Now as for my own private concerns at this time, I may speak once again of those rides taken in attendance upon the two Mistresses Mary, which began after the inclement winter had passed, and were continued until the great commotion commenced of which I am about to write.
These rides were a source of the greatest pleasure and satisfaction to all concerned; for by means of them the Viscount was able to prosecute his wooing of gentle Mistress Mary, and we were no longer reduced to the more risky if more romantic method of the balcony meetings.
It was easy for me to let my Lord Vere know when and whither we were to ride forth. He was backwards and forwards between Court House and Taunton many times in the week, like most of the gentry round, and I would make shift to give him the news he wanted. Then upon our next ride, when we were deep in some woodland dell or away across some lonely bit of breezy moorland, the Viscount would ride up, saluting the ladies, and before long the younger Mistress Mary would rein back her steed and join me, leaving the lovers to pace on in front side by side, in the loneliness so dear to all in like case.
Mistress Mary Bridges, albeit but a maid of twelve summers, was wondrous full of life and spirit and imagination. She would talk to me in a fashion which made me marvel at her high courage and dauntless nature; and openly did she lament that she was not a man, so that she might bear a man's part in the struggle which she fully believed was coming.
She came of a family loyal to the Court party and to the reigning sovereign; yet she had heard so much of the other side from her mistresses and comrades in the school, that she might be said scarce to hold either with one party or the other, and in truth this was what she openly averred to be her case.
"If I were but a man," she would cry with kindling eyes, "I would have my own good steed and my own good sword, and I would follow no party, but always fight on the side of right and virtue. I would gather about me a band of followers, as did bold Robin Hood of old, and I would be the champion of truth and liberty and righteousness wherever such were to be found. I hate that false and cruel King James, who will stoop to fondle such vile creatures as Jeffreys and Kirke. Yet I love not your Duke of Monmouth, who can keep a crawling knave like Ferguson in his counsels, and who leaves his virtuous wife and seeks happiness with another fair lady. Were I a man I would follow neither, but be a free lance for the cause of right and liberty!" And the little lady would toss back her ringlets, whilst her face would flush and kindle till I would regard her with admiration akin to awe, and think that a man might well follow such a leader to the death.
But with all her high spirit and courage, she was deeply interested in the courtship of the Viscount and her dear friend the elder Mistress Mary, and confided to me that such a gallant lover was worthy of the prize he had won, though there were few men she had ever seen of whom she would say as much.
"And I trow they had best be quick and wed, even if it be done in secret and in haste," she said one day to me, one bright day in the latter part of May—the last ride (as it turned out, little as we guessed it then) that we were destined to take together; "for I have heard tell that my Lord Lonsdale is anxious to push on his son's marriage with Mistress Edith Portman with all the speed that may be. He thinks that the alliance would be desirable and strengthening for both houses; and the lady is more than willing, since the Viscount is the most gallant youth in these parts. That is why Mr. Nicholas Blewer's suit has been favoured by Lord Lonsdale. He is afraid what the beauty of Mary may effect if Lord Vere ever sees her again. He knows nothing of our rides. He believes his son is forgetting her; but he will not be easy in his mind till one or both are wed. What vile things men are!" cried the little lady, with that flash in her eyes which betokened her headstrong spirit; "they think of naught in the world but their own advancement and their selfish ends! It was told to me, Dicon, by a wise woman, who read my fortune in my hand and in the stars when I was but a tender child, that I should live to slay a man with mine own hands. I trembled when I heard it, and many a time have I lain awake of a night, shivering at the thought; but I shiver not now. Verily I believe I should rejoice to do such a thing were it in a righteous cause. I would it might be the Rev. Nicholas Blewer!" and the maid clinched her right hand and shook it towards Taunton, setting her small white teeth with a ferocity which seemed strange in one so young.
Nor could I greatly marvel at her wrath, for I hated Mr. Blewer as one hates a poisonous and noxious reptile. He was for ever to be seen gliding here and there with his evil smile and stealthy step; and I was certain that he was playing the spy wherever he had the chance. Well did I know that he came to Miss Blake's as much to seek to learn what was passing there as to court Mistress Mary. That the ladies knew or suspected his motive I could not doubt, since in his presence the silken banners were never brought forth, nor was any word spoken of the matters so near and dear to our hearts. He himself would strive to entrap us by seeking to lead us to pass censure on the King or his officers, but we were all resolved not to be thus ensnared; and if cold looks and short answers could have driven the creature away, sure Mr. Blewer would have been long since driven from Miss Blake's parlour. He would have been denied entrance there had the good ladies dared to refuse it; but it was a perilous thing in those days to make an enemy of such a man, and Lord Lonsdale's approval of his courtship made it difficult to exclude him.
As we rode back into Taunton that day—the Viscount leaving us ere ever we reached even the outskirts of the place, since he was very careful never to permit himself to be seen in our company—we were aware of a subdued tumult going on there. Men and women had gathered at their doors or had come out into the streets. Faces were grave and lowering—the faces, that is, of the towns-folk of our fashion of thinking—and one could see that something had occurred greatly to disturb the minds of men.