Upstairs in the house, beneath what was formerly a cheese attic, is another hiding-place, a dark small hole at the top of the stair and entered by a trap-door in the floor, and here it was that Charles II. spent one uncomfortable night, cheeses being rolled over the trap-door for the better concealment of it. So my guide told me. Now the puzzling thing about this is, why, especially at night when the house was carefully locked and guarded, should it have been thought needful for the king to secrete himself in this cramped place? Surely he might have slept comfortably in bed, for there ought to have been ample time, when the soldiers knocked at the door and the alarm was given, and whilst the door was being slowly opened, for the king to have secreted himself; as it was he spent a most uncomfortable night to no purpose. Now when Charles II. was afterwards sheltered in Moseley Hall and was resting on a couch in a chamber (it chanced to be one afternoon), some soldiers made a surprise visit there, but on the servants rushing upstairs crying "The soldiers are coming," the king found ample time to reach his hiding-place, where he lay concealed in safety till the soldiers departed baffled. It speaks much for the cleverness of the contrivers of the hiding-holes both at Boscobel and Moseley that none of these holes, though carefully searched for, were ever discovered. Still it must have been a very unpleasant experience for the king, hidden away in a dark and dismal hole all the while the soldiers were busily searching the house, not knowing but that he might at any moment be discovered. Indeed, when his host had seen the soldiers safely away and came to release the king, the king exclaimed to him "he thought the time very long"--and little wonder; so might any one in so unfortunate a position. It is said that Charles II. was the last person to be secreted in the hiding-holes at Boscobel. Possibly Boscobel was not so diligently searched as other houses were, owing to its being solely in the care of servants at the time, so less suspicion fell on it. Boscobel in its woods calls to my mind a saying of that quaint old worthy Thomas Fuller: "It is pleasant as well as profitable to see a house cased with trees. The worst is, where a place is bald of wood no art can make it a periwig." CHAPTER XV A town with two names--An amusing mistake--Abbot's Bromley and its quaint horn dance--Dr. Johnson doing penance at Uttoxeter--Burton-on-Trent--The "Hundreds All" milestone--Indoor wind-dials--Stone-milled flour--The old Globe Room at Banbury--Dick Turpin's pistol--A strange find.