CHAPTER XV.
A NIGHT AND MORNING.
When I read of men possessed by some Spirit—that is to say, compelled to go hither and thither where, but for the Spirit, they would not go, and to say things which they would not otherwise have said—I think of our midnight ride to Lyme, and of my father there, and of the three weeks' madness which followed. It was some Spirit—whether of good or evil, I cannot say, and I dare not so much as to question—which seized him. That he hurried away to join the Duke on the first news of his landing, without counting the cost or weighing the chances, is easy to be understood. Like Humphrey, he was led by his knowledge of the great numbers who hated the Catholic religion to believe that they, like himself, would rise with one accord. He also remembered the successful rebellion against the first Charles, and expected nothing less than a repetition of that success. This, I know, was what the exiles in Holland thought and believed. The Duke, they said, was the darling of the people; he was the Protestant champion: who would not press forward when he should draw the sword? But what other man—what man in his sober senses would have dragged his wife and daughter with him to the godless riot of a camp? Perhaps he wanted them to share his triumph, to listen while he moved the soldiers, as that ancient hermit Peter moved the people to the Holy Wars? But I know not. He said that I was to be, like Jephthah's daughter, consecrated to the Cause of the Lord; and what he meant by that I never understood.
He was so eager to start upon the journey that he would not wait a moment. The horses must be saddled; we must mount and away. Mark that they were Sir Christopher's horses which we borrowed; this also was noted afterwards for the ruin of that good old man, with other particulars: as that Monmouth's Declaration was found in the house (Barnaby brought it); one of Monmouth's Captains, Barnaby Eykin by name, had ridden from Lyme to Bradford in order to see him; he was a friend of the preacher Dr. Eykin; he was grandfather to one of the rebels and grand-uncle to another; with many other things. But these were enough.
'Surely, surely, friend,' said Sir Christopher, 'thou wilt not take wife and daughter? They cannot help the Cause; they have no place in a camp!'
'Young men and maidens: one with another. Quick! we waste the time.'
'And to ride all night? Consider, man—all night long!'