I rode away from Lyme thoughtfully enough; yet all I saw that day tended to raise my spirits. From all parts men were pouring in to join the Duke. I met them in companies of two or three, up to a dozen or twenty, all bent upon the same errand, and hungry to gain news from one who had seen the Duke and knew what was happening at Lyme. Then there was another sign which gave me food for pleasant speculation: at many cross-roads the authorities had posted constables to turn back the people who should be faring forth in the direction of Lyme. But these worthies were themselves all for the Duke; and though they stopped many travellers and asked whither they were bound, and so forth, yet, so soon as they heard, they wished them good journey, and so let them go, and then laughed between themselves as though it were all an excellent joke.
I made friends with many of these good fellows as I journeyed, and heard from them how all the country was for the Duke; and indeed I could make certain of this myself from the numbers of persons going to join him, many of them being clad in the gay uniform of the militia. My heart grew light as I journeyed, and by the time I had reached Ilminster and my aunt's house there, I had forgotten all my doubts and fears. She received me joyfully, and that evening and the next day I was beset by eager men and women all agog to hear my tale, and ready to dance for joy at hearing that the Duke would pass through their city shortly, on his way to Taunton.
Already they began to hang their windows with bright stuffs, and the town took quite a festive aspect before I left on Monday morning. Children were scouring the fields and woods for green boughs to make arches, and posies to crown staffs. It seemed to me that the Duke had nothing but a triumphal march before him, unless indeed, as some averred, the Duke of Albemarle was on the march eastward from Exeter to try to intercept him before he reached the heart of the Western loyalists.
One thing I must not omit to mention regarding my brief stay at my aunt's house. Of course she had many questions to ask about the Viscount, who had so won upon her a day or two before; and in speaking of him, I could not but say that I feared he was not so hopeful as to the success of the Duke as we were, and that I sometimes fancied he himself looked forward to a death upon the scaffold. At that my aunt looked very grave and troubled; yet both she and I saw that were the Duke to be defeated, it was likely enough examples would be made of the leaders and men of most mark and young Viscount Vere might be one chosen to expiate his rebellious act (as it would then be termed) upon the scaffold.