Free The Monmouth Summer by Tim Vicary Page B

the winds of autumn."
    "Let us pray so."
    "Amen ... amen ... amen."
    The small group of men bowed their heads for a moment, their black hats nodding together in prayer, and then moved apart to join the others.
    Slowly the meeting was breaking up, people moving in twos and threes towards the door. They were careful not to be seen leaving all at once, but most travelled home in a large enough group to give each other at least some protection against footpads, or officious magistrates' bullyboys — an old precaution, born of long practice. Ann stood with Tom and Simon for a moment, and then Adam came up, talking to Tom's mother, Martha Goodchild, his face abstracted and serious. John Clapp joined them, and all six left together.
    Outside, each group set off at intervals down one of the three roads leading from the barn, so that they were soon lost to each other in the dusk, and the fierce gathering had melted without trace into the grey woods and valleys around.

6
    A NN LOVED riding at night. Although it was after eleven, there was still a soft velvet blue in the sky to the west. The moon, half-full, washed the fields and paths with pale silver, and split the woods and hedges into sharp jigsaw patterns, jet black shadows, and pallid, angular trees and branches. The air was still warm with the fragrance of midsummer, and the light breeze wafting across the dark woods and hills, carried a silence to the riders from as far away as the sea. The occasional bark or bleat of a distant dog or sheep and the nearer creaks of their saddles were sanctified with a texture and beauty all of their own, sounds that travelled alone like solitary pilgrims across the vast quiet of the night.
    The riders all felt this, the more so because of the contrast from the loud, earnest talk and enclosed space of the barn. It was as though they had come suddenly out of the society of men, into the society of God; and for a time Ann's party rode in silence, each perhaps weighing in his soul the balance between the fierce earnestness of the religious meeting, and the holy calm and peace which, the night reminded them, also came from their Lord.
    Tom and Ann slowly fell a little behind the main party, and for once Ann did not resent Tom's company. They were riding south along a high ridgeway towards the sea, and the others ahead of them, sober figures in their black cloaks and hats, seemed like tiny silhouettes against the immense background of the stars. Quiet murmured talk had begun to pass between them, and the continued silence between Tom and Ann drew them together, as though only they were witnesses of the majesty of the night. At last Tom spoke.
    "I shall be out many more nights like this, I trust, if the Lord sends our leader to us, as Israel says He will."
    She glanced sideways at him. His hat cast a shadow across his eyes, and the moonlight caught his teeth oddly as he smiled, reminding her suddenly of a skull she had once seen unearthed in the churchyard. She shivered, and reassured herself by concentrating on the familiar tall, strong figure sitting heavily astride the borrowed horse.
    "Shall you go to fight, then, if there be a rising?"
    "What else should I do? You heard what Israel said. It is our duty to uproot the abominations of the Papists, and restore our land to the godly worship of our Lord."
    His words, recalling the heat and fervour of the meeting, seemed out here to be almost a sacrilege, profaning the holy calm of the night.
    "But Tom, that would mean war — war against the King himself!"
    "A Papist King! An idolater who would sell our souls to the devil! I'd rather deal with him as my grandfather dealt with his father, King Charles! We still have my grandfather's old pike at home. 'Twill serve the Lord again, if our deliverer comes from abroad. Then we shall have a Commonwealth of Saints, and no more Papist kings and their foreign whores."
    ‘Foreign whores.' Ann fell silent for a while, letting the fierce words settle into the