Colonel Hucker was the centre of this group, and he was speaking warmly in favour of this thing.
"What use to the cause is a city without walls?" he was asking. "Why, if we march out to-day, the Duke of Albemarle can march in to-morrow, and none can let or hinder him!" [And in very truth that was just what did happen, for the new King's army left on Sunday afternoon, and the Duke of Albemarle was in the city on Tuesday, albeit he made no long stay, but continued his pursuit of our army towards the north.] "What we want is to leave behind us garrisoned cities holding for his Majesty. If one King can pull down fortifications, surely another can build them up! Taunton has held her own gallantly in times of war, and has stood notable sieges in a good cause; nor has the temper of her citizens changed. Give her but walls and towers and a few good soldiers to lead and direct her citizens, and she would hold out as gallantly as ever. What do you say, fellow-townsmen? Shall not Taunton be restored to her former glories? Can she not do even as she did before?"
"Ay, ay; that she can."—"Give us walls and soldiers, and we will show the usurping tyrant what Taunton can do."—"Where is the King? Let him but give the word, and every man among us will become for the nonce a stonemason, that we may begin to build our walls afresh!"
Such were the cries of the citizens, and such their enthusiasm in the cause. There is nothing so catching as the martial fever, except it be the panic which sometimes sets in afterwards. But though the zeal of the city was great, the young King could not be brought to see the matter as Colonel Hucker sought to show it him. He said there was no time to build walls—which was true enough—and that he could not spare men to garrison it if it were fortified even in a most hasty and rapid way.
Colonel Hucker, who had looked to be made captain of the garrison and Keeper of the City, was not a little disappointed, and all Taunton with him; but there was too much right on the King's side for us to urge the matter beyond a certain point; and as the Viscount said to me, as we rode out at last towards Bridgewater,—
"If we can once secure Bristol, there we shall have a fortified city at our command forthwith. That is the task we should set ourselves to do without delay. Would that we were already before its walls! These delays will be the undoing of us, I fear. Already has the King in London had ten days in which to muster and send forces out west. Had we been quicker, we might have had a fortress of our own already. Heaven send there be no more such tardiness!"
My Lord Vere was one of those men who seem to be soldiers born. He had not had the training and experience of some of the others, including our new King himself, yet it seemed to me that if his counsels had but been followed from the first we should have been marching to victory now, and making the usurper shake upon his tottering throne. As we rode along I could not but tell my lord of the witch we had visited, and of what she had told us. I hoped that it might give him more heart (for I knew by many signs that he thought the enterprise well-nigh desperate), but he only gave me one of his curious smiles.
"A wise woman truly, Dicon, to foresee more blood than glory in this undertaking."