第89章

"He arrived here a couple of hours ago, sir...""Wilding here? Oddsheart! I was more than well advised to come. Where is he, man?""Sh, sir! He's asleep in the library. You'll wake him, you'll wake him!"But Trenchard never paused. He crossed the hail at a bound, and flung wide the library door. "Anthony!" he shouted. "Anthony!" And in the background Walters cursed him for a fool. Wilding leapt to his feet, awake and startled.

"Wha... Nick!"

"Oons!" roared Nick. "You're choicely found. I came to send to Bridgwater for you. We must away at once, man.""How - away? I thought you were in the fight, Nick.""And don't I look as if I had been?"

"But then..

"The fight is fought and lost; there's an end to the garboil. Monmouth is in full flight with what's left him of his horse. When I quitted the field, he was riding hard for Polden Hill." He dropped into a chair, his accents grim and despairing, his eyes haggard.

"Lost?" gasped Wilding, and his conscience pricked him for a moment, remembering how much it had been his fault - however indirectly - that Feversham had been forewarned. "But how lost?" he cried a moment later.

"Ask Grey," snapped Trenchard. "Ask his craven, numskulled lordship.

He had as good a hand in losing it as any. Oh, it was all most infernally mishandled, as has been everything in this ill-starred rising.

Grey sent back Godfrey, the guide, and attempted in the dark to find his own way across the rhine. He missed the ford. What else could the fool have hoped? And when he was discovered and Dunbarton's guns began to play on us - hell and fire! we ran as if Sedgemoor had been a race-course.

"The rest was but the natural sequel. The foot, seeing our confusion, broke. They were rallied again; broke again; and again were rallied;but all too late. The enemy was up, and with that damned ditch between us there was no getting to close quarters with them. Had Grey ridden round, and sought to turn their flank, things might have been - 0 God! -they would have been entirely different. I did suggest it. But for my pains Grey threatened to pistol me if I presumed to instruct him in his duty. I would to Heaven I had pistolled him where he stood."Walters, at gaze in the doorway, listened to the bitter tirade. Wilding, on the settle, sat silent a moment, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, his eyes set and grim as Trenchard's own. Then he mastered himself, and waved a hand towards the table where stood food and wine.

"Eat and drink, Nick," he said, `and we'll discuss what's to be done.""It'll need little discussing," was Nick's savage answer as he rose and went to pour himself a cup of wine. "There's but one course open to us - instant flight. I am for Minehead to join Hewling's horse, which went there yesterday for guns. We might seize a ship somewhere on the coast, and thus get out of this infernal country of mine."They discussed the matter in spite of Trenchard's having said that there was nothing to discuss, and in the end Wilding agreed to go with him. What choice had he? But first he must go to Bridgwater to reassure his wife.

"To Bridgwater?" blazed Trenchard, in a passion at the folly of the suggestion. "You're clearly mad! All the King's forces will be there in an hour or two.""No matter," said Wilding, "I must go. I am dead already, as it happens." And he related his singular adventure in Feversham's camp last night.

Trenchard heard him in amazement. If any suspicion crossed his mind that his friend's love affairs had had anything to do with rousing Feversham prematurely, he showed no sign of it. But he shook his head at Wilding's insistence that he must first go to Lupton House.

"Shalt send a message, Anthony. Walters will find some one to bear it.

But you must not go yourself."

In the end Mr. Trenchard prevailed upon him to adopt this course, however reluctant he might be. Thereafter they proceeded to make their preparations. There were still a couple of nags in the stables, in spite of the visitation of the militia, and Walters was able to find fresh clothes for Mr. Trenchard above-stairs.

A half-hour later they were ready to set out on this forlorn hope of escape; the horses were at the door, and Mr. Wilding was in the act of drawing on the fresh pair of boots which Walters had fetched him.

Suddenly he paused, his foot in the leg of his right boot, and sat bemused a moment.

Trenchard, watching him, waxed impatient. "What ails you now?" he croaked.

Without answering him, Wilding turned to Walters. "Where are the boots I wore last night?" he asked, and his voice was sharp - oddly sharp, considering how trivial the matter of his speech.

"In the kitchen," answered Walters.

"Fetch me them." And he kicked off again the boot he had half drawn on.

"But they are all befouled with mud, sir.""Clean them, Walters; clean them and let me have them."Still Walters hesitated, pointing out that the boots he had brought his master were newer and sounder. Wilding interrupted him impatiently.

"Do as I bid you, Walters." And the old man, understanding nothing, went off on the errand.

"A pox on your boots!" swore Trenchard. "What does this mean?"Wilding seemed suddenly to have undergone a transformation. His gloom had fallen from him. He looked up at his old friend and, smiling, answered him. "It means, Nick, that whilst these excellent boots that Walters would have me wear might be well enough for a ride to the coast such as you propose, they are not at all suited to the journey I intend to make.""Maybe," said Nick with a sniff, "you're intending to journey to Tower Hill ?""In that direction," answered Mr. Wilding suavely.

"I am for London, Nick. And you shall come with me.""God save us! Do you keep a fool's egg under that nest of hair?"Wilding explained, and by the time Walters returned with the boots Trenchard was walking up and down the room in an odd agitation. "Odds my life, Tony!" he cried at last. "I believe it is the best thing.""The only thing, Nick."

"And since all is lost, why.. ." Trenchard blew out his cheeks and smacked fist into palm. "I am with you," said he.