Perhaps, too, you were making a noise over your play."
"I am inclined to think it is all a tale," said Branksome. "Before this
we have known you to dream prodigiously, Martin."
"True. I dreamed last night as I lay on a bed of hay in a loft, with my
fiddle for company, that all the gentleman at the Abbey had flown to
fight for Monmouth."
"A stupid dream," said a man who was a Whig, and whose mind was full of
doubt as to what his course of action must be should Monmouth's landing
be a fact.
"And I come back to find two gentlemen fighting in the hall," Martin
went on. "Were you trying to rob King James of a supporter, my lord?"
Rosmore laughed.
"No, Martin; I was endeavouring to punish a man for insulting a lady."
"Truly the world is upside down when it falls to your lot to play such a
part as that," was the answer.
"How many men has Monmouth?" asked Sir John, silencing the laugh against
Lord Rosmore.
"They come by the hundreds, 'tis a labour to write down their names fast
enough. From the ploughs, from the fields, from the shops they come;
their tools turned into implements of war even as Israel faced the
Philistines long ago.
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