were met by Lord Wilmot at
the inn; and he continued to join them wherever they rested at night,
without appearing to travel with them by day. Mistress Lane took all
possible care to guard the king against recognition, stating at every
house of accommodation where they tarried he was "a neighbour's son whom
her father had lent her to ride before her in hope that he would the
sooner recover from a quartan ague with which he had been miserably
afflicted, and was not yet free." Which story served as sufficient
excuse for his going to bed betimes, and so avoiding the company of
servants. At the end of three days they arrived at their destination.
Jane Lane was warmly received by her cousin, and the whole party made
heartily welcome. Jane, however, did not entrust her secret to Mistress
Norton's keeping, but repeated her tale of the good youth being newly
recovered from ague, and desired a chamber might be provided for him,
and a good fire made that he might retire early to bed. Her desires
being obeyed, the king withdrew, and was served with an excellent good
supper by the butler, a worthy fellow named Pope, who had been a trooper
in the army of Charles I., of blessed memory.

"The next morning" said the king continuing his strange story, "I arose
pretty early, having a very good stomach, and went to the buttery-hatch
to get my breakfast, where I found Pope and two or three other men in
the room, and we all fell to eating bread and butter, to which he gave
us very good ale and sack. And as I was sitting there, there was one
that looked like a country fellow sat just by me, who, talking, gave
so particular an account of the battle of Worcester to the rest of the
company that I concluded he must be one of Cromwell's soldiers. But I,
asking how he came to give so good an account of that battle, he told me
he was in the King's regiment, by which I thought he meant one Colonel
King's regiment. But questioning him further, I perceived he had been in
my regiment of Guards, in Major Broughton's company--that was my Major
in the battle. I asked him what kind of man I was; to which he answered
by describing exactly both my clothes and my horse, and then, looking
upon me, he told me that the king was at least three fingers taller than
I. Upon which I made what haste I could out of the buttery, for fear he
should indeed know me, as being more afraid when I knew he was one of
our own soldiers than when I took him for one of the enemy's.