“Yes, yes,” I said. “Thank you. I'll go down.” I left my blanket where it was, as I expected to be back in a few minutes. I walked down hill out of the camp to the road where the horses stood; there were four horses, two of them mounted. The mounted men were regular country bumpkins, with green sprays in their hats, like the rest of our men; but their horses were pretty good, much better than most of those we had. One of them was a stocky old cob, which was no doubt to be mine. The other was a beast with handsome harness for Lord Grey. “Alas,” I thought. “No more sleep for me. I've got to ride. I wonder where we are going.” The men touched their hats to me; for as I was in the Duke's retinue I was much respected. Some of them no doubt thought I was a princeling or little lord.
“Where are we going?” I asked the troopers.
“Going scouting out towards Colyton yonder, sir,” said one of them. “Us be to pick up his Lordship in the town.”
CHAPTER XIX. I MEET THE CLUB MEN
I wondered when I was to get breakfast; but I knew Lord Grey well enough to know that he was not a man to go willingly without food for more than a few hours at a time. Breakfast I should have presently, nor would it be skin-boiled beef, smelling of singed hair. So I mounted my cob with a good will. The first trooper rode by my side, the other waited for a moment to examine the feet of Lord Grey's charger. He trotted after us, leading the riderless horse, some fifty yards behind us. We trotted smartly through Axminster, where we set the dogs barking. People sprang from their beds when they heard us, fearing that we were an army coming to fight. We cantered out of the town over the river, heading towards a hilly country, which had few houses upon it. I looked back after leaving Axminster, to see if Lord Grey wanted me. He had mounted his horse somewhere in the town; but he was now a couple of hundred yards behind us, riding' with a third man, whom I judged to be Colonel Foukes, by his broad white regimental scarf. After we had gone a few miles, we came to a cross-roads where my guide bade me halt to wait for orders. The others had pulled up, too. I could see Lord Grey examining a map, while his horse sidled about across the road. The trooper who had been riding with him, joined us after a while, telling us to take the road to our right, which would take us, he said, towards Taunton. We were to keep our eyes skinned, he said, for any sign of armed men coming on the high-road from Honiton, so as to threaten our left flank. The gentlemen were going to scout towards the sea. At eight o'clock, if we had seen no trace of any armed force coming, we were to make for Chard, where we should find the Duke's army. We were to examine the roads for any signs of troops having passed recently towards Taunton. We were to enquire of the country people, if troops were abroad in that countryside, what troops they might be, how led, how equipped, etc. If we came across any men anxious to join the Duke we were to send them on to Chard or Ilminster, on the easterly road to Taunton. We were to ride without our green boughs, he said; so before starting on our road we flung them into the ditches. Lord Grey waved his hand to us, as he turned away with his friend. We took off our hats in reply, hardly in a soldierly salute; then we set off at a walk along the Taunton road. It is a lonely road leading up to the hills, a straight Roman road, better than any roads laid in England at that time; but a road which strikes horror into one, the country through which it runs is so bleak.
By about six o'clock (according to one of the troopers, who judged by the height of the sun) we were in a clump of firs high up on a hill, looking over a vast piece of eastern Devon. We had scouted pretty closely all round Honiton, examining the country people, without hearing of any troops. We were now looking out for some gleam upon a road, some rising of dust over a hedge, some scattering of birds even, any sign of men advancing, which might be examined more closely. The morning was bright; but the valleys had mist upon them, which would soon turn to the quivering blue June heat-haze. The land lay below us, spread out in huge folds; the fields, all different colours, looked like the counties on a map; we could see the sea, we could see the gleam of a little river. We could see Axminster far to the east of us; but the marching army was out of sight, somewhere on the Chard high-road. After scanning pretty well all around us, I caught sight of moving figures on the top of one of the combes to south of us. We all looked hard at the place, trying to make out more of them. They were nearly a mile from us. They seemed to be standing there as sentries. At first we thought that they must be people with Lord Grey; but as we could see no horses we decided that they could not be. One of the men said that as far as he'd heard tell like, the combe on which they stood was what they call a camp, where soldiers lived in the old time. He didn't know much more about it; but he said that he thought we ought to examine it, like, before riding on to some inn where we could breakfast.
The other man seemed to think so, too; but when we came to talk over the best way of doing our espials, we were puzzled. We should be seen at once if we went to them directly. We might be suspected if we approached them on horseback. If the men went, they might be detained, because, for all that we knew, the combe might be full of militia. So I said I had better go, since no one would suspect a boy. To this the men raised a good many objections, looking at each other suspiciously, plainly asking questions with their raised eyebrows. I thought at the time that they were afraid of sending me into a possible danger, because I was a servant attached to the Duke's person. However, when I said that I would go on foot, taking all precautions, they agreed grudgingly to let me go.
I crept along towards this combe on foot, as though I were going bird's nesting. I beat along by the hedges, keeping out of sight behind them, till I was actually on the combe's north slope, climbing up to the old earthwork on the top. I took care to climb the slope at a place where there was no sentry, which was, of course, not only the steepest bit of the hill but covered with gorse clumps, through which I could scarcely thrust my way. Up towards the top the gorse was less plentiful; there were immense foxgloves, ferns, little marshy tufts where rushes grew, little spots of wet bright green moss. Yellow-hammers drawled their pretty tripping notes to me, not starting away, even when I passed close to them. All the beauty of June was on the earth that day; the beauty of everything in that intense blue haze was wonderful.
The top of the combe was very steep, steeper than any of the ascent, because it had been built up like an outer wall by the savages who once lived there with their cattle. I could see just the bare steep wall of the rampart standing up in a dull green line of short-grassed turf against the sky, now burning with the intense blue of summer. One hard quick scramble, with my fingernails dug into the ground, brought my head to the top of the rampart, beyond which I could see nothing but great ferns, a forest of great ferns, already four or five feet high, stretching away below, into the cup of the camp or citadel. I did not dare to stand up, lest I should be seen. I burrowed my way among the ferns over the wall into the hollow, worming my way towards the edge of the fern clump so that I could see. In a minute, I was gazing through the fern-stems into the camp itself; it was a curious sight.