Walter Besant

Next day, the town being thronged with people, and the young men pressing in from all quarters to enrol themselves (over four thousand joined the colours at Taunton alone), another Proclamation was read—that, namely, by which the Duke claimed the throne. Many opinions have been given as to this step. For the Duke's enemies maintain—first, that his mother was never married to King Charles the Second (indeed, there is no doubt that the King always denied the marriage); next, that an illegitimate son could never be permitted to sit upon the ancient throne of this realm; and, thirdly, that in usurping the Crown the Duke broke faith with his friends, to whom he had solemnly given his word that he would not put forward any such pretensions. Nay, some have gone so far as to allege that he was not the son of Charles at all, but of some other whom they even name; and they have pointed to his face as showing no resemblance at all to that swarthy and gloomy-looking King. On the other hand, the Duke's friends say that there were in his hands clear proofs of the marriage; that the promise given to his friends was conditional, and one which could be set aside by circumstances; that the country gentry, to whom a Republic was most distasteful, were afraid that he designed to re-establish that form of government; and, further, that his friends were all fully aware, from the beginning, of his intentions.

On these points I know nothing; but, when a thing has been done, it is idle to spend time in arguing that it was well or ill done. James, Duke of Monmouth, was now James, King of Great Britain and Ireland; and if we were all rebels before, who had risen in the name of religion and liberty, I suppose we were all ten times as much rebels now, when we had, in addition, set up another King, and declared King James to be an usurper, and no more than the Duke of York. Nay, that there might be wanting no single circumstance of aggravation, it was in this Proclamation declared that the Duke of York had caused his brother, the late King, to be secretly poisoned. I know not what foundation exists for this accusation; but I have been told that it gave offence unto many, and that it was an ill-advised thing to say.

The Proclamation was read aloud at the Market Cross by Mr. Tyley, of Taunton, on the Saturday morning, before a great concourse of people. It ended with the words, 'We, therefore, the noblemen, gentlemen, and Commons at present assembled, in the names of ourselves and of all the loyal and Protestant noblemen, gentlemen, and Commons of England, in pursuance of our duty and allegiance, and for the delivering of the Kingdom from Popery, tyranny, and oppression, do recognise, publish, and proclaim the said high and mighty Prince James, Duke of Monmouth, as lawful and rightful Sovereign and King, by the name of James II., by the grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith. God save the King!'

After this the Duke was always saluted as King, prayed for as King, and styled 'His Majesty.' He also touched some (as only the King can do) for the king's-evil, and, it is said, wrought many miracles of healing—a thing which, being noised abroad, should have strengthened the faith of the people in him. But the malignity of our enemies caused these cases of healing to be denied, or else explained as fables and inventions of the Duke's friends.

Among the accessions of this day was one which I cannot forbear to mention. It was that of an old soldier who had been one of Cromwell's captains, Colonel Basset by name. He rode in—being a man advanced in years, yet still strong and hale—at the head of a considerable company raised by himself. 'Twas hoped that his example would be followed by the adhesion of many more of Cromwell's men, but the event proved otherwise. Perhaps, being old Republicans, they were deterred by the Proclamation of Monmouth as King. Perhaps they had grown slothful with age, and were now unwilling to face once more the dangers and fatigues of a campaign. Another recruit was the once-famous Colonel Perrot, who had been engaged with Colonel Blood in the robbery of the Crown Jewels—though the addition of a robber to our army was not a matter of pride. He came, it was afterwards said, because he was desperate, his fortunes broken, and with no other hope than to follow the fortunes of the Duke.

It became known in the course of the day that the army was to march on the Sunday. Therefore, everybody on Saturday evening repaired to the camp: some to bid farewell and Godspeed to their friends, and others to witness the humours of a camp. I was fortunate in having Robin for a companion and protector—the place being rough and the behaviour and language of the men coarse even beyond what one expects at a country fair. The recruits still kept pouring in from all parts; but, as I have already said, many were disheartened when they found that there were no arms, and went home again. They were not all riotous and disorderly. Some of the men, those, namely, who were older and more sober-minded, we found gathered together in groups, earnestly engaged in conversation.

'They are considering the Proclamation,' said Robin. 'Truly, we did not expect that our Duke would so soon become King. They say he is illegitimate. What then? Let him mount the throne by right of arms, as Oliver Cromwell could have done had he pleased—who asks whether Oliver was illegitimate or no? The country will not have another Commonwealth—and it will no longer endure a Catholic King. Let us have King Monmouth, then: who is there better?'

In all the camp there was none who spoke with greater cheerfulness and confidence than Robin. Yet he did not disguise from himself that there might be warm work.

'The King's troops,' he said, 'are closing in all round us. That is certain. Yet, even if they all join we are still more numerous and in much better heart; of that I am assured. At Wellington, the Duke of Albemarle commands the Devonshire Militia; Lord Churchill is at Chard with the Somerset Regiment; Lord Bath is reported to be marching upon us with the Cornishmen; the Duke of Beaufort hath the Gloucester Militia at Bristol; Lord Pembroke is at Chippenham with the Wiltshire Trainbands; Lord Feversham is on the march with the King's standing army. What then? are these men Protestants or are they Papists? Answer me that, Sweetheart.'

Alas! had they been true Protestants there would have been such an answer as would have driven King James across the water three years sooner.

The camp was now like a fair, only much finer and bigger than any fair I have ever seen. That of Lyme Regis could not be compared with it. There were booths where they sold gingerbread, cakes, ale, and cider; Monmouth favours for the recruits to sew upon their hats or sleeves; shoes and stockings were sold in some, and even chap-books were displayed. There was a puppet show with Patient Grizzle; and a stand where a monkey danced. Men and women carried about in baskets last year's withered apples, with Kentish cobs and walnuts; there were booths where they fried sausages and roasted pork all day long; tumblers and clowns were performing in others; painted and dressed-up girls danced in others; there was a bull-baiting; a man was making a fiery oration on the Duke's Proclamation: but I saw no one preaching a sermon. There were here and there companies of country lads exercising with pike and halbert; and others, more advanced, with the loading and firing of their muskets. There were tables at which sat men with cards and dice, gambling: shouting when they won and cursing when they lost; others, of more thrifty mind, sat on the ground practising their trade of tailor or cobbler—thus losing no money, though they did go soldiering; some polished weapons and sharpened swords, pikes, and scythes; nowhere did we find any reading the Bible, or singing of hymns, or listening to sermons. Save for a few groups of sober men of whom I have spoken, the love of amusement carried all away; and the officers of the army, who might have turned them back to sober thought, were not visible. Everywhere noise; everywhere beating of drums, playing of pipes, singing of songs, bowling and laughing. Among the men there ran about a number of saucy gipsy girls, their brown faces showing under red kerchiefs, their black eyes twinkling (truly they are pretty creatures to look upon when they are young; but they have no religion, and say of themselves that they have no souls). These girls talked with each other in their own language, which none out of their own nation—except the tinker-folk, who are said to be their cousins—understand. But English they talk very well, and they are so clever that, it is said, they will talk to a Somersetshire man in good broad Somerset, and to a man of Norfolk in his own speech, though he of Norfolk would not understand him of Somerset.

'They are the vultures,' said Robin, 'who follow for prey. Before the battle these women cajole the soldiers out of their money, and after the battle their men rob and even murder the wounded and plunder the dead.'

Then one of them ran and stood before us.

'Let me tell thy fortune, handsome gentleman? Let me tell thine, fair lady? A sixpence or a groat to cross my palm, Captain, and you shall know all that is to happen.'

Robin laughed, but gave her sixpence.

'Look me in the face, fair lady'—she spoke good, plain English, this black-eyed wench, though but a moment before she had been talking broad Somerset to a young recruit—'look me in the face; yes. All is not smooth. He loves you; but there will be separation and trouble. One comes between, a big man with a red face; he parts you. There is a wedding, I see your ladyship plain. Why, you are crying at it, you cry all the time; but I do not see this gentleman. Then there is another wedding—yes, another—and I see you at both. You will be twice married. Yet, be of good heart, fair lady.'

She turned away and ran after another couple, no doubt with much the same tale.

'How should there be a wedding,' I asked, 'if I am there and you not there, Robin—and I to be crying? And how could I—oh! Robin—how could I be married twice?'

'Nay, Sweetheart, she could not tell what wedding it was. She only uttered the gibberish of her trade; I am sorry that I wasted a sixpence upon her.'

'Robin, is it magic that they practise—these gipsies? Do they traffic with the Devil? We ought not to suffer witches to live amongst us.'

'Most are of opinion that they have no other magic than the art of guessing, which they learn to do very quickly, putting things together, from their appearance; so that if brother and sister walk out together they are taken to be lovers, and promised a happy marriage and many children.'

That may be so, and perhaps the fortune told by this gipsy was only guess-work. But I cannot believe it; for the event proved that she had in reality possessed an exact knowledge of what was about to happen.

Some of the gipsy women—but these were the older women, who had lost their good looks, though not their impudence—were singing songs, and those, as Robin told me, songs not fit to be sung; and one old crone, sitting before her tent beside a roaring wood fire over which hung a great saucepan, sold charms against shot and steel. The lads bought these greedily, giving sixpence apiece for them; so that the old witch must have made a sackful of money. They came and looked on shyly. Then one would say to the other, 'What thinkest, lad? Is there aught in it?' And the other would say, 'Truly, I know not; but she is a proper witch, and I'll buy one. We may have to fight. Best make sure of a whole skin.' And so he bought one, and then all bought. The husbands of the gipsy women were engaged, meantime, we understood, in robbing the farm-yards in the neighbourhood, the blame being afterwards laid upon our honest soldiers.

Then there was a ballad-monger singing a song about a man and a broom, and selling it (to those who would buy) printed on a long slip of paper. The first lines were—

but I heard no more, because Robin hurried me away. Then there were some who had drunk too much cider or beer, and were now reeling about with stupid faces and glassy eyes; there were some who were lying speechless or asleep upon the grass; and some were cooking supper over fires after the manner of the gipsies.

'I have seen enough, Robin,' I said. 'Alas for sacred Religion if these are her defenders!'

''Tis always so,' said Robin, 'in time of war. We must encourage our men to keep up their hearts. Should we be constantly reminding them that to-morrow half of them may be lying dead on the battle-field? Then they would mope and hang their heads, and would presently desert.'

'One need not preach of death, but one should preach of godliness and of sober joy. Look but at those gipsy wenches and those lads rolling about drunk. Are these things decent? If they escape the dangers of war, will it make them happy to look back upon the memory of this camp? Is it fit preparation to meet their Maker?'

'In times of peace, sweet Saint, these lads remember easily that in the midst of life we are in death, and they govern themselves accordingly. In times of war, every man hopes for his own part to escape with a whole skin, though his neighbour fall. That is why we are all so blithe and jolly. Let us now go home—before the night falls and the mirth becomes riotous and unseemly.'

We passed a large booth, whence there issued sounds of singing. It was a roofless inclosure of canvas. Some ale-house man of Taunton had set it up. Robin drew aside the canvas door.

'Look in,' he said. 'See the brave defenders of Religion keeping up their hearts.'

It was furnished with benches and rough tables: at one end were casks. The benches were crowded with soldiers, every man with a pot before him, and the varlets were running backwards and forwards with cans of ale and cider. Most of the men were smoking pipes of tobacco, and they were singing a song which seemed to have no end. One bawled the lines, and when it came to the 'Let the hautboys play!' and the 'Huzza!' they all roared out together:—

They sang this verse several times over. Then another began—

Next a third voice took it up—

and then a fourth and a fifth, and the last verse was bawled as lustily and with so much joy that one would have thought the mere singing would have gotten them the victory. Men are so made, I suppose, that they cannot work together without singing and music to keep up their hearts. Sailors sing when they weigh anchor; men who unlade ships sing as they carry out the bales; even Cromwell's Ironsides could not march in silence, but sang Psalms as they marched.

The sun was set and the twilight falling when we left the camp; and there was no abatement of the roaring and singing, but rather an increase.

'They will go on,' said Robin, 'until the drink or their money gives out; then they will lie down and sleep. You have now seen our camp, Sweetheart. It is not, truth to say, as decorous as a conventicle, nor is the talk so godly as in Sir Christopher's hall. For rough fellows there must be rough play; in a month these lads will be veterans; the singing will have grown stale to them; the black-eyed gipsy-women will have no more power to charm away their money; they will understand the meaning of war; the camp will be sober if it is not religious.'

So we walked homewards, I, for my part, saddened to think in what a spirit of riot these young men, whom I had pictured so full of godly zeal, were preparing to meet the chance of immediate death and judgment.

'Sweet,' said Robin, 'I read thy thoughts in thy troubled eyes. Pray for us. Some will fight none the worse for knowing that there are good women who pray for them.'

We were now back in the town; the streets were still full of people, and no one seemed to think of bed. Presently we passed the Castle Inn; the windows were open, and we could see a great company of gentlemen sitting round a table on which were candles lit and bowls full of strong drink; nearly every man had his pipe at his lips and his glass before him, and one of them was singing to the accompaniment of a guitar. Their faces were red and swollen, as if they had taken too much. At one end of the table sat Humphrey. What? could Humphrey, too, be a reveller with the rest? His face, which was gloomy, and his eyes, which were sad, showed that he was not.

'The officers have supped together,' said Robin. 'It may be long before we get such good quarters again. A cup of hipsy and a song in good fellowship, thou wilt not grudge so much?'

'Nay,' I said, ''tis all of a piece. Like man, like master. Officers and men alike—all drinking and singing. Is there not one good man in all the army?'

As I spoke one finished a song at which all laughed, except Humphrey, and drummed the table with their fists and shouted.

Then one who seemed to be the president of the table turned to Humphrey.

'Doctor,' he said, 'thou wilt not drink, thou dost not laugh, and thou hast not sung. Thou must be tried by court-martial, and the sentence of the court is a brimming glass of punch or a song.'

'Then, gentlemen,' said Humphrey, smiling, 'I will give you a song. But blame me not if you mislike it: I made the song in praise of the sweetest woman in the world.' He took the guitar and struck the strings. When he began to sing, my cheeks flamed and my breath came and went, for I knew the song; he had given it to me four years agone. Who was the sweetest woman in the world? Oh! he made this song for me!—he made this song for me, and none but me! But these rude revellers would not know that—and I never guessed that the song was for me. How could I think that he would write these extravagances for me? But poets cannot mean what they say—

Now, while Humphrey sang this song, a hush fell upon the revellers; they had expected nothing but a common drinking-song. After the bawling and the noise and the ribaldry 'twas like a breath of fresh air after the closeness of a prison; or like a drink of pure water to one half-dead with thirst.

'Robin,' I said, 'there is one good man in the camp.' I say that while Humphrey sang this song—which, to be sure, was neither a drinking-song, nor a party song, nor a song of wickedness and folly—the company looked at each other in silence, and neither laughed nor offered to interrupt. Nay, there were signs of grace in some of their faces, which became grave and thoughtful. When Humphrey finished it he laid down the guitar and rose up with a bow, saying, 'I have sung my song, gentlemen all—and so, good-night!' and walked out of the room.

'Robin,' I said again, 'thank God there is one good man in the camp! I had forgotten Humphrey.'

'Yes,' Robin replied; 'Humphrey is a good man, if ever there was one. But he is glum. Something oppresses him. His eyes are troubled, and he hangs his head; or, if he laughs at all, it is as if he would rather cry. Yet all the way home from Holland he was joyful, save when his head was held over the side of the ship. He sang and laughed; he spoke of great things about to happen. I have never known him more happy. And now his face is gloomy, and he sighs when he thinks no one watcheth him. Perhaps, like thee, Sweet, he cannot abide the noise and riot of the camp. He would fain see every man Bible in hand. To-day he spent two hours with the Duke before the Council, and was with thy father afterwards. 'Tis certain that the Duke hath great confidence in him. Why is he so gloomy? He bitterly reproached me for leaving Sir Christopher, as if he alone had a conscience to obey or honour to remember!'

Humphrey came forth at this moment and stood for a moment on the steps. Then he heaved a great sigh and walked away slowly with hanging head, not seeing us.

'What is the matter with him?' said Robin. 'Perhaps they flout him for being a physician. These fellows have no respect for learning or for anyone who is not a country gentleman. Well, perhaps when we are on the march he will again pick up his spirits. They are going to sing again. Shall we go, Child?'

But the president called a name which made me stop a little longer.

'Barnaby!' he cried; 'jolly Captain Barnaby! Now that Doctor Graveairs hath left us we will begin the night. Barnaby, my hero, thy song. Pill up, gentlemen! The night is young, and to-morrow we march. Captain Barnaby, tip us a sea-song. Silence, gentlemen, for the Captain's song.'

It was my brother that they called upon—no other. He got up from his place at the summons and rose to his feet. Heavens! what a broad man he seemed compared with those who sat beside him! His face was red and his cheeks swollen because of the strong drink he had taken. In his hand he held a full glass of it. Robin called it hipsy—and it is a mixture of wine, brandy, and water with lemon juice and sugar—very heady and strong.

Said not Barnaby that there was one religion for a landsman and another for a sailor? I thought of that as he stood looking round him. If it were so, it would be truly a happy circumstance for most sailors; but I know not on what assurance this belief can be argued. Then Barnaby waved his hand.

'Yoho! my lads!' he shouted. 'The ship's in port and the crew has gone ashore!'

Then he began to sing in a deep voice which made the glasses ring—

'Take me home, Robin,' I said, 'I have seen and heard enough. Alas! we have need of all the prayers that we can utter from the depths of our heart, and more!'