ard washed the dust from their throats; then Monmouth broke the
ice by asking them bluntly what they thought of his coming thus, earlier
than was at first agreed.

Wilding never hesitated in his reply. "Frankly, Your Grace," said he, "I
like it not at all."

Fletcher looked up sharply, his clear intelligent eyes full upon
Wilding's calm face, his countenance expressing as little as did
Wilding's. Ferguson seemed slightly taken aback. Grey's thick lips were
twisted in a sneering smile.

"Faith," said the latter with elaborate sarcasm, "in that case it only
remains for us to ship again, heave anchor, and back to Holland."

"It is what I should advise," said Wilding slowly and quietly, "if I
thought there was a chance of my advice being taken." He had a calm,
almost apathetic way of uttering startling things which rendered them
doubly startling. The sneer seemed to freeze on Lord Grey's lips;
Fletcher continued to stare, but his eyes had grown more round; Ferguson
scowled darkly. The Duke's boyish face--it was still very youthful
despite his six-and-thirty years--expressed a wondering consternation.
He looked at Wilding, and from Wilding to the others, and his glance
seemed to entreat them to suggest an answer to him. It was Grey at last
who took the matter up.

"You shall explain your meaning, sir, or we must hold you a traitor," he
exclaimed.

"King James does that already," answered Wilding with a quiet smile.

"D'ye mean the Duke of York?" rumbled Ferguson's Scottish accent with
startling suddenness, and Monmouth nodded approval of the correction.
"If ye mean that bloody papist and fratricide, it were well so to speak
of him. Had ye read the Declaration..."

But Fletcher cropped his speech in mid-growth. He was ever a
short-tempered man, intolerant of irrelevancies.

"It were well, perhaps," said he, his accent abundantly proclaiming him
a fellow countryman of Ferguson's, "to keep to the matter before us. Mr.
Wilding, no doubt, will state the reasons that exist, or that he fancies
may exist, for giving advice which is hardly worthy of the cause to
which he stands committed."

"Aye, Fletcher," said Monmouth, "there is sense in you. Tell us what is
in your mind, Mr. Wilding."

"It is in my mind, Your Grace, that this invasion is rash, premature,
and ill-advised."

"Odds life!" cried Grey, and he swung angrily round fully to face the
Duke, the nostrils of his heavy nose dilating. "Are we to listen to this