milksop prattle?"

Nick Trenchard, who had hitherto been silent, cleared his throat so
noisily that he drew all eyes to himself.

"Your Grace," Mr. Wilding pursued, his air calm and dignified, and
gathering more dignity from the circumstance that he proceeded as if
there had been no interruption, "when I had the honour of conferring
with you at The Hague two months ago, it was agreed that you should
spend the summer in Sweden--away from politics and scheming, leaving
the work of preparation to your accredited agents here. That work I have
been slowly but surely pushing forward. It was not to be hurried; men of
position are not to be won over in a day; men with anything to lose need
some guarantee that they are not wantonly casting their possessions to
the winds. By next spring, as was agreed, all would have been ready.
Delay could not have hurt you. Indeed, with every day by which you
delayed your coming you did good service to your cause, you strengthened
its prospects of success; for every day the people's burden of
oppression and persecution grows more heavy, and the people's temper
more short; every day, by the methods that he is pursuing, King James
brings himself into deeper hatred. This hatred is spreading. It was
the business of myself and those others to help it on, until from the
cottage of the ploughman the infection of anger should have spread
to the mansion of the squire. Had Your Grace but given me time, as
I entreated you, and as you promised me, you might have marched to
Whitehall with scarce the shedding of a drop of blood; had Your Grace
but waited until we were ready, England would have so trembled at your
landing that your uncle's throne would have toppled over 'neath the
shock. As it is..." He shrugged his shoulders, sighed and spread his
hands, leaving his sentence uncompleted.

Monmouth sat sobered by these sober words; the intoxication that had
come to him from the little measure of success that had attended the
opening of the listing on Church Cliffs, deserted him now; he saw the
thing stark and in its true proportions, and not even the shouting of
the folk in the streets below, crying his name and acclaiming him their
champion, served to lighten the gloom that Wilding's words cast like
a cloud over his volatile heart. Alas, poor Monmouth! He was ever a
weathercock, and even as Wilding's words seemed to strike the courage
out of him, so did Grey's short contemptuous answer restore it.

"As i