Captain Blood

He laughed and sighed in one, but the laugh dominated the sigh, for Mr. Blood was unsympathetic, as are most self-sufficient men, and he was very self-sufficient; adversity had taught him so to be. A more tender-hearted man, possessing his vision and his knowledge, might have found cause for tears in the contemplation of these ardent, simple, Nonconformist sheep going forth to the shambles – escorted to the rallying ground on Castle Field by wives and daughters, sweethearts and mothers, sustained by the delusion that they were to take the field in defence of Right, of Liberty, and of Religion.

For he knew, as all Bridgewater knew and had known now for some hours, that Monmouth intended to deliver battle that night. The Duke was to lead a surprise attack upon the Royalist army under Feversham, which was now encamped on Sedgemoor. Mr. Blood assumed that Lord Feversham would be equally well-informed, and if in this assumption he was wrong, at least he was justified in it. He was not to suppose the Royalist commander so indifferently skilled in the trade he followed. Mr. Blood knocked the ashes from his pipe and drew back to close his window. As he did so, his glance travelling across the street met at last the glance of those hostile eyes that watched him.

Two pairs belonged to the Misses Pitt, two amiable, sentimental maiden ladies who yielded to none in Bridgewater in their worship of the handsome Monmouth. Mr. Blood smiled and inclined his head, for he was on friendly terms with these ladies, one of whom had been his patient for a little while. But there was no response to his greeting. Instead, the eyes gave him back a stare of cold disdain. The smile on his thin lips grew a little broader, a little less pleasant. He understood the reason for that hostility, which had been growing daily this past week since Monmouth had come to turn the brains of women of all ages.

The Misses Pitt, he apprehended, contemned him that he, a young and vigorous man of a military training which might now be valuable to the Cause, should stand aloof; that he should placidly smoke his pipe and tend his geraniums on this evening of all evenings, when men of spirit were rallying to the Protestant Champion, offering their blood to place him on the throne where he belonged. If Mr. Blood had condescended to debate the matter with these ladies, he might have urged that, having had his fill of wandering and adventuring. He was now embarked upon the career for which he had been originally intended and for which his studies had equipped him; he was a man of medicine and not of war, a healer, not a slayer.