiently, ‘there will be some more skilful

leaders and veteran soldiers in the West presently to take his place.

But if he knew the usages of war, how came it that he should fight upon

a private quarrel at such a time?’ He drew a flat brown book from

his bosom, and ran his long thin finger down the table of contents.

‘Subisectio nona’--‘here is the very case set forth, “An in hello

publico provocatus ad duellum privatae amicitiae causa declinare

possit,” in which the learned Fleming layeth it down that a man’s

private honour must give way to the good of the cause. Did it not happen

in my own case that, on the eve of the raising of the Anlagerung of

Vienna, we stranger officers having been invited to the tent of the

General, it chanced that a red-headed Irisher, one O’Daffy, an ancient

in the regiment of Pappenheimer, did claim precedence of me on the

ground of superiority of blood? On this I drew my glove across his face,

not, mark ye, in anger, but as showing that I differed in some degree

from his opinion. At which dissent he did at once offer to sustain his

contention, but I, having read this subsection to him, did make it clear

to him that we could not in honour settle the point until the Turk was

chased from the city. So after the onfall--’

‘Nay, sir, I may hear the narrative some future day,’ said the

messenger, staggering to his feet. ‘I hope to find a relay at

Chichester, and time presses. Work for the cause now, or be slaves for

ever. Farewell!’ He clambered into his saddle, and we heard the clatter

of his hoofs dying away down the London road.

‘The time hath come for you to go, Micah,’ said my father solemnly.’

Nay, wife, do not weep, but rather hearten the lad on his way by a

blithe word and a merry face. I need not tell you to fight manfully

and fearlessly in this quarrel. Should the tide of war set in this

direction, you may find your old father riding by your side. Let us now

bow down and implore the favour of the Almighty upon this expedition.’

We all knelt down in the low-roofed, heavy-raftered room while the old

man offered up an earnest, strenuous prayer for our success. Even now,

as I speak to ye, that group rises up before mine eyes. I see once

again your ancestor’s stern, rugged face, with his brows knitted and

his corded hands writhed together in the fervour of his supplication. My

mother kneels beside him with the tears trickling down her sweet, placid

face, stifling her sobs lest the sound of them make my leave-taking more

bitter. The children are in the sleeping-room upstairs, and we hear the

patter of their bare feet upon the floor. The man Saxon sprawls across

one of the oaken chairs, half kneeling, half reclining, with his long

legs trailing out behind, and his face buried in his hands. All round

in the flickering light of the hanging lamp I see the objects which have

been so familiar to me from childhood--the settle by the fireplace,

the high-back stiff-elbowed chairs, the stuffed fox above the door, the

picture of Christian viewing the Promised Land from the summit of the

Delectable Mountains--all small trifles in themselves, but making up

among them the marvellous thing we call home, the all-powerful lodestone

which draws the wanderer’s heart from the farther end of the earth.

Should I ever see it again save in my dreams--I, who was leaving this

sheltered cove to plunge into the heart of the storm?

The prayer finished, we all rose with the exception of Saxon, who

remained with his face buried in his hands for a minute or so before

starting to his feet. I shrewdly suspect that he had been fast asleep,

though he explained that he had paused to offer up an additional

supplication. My father placed his hands upon my head and invoked the

blessing of Heaven upon me. He then drew my companion aside, and I

heard the jingling of coin, from which I judge that he was giving him

something wherewith to start upon his travels. My mother clasped me to

her heart, and slipped a small square of paper into my hand, saying that

I was to look at it at my leisure, and that I should make her happy if

I would but conform to the instructions contained in it. This I promised

to do, and tearing myself away I set off down the darkened village

street, with my long-limbed companion striding by my side.

It was close upon one in the morning, and all the country folk had been

long abed. Passing the Wheatsheaf and the house of old Solomon, I could

not but wonder what they would think of my martial garb were they afoot.

I had scarce time to form the same thought before Zachary Palmer’s

cottage when his door flew open, and the carpenter came running out with

his white hair streaming in the fresh night breeze.

‘I have been awaiting you, Micah,’ he cried. ‘I had heard that Monmouth

was up, and I knew that you would not lose a night ere starting. God

bless you, lad, God bless you! Strong of arm and soft of heart, tender

to the weak and stern to the oppressor, you have the prayers and the

love of all who know you.’ I pressed his extended hands, and the last

I saw of my native hamlet was the shadowy figure of the carpenter as he

waved his good wishes to me through the darkness.

We made our way across the fields to the house of Whittier, the Whig

farmer, where Saxon got into his war harness. We found our horses ready

saddled and bridled, for my father had at the first alarm sent a message

across that we should need them. By two in the morning we were breasting

Portsdown Hill, armed, mounted, and fairly started on our journey to the

rebel camp.