ill
in some way excite suspicion that he is the king. The news that your
majesty has been seen traveling there will throw them off your track
here."

"But you may be caught yourself," the king said. "The Earl of Derby and
other officers have been executed. There would be small chance for you
were you to fall into their hands."

"I trust that I shall escape, sire. My friend Jacob is as cunning as a
fox, and will, I warrant me, throw dust in their eyes. And how has it
fared with your majesty since I left you at White Ladies?"

"Faith," Charles replied, laughing, "I have been like a rat with the
dogs after him. The next night after leaving you I was in danger from a
rascally miller, who raised an alarm because we refused to stay at his
bidding. Then we made for Moseley, where I hoped to cross the Severn.
The Roundheads had set a guard there, and Richard Penderell went to the
house of Mr. Woolfe, a loyal gentleman, and asked him for shelter for an
officer from Worcester. Mr. Woolfe said he would risk his neck for none
save the king himself. Then Richard told him who I was, and brought me
in. Mr. Woolfe hid me in the barn and gave me provisions. The
neighborhood was dangerous, for the search was hot thereabout, and I
determined to double back again to White Ladies, that I might hear what
had become of Wilmot. Richard Penderell guided me to Boscabell, a
farmhouse kept by his brother William. Here I found Major Careless in
hiding. The search was hot, and we thought of hiding in a wood near, but
William advised that as this might be searched we should take refuge in
an oak lying apart in the middle of the plain."

"This had been lopped three or four years before and had grown again
very thick and bushy, so that it could not be seen through. So, early in
the morning, Careless and I, taking provisions for the day, climbed up
it and hid there, and it was well we did so, for in the day the
Roundheads came and searched the wood from end to end, as also the
house. But they did not think of the tree. The next two days I lay at
Boscabell, and learned on the second day that Wilmot was hiding at the
house of Mr. Whitgrave, a Catholic gentleman at Moseley, where he begged
me to join him. That night I rode thither. The six Penderells, for there
were that number of brothers, rode with me as a bodyguard. I was well
received by Mr. Whitgrave, who furnished me with fresh linen, to my
great comfort, for that which I had on was coarse, and g