house-place to reconnoitre, speedily returning
thence; accompanied by honest William and
by gallant Careless, who at once bring the
monarch within doors and there offer him the
homage of their homely but not unwelcome
attentions. One tenderly bathes his galled
feet in warm water. Another partially
dries the soddened leather of his shoes by
holding red-hot cinders inside them with the
fire-tongs. Goodwife Penderell the while
appeasing the royal appetite with a slice of strong
cheese and a hunch of brown bread, mixing
thereupon a posset for him, made of thin
milk and small beer—this, quoth the
historian quaintly, as an extraordinary.
Refreshed to some extent by these primitive
luxuries, forth into the early morning sallies
the king, together with Colonel Careless and
the two Penderells.

It is the culminating point in the progress
of the star of his Majesty's fortunes, the
climax of these his romantic adventures. I
follow these four figures watchfully, breathlessly,
to their preconcerted rendezvous. It
is the Royal Oak under the shadow of which
they are now passing—at the distance of
about two hundred yards from that old
mansion of Boscobel—close to the common pathway,
in a verdant meadow-field. It is a
bushy, umbrageous, pollard oak, of rather
considerable dimensions. Into this the two
sturdy foresters help Colonel Careless first,
the king afterwards. Charles drops one of
his rusty buckets of shoes in his ascent,
so that it has to be flung up after him
for his dexterous catching, knocking down a
shower of acorns and dry leaves, in the face
of Trusty Dick Penderell. A cushion is
fetched from the house and tossed up adroitly
afterwards, by the aid of which the king
contrives at last, with something less of discomfort
to dispose himself in a half-recumbent
posture among the branches, his head resting
upon the lap of Careless: the pockets of
both of them crammed with bread and cheese,
besides a flask or two of thin ale for the
day's consumption. Everything arranged
before daybreak, and the Penderells gone on
their customary avocations, there the two
secret watchers remain effectually hidden
from passers-by, wiling away that livelong day
for the most part in silence: poor jaded Will
Jones dozing off at intervals, at the hazard
of a tumble. If they talk at all, they speak
only in stealthiest whispers; looking out
vigilantly, ever and anon, from their impenetrable
lair among the foliage, over the wide
expanse of open ground.

Frequently, as the dreary hours drag on,
they observe the glint of steel in the
neighbouring thickets, and the gleam of scarlet
through the gaps of the green brambles:
patrols of the enemy searching eagerly in
the covert for stray cavaliers. The wearisome
noon lengthens into evening, while
Charles and Careless—not much unlike the
Charles and Careless of the School for
Scandal—sit there high up in the oak-tree,
munching their bread and cheese, and
gurgling small beer out of their ale bottles;
laughing silently in their sleeves as they note
their baffled pursuers; amused, though
anxious; ever vigilant. At length, when
twilight is sufficiently deepened into
obscurity, their cramped forms are relieved
from durance; and, in a few scrambling
steps they have descended. A substantial
supper rewards them on their once more
crossing the porch of Boscobel House;
where, after supper, I assist mine host, honest
thumb-fingered William Penderell, in shaving
his Majesty, and in cropping whatever hair
remains on the crown of his head, as close to
the scalp as the scissors of Dame Joan will lie.
After a comfortless night passed in a secret
closet, five feet square; coiled upon a pallet
less resembling the Bed of Ware than the
bed of Procrustes, his majesty comes down
the next morning betimes into the little
farm-house parlour; and there, to the dismay
of the king's rustic courtiers, the royal nose
falls a-bleeding. I am amused now-a-days,
to recollect, after the lapse of these two
centuries,—when the once popular
superstition about the regal touch is almost as a
mystery clean forgotten by the general
multitude—to remember, that long years afterwards,
the tattered handkerchief then drawn
by Will Jones from his greasy pocket, a
handkerchief, very old, very torn, very coarse in
its materials, and lamentably daubed with
blood from the king's nose, was religiously
preserved as a Sovereign Remedy for the King's
Evil.

It is Sunday morning, the seventh of
September, and already the buccaneering colonel
has celebrated the sacred day by sallying
forth to an adjacent sheep-cote, upon—a
hanging feat in those times, and indeed, for
that matter, long afterwards—a memorable
exploit of sheep-stealing. This expedition
having proved eminently successful, thanks
to the keen dagger and the broad shoulders of
Careless, his Majesty falls to with knife and
trencher; and, having sliced the mutton into
collops, and pricked it delicately with the knife-
point, himself, with his kingly hands (the
royalist narrator of the circumstance almost fainting
in the record of it) cooks the meat cleverly
with a frying-pan and butter, and afterwards
eats of it heartily for his breakfast. Throughout
the remainder of the day Will Jones is
either reverently engaged in his devotions
(with the Colonel's matin felony upon his
conscience), or busy reading in a pretty sum-
mer-house in the garden; the stone table of
which is still shown to this day as a most
precious relic in one of the quiet rooms of
old Boscobel House. Brief time, however,
has the king now for much indolent enjoyment,
With the return of darkness the
king's rovings have recommenced.

Quitting Boscobel with a hobnailed
bodyguard—consisting of the five Penderells and