The peculiarities of monarchs, remarked the author, are more conspicuous than the virtues or vices of ordinary people. The nervousness of King Charles the Second was no less remarkable than Queen Elizabeth's recurring fits of somnolence: he was continually retiring into cupboards, standing behind doors, or climbing into oak trees, owing to a morbid dread of being looked at. King Charles had secreted himself inside a cupboard within the boundaries of Highfield parish, but this was not to be regarded as a coincidence, for a patient inquiry into local traditions elicited the fact that, wherever Queen Elizabeth had slept in the best bed of the manor house, King Charles had climbed a tree (usually the common oak, _Quercus robur_) in the garden. As the writer was dealing with the parish of Highfield only, it would be outside the scope of his work to give a list of villages, in Devonshire alone, which claimed to possess pillows upon which Elizabeth had deigned to rest her weary head; but he was satisfied that the Highfield pillow had been stored away in precisely the same cupboard used by Charles during one of his secretive moments. Both these interesting relics had been destroyed, as was customary, by fire. The fourth chapter flourished the Drake pedigree, copied from the original document in the author's possession; and went on to give a pathetic account of Amelia, the lonely and eccentric lady who was the last representative of the famous family to reside at Highfield Manor. Three facts concerning her could be stated with certainty: she was of a singularly retiring nature, she was accustomed to wear a black silk dress upon all occasions, and she was murdered by some unknown ruffian for the sake of certain valuable heirlooms she was known to possess. It appeared probable that she was a poetess as, according to local tradition, she could frequently be heard singing; while her fondness for cats, a weakness which had descended to her great-grandson, was a clearly marked feature of her character.