He found another, for the mariner was
not the only one who knew his face. As he stood by the fire, with his
palm resting on the back of a chair, the inn-keeper came suddenly up and
kissed his hand.
"God bless you wheresoever you go!" he said, fervently. "I do not doubt,
before I die, to be a lord, and my wife a lady."
Charles burst into a hearty laugh at this ambitious remark of his host.
He had been twice discovered within the hour, after a month and a half
of impunity. Yet he felt that he could put full trust in these worthy
men, and slept soundly that last night on English soil.
At five o'clock of the next morning, he, with Lord Wilmot, his constant
companion, went on board the little sixty-ton craft, which lay in
Shoreham harbor, waiting the tide to put to sea. By daybreak they were
on the waves. The prince was resting in the cabin, when in came Captain
Tattersall, kissed his hand, professed devotion to his interests, and
suggested a course for him to pursue.
His crew, he said, had been shipped for the English port of Poole. To
head for France might cause suspicion. He advised Charles to represent
himself as a merchant who was in debt and afraid of arrest in England,
and who wished to reach France to collect money due him at Rouen.
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