My eyes rested particularly upon Ferguson's scorbutic features, Saxon's hard aquiline profile, the German's burly face, and the peaky thoughtful countenance of the Lord of Wark.
'If naebody else will gie an opeenion,' cried the fanatical Doctor, 'I'll een speak mysel' as led by the inward voice. For have I no worked in the cause and slaved in it, much enduring and suffering mony things at the honds o' the froward, whereby my ain speerit hath plentifully fructified? Have I no been bruised as in a wine-press, and cast oot wi' hissing and scorning into waste places?'
'We know your merits and your sufferings, Doctor,' said the King. 'The question before us is as to our course of action.'
'Was there no a voice heard in the East?' cried the old Whig. 'Was there no a soond as o' a great crying, the crying for a broken covenant and a sinful generation? Whence came the cry? Wha's was the voice? Was it no that o' the man Robert Ferguson, wha raised himsel' up against the great ones in the land, and wouldna be appeased?'
'Aye, aye, Doctor,' said Monmouth impatiently. 'Speak to the point, or give place to another.'
'I shall mak' mysel' clear, your Majesty. Have we no heard that Argyle is cutten off? And why was he cutten off? Because he hadna due faith in the workings o' the Almighty, and must needs reject the help o' the children o' light in favour o' the bare-legged spawn o' Prelacy, wha are half Pagan, half Popish. Had he walked in the path o' the Lord he wudna be lying in the Tolbooth o' Edinburgh wi' the tow or the axe before him. Why did he no gird up his loins and march straight onwards wi' the banner o' light, instead o' dallying here and biding there like a half-hairted Didymus? And the same or waur will fa' upon us if we dinna march on intae the land and plant our ensigns afore the wicked toun o' London--the toun where the Lord's wark is tae be done, and the tares tae be separated frae the wheat, and piled up for the burning.'
'Your advice, in short, is that we march on!' said Monmouth.
'That we march on, your Majesty, and that we prepare oorselves tae be the vessels o' grace, and forbear frae polluting the cause o' the Gospel by wearing the livery o' the devil'--here he glared at a gaily attired cavalier at the other side of the table--'or by the playing o' cairds, the singing o' profane songs and the swearing o' oaths, all which are nichtly done by members o' this army, wi' the effect o' giving much scandal tae God's ain folk.'
A hum of assent and approval rose up from the more Puritan members of the council at this expression of opinion, while the courtiers glanced at each other and curled their lips in derision. Monmouth took two or three turns and then called for another opinion.
'You, Lord Grey,' he said, 'are a soldier and a man of experience. What is your advice? Should we halt here or push forward towards London?'
'To advance to the East would, in my humble judgment, be fatal to us,' Grey answered, speaking slowly, with the manner of a man who has thought long and deeply before delivering an opinion. 'James Stuart is strong in horse, and we have none. We can hold our own amongst hedgerows or in broken country, but what chance could we have in the middle of Salisbury Plain? With the dragoons round us we should be like a flock of sheep amid a pack of wolves. Again, every step which we take towards London removes us from our natural vantage ground, and from the fertile country which supplies our necessities, while it strengthens our enemy by shortening the distance he has to convey his troops and his victuals. Unless, therefore, we hear of some great outbreak elsewhere, or of some general movement in London in our favour, we would do best to hold our ground and wait an attack.'
'You argue shrewdly and well, my Lord Grey,' said the King. 'But how long are we to wait for this outbreak which never comes, and for this support which is ever promised and never provided? We have now been seven long days in England, and during that time of all the House of Commons no single man hath come over to us, and of the lords none gave my Lord Grey, who was himself an exile.