We are said to be a sober people; but none of those who saw Lyme that morning would have had much opinion of our sobriety. Charmouth had been disorderly; Lyme was uproarious. Outside the town, in one of the fields above the church, we were stopped by a guard of men who all wore white scarves on their arms, as well as green sprays in their hats. They stopped us, apparently, because their captain wished to exercise them in military customs. They were evidently raw to the use of arms. They handled their muskets like spades. “Be you for Monmouth, masters?” they asked us, grinning. When we said that we were, this very unmilitary guard told us to pass on. “Her've got arms for all,” they said. “The word be 'Fear nothing but God.'” Some of them joked with friends among our party. They waved their muskets to us. CHAPTER XVI. THE LANDING Inside the town, there was great confusion. Riotous men were foraging, that is, plundering from private houses, pretending that they did so at the Duke's orders. The streets were full of people, nearly all of them men, the green boughs in their hats. On the beach two long lines of men with green scarves on their arms were being drilled by an officer. Horses were picketed in a long line up the main street; they were mostly very poor cart-stock, ill-provided, as I learned afterwards, with harness. Men were bringing hay to them from whatever haystack was nearest. From time to time, there came a loud booming of guns, above the ringing of the church bells. Three ships in the bay, one of them La Reina, were firing salutes as they hoisted their colours. It was all like a very noisy fair or coronation day. It had little appearance of an armed invasion. We found the Duke busy with Mr. Jermyn enlisting men in a field above the town. “That's not Mr. Jermyn. That's Lord Grey,” Mr. Blick said, on hearing me exclaim. “Mr. Jermyn's only the name he goes by. He's my Lord now, you must remember.” Just then the Duke caught sight of us riding up. He took us for local gentry, coming in to volunteer. He came smiling to welcome us. It must have been a shrewd disappointment to him to find that we were not what he thought. All his hopes were in the gentry, poor man. By the time we were on our feet with our hats off he had turned his back upon us as though to speak to Lord Grey, but really, I believe, to hide his chagrin. When he turned to us again both of them welcomed us, saying that there was work enough for all, in enlisting men, making out billets, etc. So without more ado we gave our horses to the ostlers at an inn. Mr. Blick at once began to blarney the standers-by into joining, while I, sitting at a little table, in the open air, wrote out copies of a letter addressed to the local gentry. My copies were carried from Lyme by messengers that afternoon but, alas for my master, they did not bring many gentry to us.