ile from Boscobel House: there
he secreted himself in an oak, afterwards famous as the Royal Oak of
Boscobel. The brothers Penderell, foresters and yeomen, concealed him
in closets in their simple mansion, being true to their sovereign at
the risk of their lives, when it might have raised them from poverty
to riches to have uttered a treacherous word.

[Illustration: BOSCOBEL.]

The closets in which Charles was concealed are exhibited to visitors,
and Frank and Ernest were allowed to pass up and down the passages
that had afforded so secure a retreat to the fugitive. In the parlor
they were shown a chimney-piece, and on one of the panels a picture of
the king in the oak, and on another the king in disguise on
horse-back, escorted by the Penderells.

[Illustration: {THE TOMB OF RICHARD PENDERELL.}]

It is said that the king's pursuers were thrown off the right track of
discovery by an owl that flew out of the oak where he was concealed,
leading the captain to say, "The owl loveth not company, and where he
is no one else can be." It is also related that when Charles
complained of the slowness of the horse on which he fled in disguise,
one of the Penderells remarked that the animal never before had "the
weight of three kingdoms on his back." These stories may not be quite
true, but one is reminded of them by the figures on the chimney-piece.

The Class next went to Leamington, a most convenient point from which
to make short excursions to Stratford-on-Avon, Warwick Castle, and
Kenilworth Castle. Leamington, although itself not historically
interesting, is provided with excellent hotels, being an English
watering-place.

[Illustration: KING CHARLES'S HIDING PLACE.]

The first excursion of the party from Leamington was to
Stratford-on-Avon, to the house where Shakspeare was born, and the
church in which he was buried.

[Illustration: SHAKSPEARE.]

The birthplace of Shakspeare is an antique-looking stone house two
stones high, with picturesque gables fronting the street. In the room
where he first saw the light of the world he was to enrich with his
thought there is a cast of his face taken after his death, and a
portrait painted in the prime of his life. The latter showed a truly
noble brow; it was such a face as fancy itself might paint, so royally
did it seem endowed with genius. In this room Sir Walter Scott had
inscribed his name on a pane of glass, and Wordsworth once wrote a
stanza which is still preserved