"Ah, but these walls are thick," said Martin, "and wine makes people dull of hearing, while the company of fair ladies breeds disinclination to hear. Perhaps, too, you were making a noise over your play."
"I am inclined to think it is all a tale," said Branksome. "Before this we have known you to dream prodigiously, Martin."
"True. I dreamed last night as I lay on a bed of hay in a loft, with my fiddle for company, that all the gentleman at the Abbey had flown to fight for Monmouth."
"A stupid dream," said a man who was a Whig, and whose mind was full of doubt as to what his course of action must be should Monmouth's landing be a fact.
"And I come back to find two gentlemen fighting in the hall," Martin went on. "Were you trying to rob King James of a supporter, my lord?"
Rosmore laughed.
"No, Martin; I was endeavouring to punish a man for insulting a lady."
"Truly the world is upside down when it falls to your lot to play such a part as that," was the answer.
"How many men has Monmouth?" asked Sir John, silencing the laugh against
Lord Rosmore.
"They come by the hundreds, 'tis a labour to write down their names fast enough. From the ploughs, from the fields, from the shops they come; their tools turned into implements of war even as Israel faced the Philistines long ago. Men cut loose the horses from the carts and turn them into chargers; labourers bind their scythes to poles and carry reaping-hooks for swords; the Mendip miners shoulder their picks making a brave front; and here and there a clerk may wield a ruler for want of a better weapon. And night and day they drill, march, and countermarch. The cause is at their heart and no leader need feel shame at such a host."