"Beggarly sum!" repeated Mr. Montague. "My Lord Portland here can tell you what long debate and diplomacy it took to secure even the promise of that amount——"
"Yes, I know, Mr. Montague," answered the Earl grimly; "and I think the sum worth any sacrifice. We must have it. Could you have seen His Majesty, gentlemen, as I left him at Attere, surrounded by starving troops on the verge of mutiny, sending off agents to endeavour to raise a few thousands on his word in Amsterdam, you would not consider two hundred thousand paltry."
He spoke with a personal emotion that surprised the Englishmen, who believed that his relations with the King were painfully strained. They respected him for his loyalty, though none of them had ever liked him, and Somers at least gave him a quiet look of sympathy.
Shrewsbury broke out into half-hysterical petulance.
"Why are we doing it all? What use is there in any of it? We might as well give it up now as afterwards. I confess that I have not the health or spirit to endure more of it."
Mr. Montague smiled; he knew perfectly well the motive behind every action he undertook, and what was the object of his labours. The younger son of a younger son, and ten years ago a Poor Scholar at Cambridge, he was now one of the greatest men in the Three Kingdoms, and able to confer benefits on the Crown.
"There is no living in the world on any other terms than endurance," he remarked complacently, "and a financier, your Grace, must learn to face a crisis."
"The good God knoweth I am not one," returned the Duke gloomily.
"When is the general court to be held?" asked Portland; his one thought to get the money from these men somehow, and return with it to the desperate King.
"On the fifteenth," said the Chancellor, "and I have sufficient faith in the patriotism of the shareholders to believe they will stand by His Majesty."