"Yes, sir," I answered, and added that my father was an old friend of Lord Feversham, Commander-General of the forces.
That made the Duke sit up and stare at me as though I were a thing of more importance than he had imagined.
"Ah, by my life!" said he at last, "then sink me if I find thee not a cornetcy. What say you, gentlemen?"
With one accord the red-faced fellows smote the table with their fists, and swore it should be so; then, rising, drank my health.
And thus it came about that, after passing safely through another day of peril, I went to bed a soldier of King James.
CHAPTER XX
At Sedgemoor Fight
This record deals not mainly with the bold, ill-starred designs of Monmouth, but rather with the lesser doings of one Michael Fane; therefore I will not dwell upon the marchings and the counter-marchings, the petty skirmishes, the knock-kneed weaknesses and pitiable indecision which led the hapless Duke at last to bloody Sedgemoor and destruction.
Sweeping aside, then, as it were, these matters, which, though contributory to the final great catastrophe, were of themselves but small affairs, I come to the night of 5th July, 1685, when we of the Royalist army, scarce four thousand strong, were encamped upon that wild, vast tract of bog and moorland known as Sedgemoor; while, not far away, inside the ancient town of Bridgewater (which had proclaimed him king), lay Monmouth with some eight thousand followers.
'Twas a Sunday, and all day long 'tis said the rebel army had been engaged in deep devotions (a thing I cannot say for our side); while their preachers, wearing red coats, great jack-boots and swords, held forth with fiery words from wagons and the like. The far-off, fervid singing of their psalms and hymns had reached us on the plain, and brought forth many a ribald jest from men whose earnestness, at least, was not comparable with theirs.