Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/273

Rh garden. It is a thrifty middle-aged tree, perhaps of two centuries' growth, and may have come from an acorn of that monarch of the forest that sheltered Charles. This, then, was Boscobel, the scene of such romance, heroism, loyalty, and other noble qualities as will always command admiration even from those who condemn the cause in which such virtues are exercised. This was the theatre of a drama that makes a dating-event in the life of a nation. About break of day on Thursday morning. Sept. 4th, 1651, a small party on horseback rode up softly and silently to the White Ladies, a monastic mansion of the Giffard family, about half a mile from Boscobel. All the night long they had spurred their jaded horses along cross-roads and by-roads from the disastrous battle at Worcester. Cromwell's troopers were scouring the country, cutting down or capturing the fugitives. Scotch and English. One of these bands was close upon the heels of this flying party, "My kingdom for a covert, for a cave!" might well have been the cry of that man of the longest locks and of fretted and blood-stained insignia of royalty. Not a moment was to be lost in finding a hiding-place for the tired and hunted King. Colonel Roscarrock sent a servant boy of the house to Boscobel for William Penderel, and another was sent for Richard his brother, who lived near at Hobbal Grange. They were two of five