Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/282

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268
Walks in the Black Country

outlawed King is dreaming now; a painter would catch the dream playing upon that pallid cheek. Why not catch it? The world would recognize and interpret it. Not one of all the pictures that have been painted of "Charles Stewart" would produce such an impression.

When the night came on with "the blanket of the dark," the fugitives returned to the house, and William Penderel put the King to rest in that large square chest at the lid of which we now stood. It is a kind of false apartment several feet square, with an eye seemingly closed to the lower lid, but admitting a little light and just a glimpse of the outside world to the inmate. It is a kind of hollow notch over a buttery or some culinary apartment, with only an entrance on the top through one of the floor-boards, which makes such close joint with the rest that no one would suspect that it was not nailed as fast to the joist as they. Here William Penderel had put the Earl of Derby on his retreat to Worcester. Here doubtless he had concealed many other fugitives before the Earl; for it was built for the express purpose of hiding the hunted. The King found this place of rest and concealment both easier and safer than the oak, and he began to breathe freer from alarm. Says the same historian," His Majesty, esteeming himself in some better security, permitted William Penderel to shave him, and cut the hair of his