Now all the world knows that it was upon the fifth day of November, in the year 1688, that His Highness set foot on shore. And I remember well that the fifth fell that year upon a Monday. For ever since he had received by an unknown hand a printed copy of the Prince's Declaration, in which was set forth not only His Highness's purpose to come to the rescue of the liberties of England, but also at great length the reasons of this design, my father had resolved to throw in his lot with him; and, this resolve once made, he greatly desired to be among the very first to offer support, saying a Drayton should never be in the number of those that must wait to see how the cat would jump. And so he was, through the last days of October and the first week of November, in a great excitement of waiting ever for news that did not come. And, the first rumor of His Highness's coming reaching us on the morning after that landing in Torbay, Sir Michael came to the still-room, hobbling with his stick (for his wound was again troubling him) to find me, being in great hope that the news would prove true that the Prince had made choice of our coast, and not, as had been expected, that of Yorkshire. Now I was busied with the brewing of our gooseberry wine, while Prudence and two of the maids were mending the house-linen under my eyes for the greater despatch and fineness of their work. And it was of a Tuesday that this mending was always done, for Sir Michael had instilled much of the old soldier's order and system into my manner of housekeeping. But this day I do think the gooseberry wine had little thought or care, for to me the coming of the Prince meant the coming of Mr. Royston, that I had not encountered since I was a woman grown; it being indeed three years and over since he went out of the country, and near upon twice that space of time since we had so met that we might fairly perceive, the one what manner of man, the other what manner of woman, we were. And I laughed softly in myself to think at what advantage I held him. For him I should surely know among a thousand, while he—well, it would be as it should fall. For, knowing as I knew him, I was sure that if at all he remembered me, he had doubtless all those years been holding still in his inner eye the picture of a little, ugly, and ill-kempt hoyden. And I laughed again, and wondered why I laughed, finding my mind something of a puzzle to itself. For, while I knew I was no longer ill to look upon, I found my face grow hot at the thought of Ned's eyes on me, which before I had never done.
It was then upon the Tuesday that we heard the great news; upon the Wednesday that Mr. Kidd, at the instance of Sir Michael, rode off Exeter way to hear more. And so, in suspense little relieved by further and growing rumor, we waited until the Saturday, when about five in the afternoon Prudence, ever on the watch, was the first to spy her lover as he rode up the avenue. His horse was caked over with mud to the very girths, for the roads were foul with long and heavy rains. Nor had the mud spared the rider; but the soil borne by the two was as nothing to the weight of mystery and the burden of importance that I marked in Farmer Kidd's bearing as he flung himself from the saddle, and, brushing by little Prue with the briefest of nods, strode big with news to the little parlor beyond the hall, where Sir Michael did use to sit of an evening. And then, as I looked from the window of the hall where I sat, I knew from her face that Prudence would surely wed him some day, but first would make the rude fellow most bitterly repent that slight of counting her next to politics and warfare.
For my part, since I was not Prue, I soon forgave the man, in return for the great story he had to tell of the Prince's entry into the city of Exeter. For he had beheld that great pageant, with news of which all the west was soon to be ringing, and, indeed, in no great space, the whole country. And, if it gained as much in many mouths as I have since reason to suppose it gained in Farmer Kidd's, 't is little wonder it was soon believed an army of giants and magicians had crossed the sea in aid of the Protestant religion. The Earl of Macclesfield, who had come out of Holland with the Prince, leading a band of English gentlemen, two hundred strong, was with his following an object of wondrous admiration to Mr. Kidd, who would never tire, I thought, in telling of their great Flanders horses, their glittering armor, and their negro slaves, one to each man, in white and feathered turbans. And then it was the bridge of boats laid across the Exe in the twinkling of an eye to give passage to the wagons; the twenty pieces of ordnance—great brass cannon, only to be moved by teams of sixteen horses to each; the stature of the men; the new sort of muskets; the order of the discipline, so that none would so much as steal a hen from a cottage garden, but all things were as willingly paid for as supplied. Then Kidd must draw comparisons between these military manners and those of Kirke's and Trelawney's Regiments of Foot, as seen in the troubles of three years ago; and all this time poor I waiting on his words but half interested, and satisfied not at all, until I could lead him, too full of his own great importance to perceive the guidance, to some description of the Prince's Swedish Regiment of Horse. For it was to this body that Mr. Royston had, it was now some months, been transferred, receiving at the same time promotion to the rank of captain.
So as long as our messenger, between the draughts of his ale fetched him by Prudence with hands as willing as the pouting mouth would fain have shown her reluctant, would descant of the black chargers, the black armor, the great broadswords, and the furred cloaks of this same Swedish cavalry, I listened as eagerly as my father had done to it all. And as the man dwelt on the gallant show they did make I was plotting to bring him to some mention of what I doubted not was among them the gallantest figure of all, but was prevented by my father asking if Mr. Kidd would ride the same road again, and carry a letter to His Highness of Orange. "With the best meal we can make you on short notice, Mr. Kidd, to comfort you within, and the best nag in Drayton stables between your knees?" said Sir Michael, in conclusion of his request.
Christopher Kidd was ready enough not only to oblige Sir Michael, but also, I believe, to return to the great sights and doings of which his mouth was so full; so, he being despatched in care of Prudence to be fed, I was left with my father. And when I had given him his writing things he opened his mind a little to me.
"I had gathered from Kidd, before you entered," he said, "that the common people are ready to do all and risk all for the Prince, but that since he landed no man of substance and gentry has joined his army." And here for a moment he did bite the feather of his pen, and looked in my face, so that I knew that the mind that was now long made up still felt pain to tell its resolve. Then he went on thus: "You that know me so well, little daughter Phil, have guessed, I do not doubt, this many a day how my mind was going in these matters. And seeing that it was decided, contrary to the use and belief of my life, in favor of His Highness before ever he came, I cannot now in honor hang back. It cannot be recruits for rank and file, raw soldiers at the best, that he needs, with such an army at his back; but I believe it is rather the countenance and support of the solid men of the country he asks, to take from his presence the odious seeming of invasion. And I am in great fear it may all miscarry, even as Monmouth's wicked business, on account of the behavior of those who, willing to bring, yet fear to welcome His Highness. You have, I do think, partly seen what it has cost your old Cavalier father to adopt a part against his old master's son. But it would cost me more if my hand were not as good as my thought. Yet, if I so make it, I risk all that is yours who but enter upon life,—little for myself whose sands are at the last falling grains. Sedgemoor, Kirke, Jeffreys, were summer-evening ripples on a mill-pond to the storm that is coming, if His Highness meet defeat in the field or abandon his undertaking, which last I take it he is like enough to do, if forced to the appearance of a foreign enemy. I did purpose now writing a letter to His Highness. The act will be mine, but the danger, my daughter, will be yours. How shall it be?"
I pushed the inkhorn to him over the table.
"Write, dear sir," I said. "Your hand shall not fail your thought for me. And I would mine," I added, putting a hand in his, "were as strong for the cause my heart holds the better as yours has ever been."
He looked in my face as he took it, and the old gleam flashed a moment in his age-saddened eyes.
"My lass," he said, "there 's Drayton in you for two men," and began to write forthwith; but soon paused, saying: "Wilt run, child, to the stable, and choose for Mr. Kidd? We have here no better head for horseflesh, and my old piece cannot keep these new nags well distinguished." And as I reached the door he called after me that I should not give him Skewbald Meg, whose appearance would do little honor to his errand or His Highness of Orange. And I cried back that poor Meg would break her heart with the weight of the man, and so to the stable. For, since her midnight ride to Lyme, I was never pleased that any but I should mount the mare.
And when I returned to my father the letter was written, which he would have me read. As I remember, it ran in this way:
"YOUR HIGHNESS,—I have within this hour in which I write received the certain news of Your Highness's coming into England. Without delay, then, I do myself the honor to inform Your Highness that I have attached myself and my household to his party and interest. The reasons that have led me to this are for the most part set out in that noble declaration published by Your Highness before his coming among us. Yet it is not without great pain that I, an old servant and soldier of Your Highness's grandfather of blessed memory, King Charles I., find myself inditing an epistle that sets me in a manner at war with his son. It is written with a hand that now finds the pen heavier than the sword was wont to be. I am too old and too infirm to pay to Your Highness in person the respect I feel. And I am too old a soldier to embarrass Your Highness's encampment with even my small body of men; it is possible they are not needed. Yet Your Highness is to know that they are to the number of a dozen, at his command, living meantime at free quarters, and getting such drill and practice in arms and evolutions, both men and beasts, as two old-fashioned soldiers can give. May God use Your Highness as you shall use this unhappy land. Your Highness's most respectful and obedient servant,
"M. DRAYTON."
And this letter, somewhat proud in its tones, as I thought (but not one word of it would Sir Michael change), reached the hand of the Prince by that of Christopher Kidd early upon the following morning, which was Sunday. It seems, from what I afterwards heard, that being deep in affairs His Highness did not break the seal until after the great and solemn service in the cathedral that was that morning held.
Now the bishop had fled to London before the gates of Exeter were opened to the Prince. The dean had followed him, and from this service the canons of the chapter carefully abstained themselves. Even the prebendaries and the singers of the choir fled from their stalls on the first words of Dr. Burnet's reading from the pulpit the Prince's famous Declaration. So, for all the pomp and the noble sermon of that great divine, it was in no mild or pleasant humor that His Highness returned to his lodging at the Deanery. Here chancing to open my father's letter, he took great pleasure in it, remarking to Mr. Bentinck that there was, after all, hope that he had not come in vain, when so stanch and famous a Cavalier as Sir Michael Drayton, of whom he had often heard, did so address him. He sent at once for Christopher Kidd, and very graciously bade him thank Sir Michael for his promptitude, which, he said, had done much to console him in a grievous hour; adding that he would send in good time for his little band, and hoped himself to pass, within some days, so near to Drayton that he might thank him in person. And with this message Christopher returned.
I have been thus particular because I would have it known that my father was the first of that great and distinguished number of gentlemen and noblemen that soon began to flock to the Prince's standard. I know it has been said that Mr. Burrington, of Crediton, was the first that came in, bringing with him a good company of followers. Now it is well known that Mr. Burrington did not arrive in Exeter till the Monday. But Sir Michael Drayton's adhesion to the cause being conveyed by letter, and his men kept a-drilling at his cost until they should be required, has put my dear father's name out of the histories, where it should stand as that of the man who first held out a hand to comfort a great Prince oppressed to despondency of mind by a backwardness that seemed ingratitude.