'Is Mr Giffard still at White-Ladies?' he asked abruptly.
Richard shook his head. The King's easy temper was jarred for an instant by the sight of his stolidity. 'Then what the pox am I to do?' he demanded, his big underlip pouting a little.
Again Richard shook his head, but with such a look of apology in his face that the King choked down his ill-humour, and said: 'I must think on this.'
Richard, never talkative, said nothing, but sat gazing before him, chewing a blade of grass.
The sound of someone approaching through the wood presently brought Richard's head round, and an alert look into his eyes. He laid a warning hand on the King's arm, and got up to go and scout. The King was about to plunge farther into the wood when Richard stopped him. 'All's well, my liege. It's my sister Yates come with a mess for your honour to stay your stomach on.'
A little startled, profoundly mistrusting the ability of a woman to keep a secret, the King waited for Mrs Yates to appear, saying when she did: 'Good-morrow, good wife, can you be faithful to a distressed Cavalier?'
It was evident from the depth of the curtsey which she dropped, and the breathless note in her voice, that she was aware of his identity. 'Yes, master, I will die sooner than betray you,' she said very earnestly, and held out her basket to him.
He took it, and uncovering it, found that it contained something in a black earthen cup. He looked up, saying with a smile that set her heart fluttering: 'Is it milk and apples? I love it well!'
'Nay, alack, there are no apples, master. It is naught but a mess of butter and milk and eggs, not what your gracious Majesty is used to eat.'
The King set the basket down, and lifted the cup and a pewter spoon out of it, and tasted the concoction. 'It's very good,' he told Mrs Yates. He ate it nearly all, but gave the cup to Richard when he had taken the edge off his hunger, and invited him to finish it.
The rain continued. When Mrs Yates had gone, the King was left alone for some time, but presently Richard came back, and, after a little while, Humphrey and George. Once Richard asked him if he would not like to sleep for a while, wrapped in the blanket, but although the King's limbs ached, and his body felt strangely heavy, he could not sleep. If he closed his eyes, unquiet pictures began at once to drift across his lids: faces, and battle scenes, and the monotonous jog trot of horses.
Midway through the interminable day, unable to think of any safe way of reaching London, he decided to cross the Severn into Wales. There he had friends, and from Swansea, or some other sea-town, he might, he thought, find a vessel bound for France.
Richard, informed of this change in the King's plans, seemed to approve of it, and at once offered to conduct him to Madeley, where, he said, a very honest gentleman called Wolfe lived, and could be counted on to serve him.
The decision made, the King seemed to grow more cheerful, but his face, now that the grime had been washed away by the rain, looked so pale and drawn, that after a short consultation together, the brothers begged that he would go with them to Richard's home as soon as it could be considered safe for him to leave the wood, there to repose and refresh himself for a while before setting out on the nine-mile walk to Madeley. He agreed to it, and accordingly, at a little after five o'clock, all three of the brothers, with Francis Yates with them, escorted him to Hobbal Grange, which was about a mile from Spring Coppice, beyond White-Ladies.
The rain had stopped by this time, but a lowering sky gave no promise of a clear night to come. As they trudged along, some times over fields, and some times down narrow, deserted lanes, Richard and Humphrey, walking one on either side of the King, kept their watchful eyes on him, and from time to time reminded him to slouch his shoulders more, or to hold his head lower. Yates and George Penderel walked ahead to spy out the land, but no one was encountered during the short journey, and Hobbal Grange was reached without any other misfortune than the continual chafing of the King's feet in Rich ard's rough shoes.
Hobbal Grange was a cottage, situated three quarters of a mile south of the road from Tong to Brewood, and was approached by a lane little better than a cart track. When Richard ushered the King into it, Charles stood for a moment on the threshold blinking in the light of the tallow candles, and looking curiously about him. The door opened immediately into a big kitchen, which seemed to be the only living-room the cottage possessed. A sharp-featured woman was bending over the open fire. She turned, as the King entered, and dropped him a rather perfunctory curtsey, looking narrowly at him as she did so. A little girl with straight, fair hair gathered into a cap, peeped from behind her skirts, a finger in her mouth. The King smiled at her, saying to Richard: 'Is the little maiden yours?'
'Ay, so please your honour,' replied Richard, grati fied. 'Make your curtsey, Nan! And this is my wife, who is as glad as I be to serve your honour.'
A minatory note sounded in his voice. Mrs Penderel curtseyed again, but with her eyes cast down, and a forbidding look about her compressed lips.
The kitchen was not furnished with chairs, but the King pulled up a joint-stool to the fire, and sat down to warm himself, casting his hat on the floor beside him. Moisture began to stream from his clothes; he held his long, beautiful hands to the blaze, an action which drew from Mrs Penderel a muttered remark that the sight of them would surely betray him.
Richard told her sharply to hold her peace, and to bestir herself to provide supper for the visitor.
'There's naught but bacon and some eggs in the
house, as I told you an hour agone,' she said. She looked sullenly at Humphrey and George, and Francis Yates, and added: 'Do you look to me to get food for them hungry good-for-naughts as well? I wonder your sister Nell would let her man go begging to a poor woman's house for his supper!'
'No!' Richard said, nipping her arm in his hand, and giving it a shake. 'For the King, woman!'
She said under her breath: 'You will ruin us by this! I'll be bound there's them as would give you a fortune for news –'
She stopped, growing rather white, for the look in Richard's eyes frightened her. He was breathing rather hard through his nose; she was afraid he would strike her, and said quickly: 'I will get supper for him.'
She pulled her arm out of Richard's hold, and turned to find the King's heavy-lidded eyes fixed upon her. She coloured, and said defensively: 'I'm sure it's not me would be wishing harm to your honour, but we be poor folks, and if aught should befall my good-man I know not what must become of me and the innocent childer.'
'Get supper!' Richard growled, and said apolo getically to the King: 'Never heed her, master! She is a poor, foolish creature. Your honour is safe in my house.'
'I do not doubt it,' the King said. He bent to unfasten the latchets of his shoes. 'What can be done to make these shoes of yours less discomfortable to my stupid feet?'
Seeing him fumbling unhandily at the latchets, Francis Yates ran forward, and knelt to help him. Nan Penderel's eyes widened to see her uncle drawing the shoes from the strange visitor's feet, and she uplifted her voice in a wondering question: 'Can that man not take his shoon off ?'
A gleam shot into the King's eyes: he held out his hand to her invitingly. 'Nay, sweetheart, that is a home-question! I have been very ill-taught indeed.'
She drew nearer. 'Who be you?' she asked. 'I don't know you.'
'I am one Will Jones, a wood-cutter come in search of work in these parts,' responded the King, setting her upon his knee. 'Do you think any would hire me?'
She shook her head, saying with a quaint air of wisdom: 'These be very sickly times. There's no work for honest men. Why do you wear my father's jump coat?'
'Faith, because I have no other, Mistress Sharp Eyes!'
'You must needs be a very poor man,' she said.
'Yes, a very poor man,' he answered, sighing.
She tucked her little hand into his. 'Don't be sad. My father will have a care to you,' she told him.
'I never knew Nan so hang upon a stranger!' Richard said, a slow smile curving his mouth. 'But she must not tease your honour.'
'Let us be; we are in a fair way to a comfortable under standing,' replied the King.
Yates rose from his knees, saying: 'Nan will be a proud woman all her life to remember this day.'
'If she live to remember it!' muttered Mrs Penderel
over her cooking-pan. She glanced over her shoulder at the shoes Yates was holding, and said grudgingly: 'If they irk his honour, put a bit of white paper in them, and I warrant he shall go the easier for it.'
By the time this advice had been followed, and the shoes squeezed again on to the King's feet, a supper of bacon and eggs was ready. The King commanded Richard to sit down with him at the table, and to share the meal, himself falling to with a gusto that made Nan open her eyes still wider.
'Poor Will Jones!' she said commiseratingly. 'Are you so hungry?'
'Yea, I have a very good stomach,' the King replied.
'I warrant you!' said his hostess, under her breath, watching the next day's provisions for her family disap pear into his mouth.
When he had eaten and drunk, the King asked Richard to tell him more of the household for which he was bound, and, learning that Mr Wolfe was a Royalist, with sons who had all of them been engaged in the late Civil Wars, professed himself very well satisfied to entrust his person to his care. But, to their dismay, he would not permit either of the two other brothers, or Francis Yates, to go along with him to Madeley, saying that it was unnecessary, and would place their lives in needless jeopardy. They were quite taken aback, having meant to go with him as a bodyguard, but though he thanked them, they saw that he was obstinate in his resolve to take only Richard with him.
It was Yates who bethought himself of a possible need, and asked the King if he had money in his pockets.
'Money?' the King repeated. 'Yes – why, no! I had only gold pieces, and gave them to my servants.'
'If your Majesty would be pleased to accept of what I have, you are very welcome,' Yates said, pulling his purse out of the breast of his doublet. 'It was in my mind you had not as much as a groat upon you, seeing as Richard said you bestowed it all away, so I made bold to bring what I have.'
He shook his purse out into his cupped hand, and carefully spread a number of silver coins upon the table. His savings amounted to thirty shillings, which he seemed quite content the King should pocket. When the King took only ten of them, bidding him put the rest up, and keep it safe, he coloured, and said: 'I would like best your gracious Majesty would take it. It is very little.'
'I think it is more than was ever offered me before, since it is your all,' the King said. 'I am poor in thanks, friend, but I shall not forget.'
Richard, who had drawn back the shutters a little way to look out, closed them again, saying that it was now dark enough for them to venture forth. The King bestowed Francis Yates's money in his pocket, and replied that he was ready to go; but before he started, Humphrey, who had left the kitchen some few minutes earlier, came back into it, with a stout old dame leaning on his arm, and peering eagerly about her out of a pair of shrewd, bright eyes.
'Where is he?' she demanded. 'Let me but look upon him once, and bless myself to think of my sons being so singled out!'
'It's our mother, sir,' Richard explained. 'She is an honest woman your honour may be pleased to trust. Mother, here is the King.'
She stood for an instant, holding on to Humphrey's arm, and gazing with a slowly dawning smile of delight upon the King's tall figure. His shorn head almost touched the oak beam under which he stood. Dame Penderel let go Humphrey's arm to cast up both hands. 'Eh, the great fine lad that he is!' she exclaimed. 'He'll be as big as my Will, every inch! Eh, my liege, it's the happy day that sees your Majesty in my house! Let an old woman look into your face, master, for I once saw your royal father, of blessed memory, and I shall die a happy woman to have seen your fair face beside!'
A laugh sprang to the King's lips. He said: 'With all my heart, good mother, but I fear my face will grieve you, for I never yet heard any call it fair!' He moved towards her, and took her hand, and led her to the settle by the fire, and made her sit down upon it, and himself dropped gracefully on his knee before her, looking up at her with merriment dancing in his eyes.
She put out a gnarled hand, as though she would have laid it on his head, and then drew it back. 'Eh, my liege, what have they done to your bonny curls?' she asked him.
'Why, they cut them off, mother, that I might not be known.'
'I would I might have had one to keep!' she said. 'The good-year! the fine shoulders of you, and your royal father the little dainty prince that he was! Welladay! that I should have lived to be so honoured!' She ventured to put her hand on his shoulder, smiling a little tremulously. 'I bless God that He has allowed my sons to be the instruments of your Majesty's deliverance,' she said. 'I am the proud woman, yea, and they are proud men, to have so great a trust reposed in them. If they should fail you, my liege, they be no sons of mine.'