"My lass," he said, "there 's Drayton in you for two men," and began to write forthwith; but soon paused, saying: "Wilt run, child, to the stable, and choose for Mr. Kidd? We have here no better head for horseflesh, and my old piece cannot keep these new nags well distinguished." And as I reached the door he called after me that I should not give him Skewbald Meg, whose appearance would do little honor to his errand or His Highness of Orange. And I cried back that poor Meg would break her heart with the weight of the man, and so to the stable. For, since her midnight ride to Lyme, I was never pleased that any but I should mount the mare.
And when I returned to my father the letter was written, which he would have me read. As I remember, it ran in this way:
"YOUR HIGHNESS,—I have within this hour in which I write received the certain news of Your Highness's coming into England. Without delay, then, I do myself the honor to inform Your Highness that I have attached myself and my household to his party and interest. The reasons that have led me to this are for the most part set out in that noble declaration published by Your Highness before his coming among us. Yet it is not without great pain that I, an old servant and soldier of Your Highness's grandfather of blessed memory, King Charles I., find myself inditing an epistle that sets me in a manner at war with his son. It is written with a hand that now finds the pen heavier than the sword was wont to be. I am too old and too infirm to pay to Your Highness in person the respect I feel. And I am too old a soldier to embarrass Your Highness's encampment with even my small body of men; it is possible they are not needed. Yet Your Highness is to know that they are to the number of a dozen, at his command, living meantime at free quarters, and getting such drill and practice in arms and evolutions, both men and beasts, as two old-fashioned soldiers can give. May God use Your Highness as you shall use this unhappy land. Your Highness's most respectful and obedient servant,
"M. DRAYTON."
And this letter, somewhat proud in its tones, as I thought (but not one word of it would Sir Michael change), reached the hand of the Prince by that of Christopher Kidd early upon the following morning, which was Sunday. It seems, from what I afterwards heard, that being deep in affairs His Highness did not break the seal until after the great and solemn service in the cathedral that was that morning held.
Now the bishop had fled to London before the gates of Exeter were opened to the Prince. The dean had followed him, and from this service the canons of the chapter carefully abstained themselves. Even the prebendaries and the singers of the choir fled from their stalls on the first words of Dr. Burnet's reading from the pulpit the Prince's famous Declaration. So, for all the pomp and the noble sermon of that great divine, it was in no mild or pleasant humor that His Highness returned to his lodging at the Deanery. Here chancing to open my father's letter, he took great pleasure in it, remarking to Mr. Bentinck that there was, after all, hope that he had not come in vain, when so stanch and famous a Cavalier as Sir Michael Drayton, of whom he had often heard, did so address him. He sent at once for Christopher Kidd, and very graciously bade him thank Sir Michael for his promptitude, which, he said, had done much to console him in a grievous hour; adding that he would send in good time for his little band, and hoped himself to pass, within some days, so near to Drayton that he might thank him in person. And with this message Christopher returned.
I have been thus particular because I would have it known that my father was the first of that great and distinguished number of gentlemen and noblemen that soon began to flock to the Prince's standard. I know it has been said that Mr. Burrington, of Crediton, was the first that came in, bringing with him a good company of followers. Now it is well known that Mr. Burrington did not arrive in Exeter till the Monday. But Sir Michael Drayton's adhesion to the cause being conveyed by letter, and his men kept a-drilling at his cost until they should be required, has put my dear father's name out of the histories, where it should stand as that of the man who first held out a hand to comfort a great Prince oppressed to despondency of mind by a backwardness that seemed ingratitude.
CHAPTER VIII
At an early hour on Monday there were gathered on the level turf that stretched beneath my chamber window some five and twenty men, with as many horses, from whom Sir Michael, with old Emmet to help him, was now to select that twelve he had promised to hold at the service of the Prince. And I thought it a clear mark of my father's nature that he did prefer furnishing a small number, but serviceable, when, had he measured his own importance by the rule that many gentlemen at that time did use, he might have sent a hungry and unruly band three times as great.