ese and other things he fancied that he could
hear the footfall of a man on the road leading up to his house--a byway,
which led scarce anywhere else; and therefore a tread was at any time
more apt to startle the inmates of the homestead than if it had stood in
a thoroughfare. The footfall came opposite the gate, and stopped there.
One minute, two minutes passed, and the pedestrian did not proceed.
Christopher Swetman got out of bed, and opened the casement. 'Hoi! who's
there?' cries he.

'A friend,' came from the darkness.

'And what mid ye want at this time o' night?' says Swetman.

'Shelter. I've lost my way.'

'What's thy name?'

There came no answer.

'Be ye one of King Monmouth's men?'

'He that asks no questions will hear no lies from me. I am a stranger;
and I am spent, and hungered. Can you let me lie with you to-night?'

Swetman was generous to people in trouble, and his house was roomy. 'Wait
a bit,' he said, 'and I'll come down and have a look at thee, anyhow.'

He struck a light, put on his clothes, and descended, taking his horn-
lantern from a nail in the passage, and lighting it before opening the
door. The rays fell on the form of a tall, dark man in cavalry
accoutrements and wearing a sword. He was pale with fatigue and covered
with mud, though the weather was dry.

'Prithee take no heed of my appearance,' said the stranger. 'But let me
in.'

That his visitor was in sore distress admitted of no doubt, and the
yeoman's natural humanity assisted the other's sad importunity and gentle
voice. Swetman took him in, not without a suspicion that this man
represented in some way Monmouth's cause, to which he was not unfriendly
in his secret heart. At his earnest request the new-comer was given a
suit of the yeoman's old clothes in exchange for his own, which, with his
sword, were hidden in a closet in Swetman's chamber; food was then put
before him and a lodging provided for him in a room at the back.

Here he slept till quite late in the morning, which was Sunday, the sixth
of July, and when he came down in the garments that he had borrowed he
met the household with a melancholy smile. Besides Swetman himself,
there were only his two daughters, Grace and Leonard (the latter was,
oddly enough, a woman's name here), and both had been enjoined to
secrecy. They asked no questions and received no information; though the
stranger regarded their fair countenances with an interest almost too