"Aye," said Wilding, "and if you have patience enough there will be troops the Parliament will send against us. They, too, will be armed, I can assure your lordship."
"In God's name let us keep from wrangling," the Duke besought them. "It is difficult enough to determine for the best. If the dash to Exeter were successful..."
"It cannot be," Grey interrupted again.
The liberties he took with Monmouth and which Monmouth permitted him might well be a source of wonder to all who heard them. Monmouth paused now in his interrupted speech and looked about him a trifle wearily.
"It seems idle to insist," said Mr. Wilding; "such is the temper of Your Grace's counsellors, that we get no further than contradictions." Grey's bold eyes were upon Wilding as he spoke. "I would remind Your Grace, and I am sure that many present will agree with me, that in a desperate enterprise a sudden unexpected movement will often strike terror."
"That is true," said Monmouth, but apparently without enthusiasm, and having approved what was urged on one side, he looked at Grey, as if waiting to hear what might be said on the other. His indecision was pitiful--tragical, indeed, in the leader of so bold an enterprise.
"We should do better, I think," said Grey, "to deal with the facts as we know them."
"It is what I am endeavouring to do, Your Grace," protested Wilding, a note of despair in his voice. "Perhaps some other gentleman will put forward better counsel than mine."
"Aye! In Heaven's name let us hope so," snorted Grey; and Monmouth, catching the sudden flash of Mr. Wilding's eye, set a hand upon his lordship's arm as if to urge him to be gentler. But he continued, "When men talk of striking terror by sudden movements they build on air."
"I had hardly thought to hear that from your lordship," said Mr. Wilding, and he permitted himself that tight-lipped smile that gave his face so wicked a look.
"And why not?" asked Grey, stupidly unsuspicious.
"Because I had thought you might have concluded otherwise from your own experience at Bridport this morning."
Grey got angrily to his feet, rage and shame flushing his face, and it needed Ferguson and the Duke to restore him to some semblance of calm. Indeed, it may well be that it was to complete this that His Grace decided there and then that they should follow Grey's advice and go by way of Taunton, Bridgwater, and Bristol to Gloucester. He was, like all weak men, of conspicuous mental short-sightedness. The matter of the moment was ever of greater importance to him than any result that might attend it in the future.