"My dame Joan" also performed another charitable service for her luckless liege lord, by bringing some warm water to bathe his galled and travel-soiled feet. Colonel Carlis pulled off his majesty's shoes, which were full of gravel, and his wet stockings, and there being no other shoes that would fit the royal fugitive, the good wife rendered these still more stiff and uncomfortable, in her zeal to dry them, by putting hot embers in them while the colonel was washing his master's feet. When his majesty was thus refreshed, they all united in persuading him to go back into the wood, having great reason to apprehend that the roundhead troopers, who were then hunting the country round with blood-hounds, on a keen scent for their prey, would come and search Boscobel House. Humphrey Penderel, the miller, had been to Shefnal the day before, to pay some military imposts to the roundhead Captain Broadwaye, at whose house he encountered one of Cromwell's colonels, who had just been dispatched from Worcester in quest of the king. This man, having learned that the king had been at Whiteladies, and that Humphrey dwelt in that immediate neighborhood, examined him strictly, and laid before him both the penalty of concealing the royal fugitive "which," he said, "was death without mercy, and the reward for discovering him, which should be a thousand pounds ready money." Neither threats nor bribes could overcome the loyal integrity of the stout-hearted miller, who pleaded ignorance so successfully that he was dismissed, and hastening, to Boscobel, brought the alarming tidings of the vicinity of the soldiers, and the price that had been set on his majesty's head. The danger of his remaining in Boscobel House being considered imminent, it was determined by the faithful brothers to conceal the king and Colonel Carlis, whose life was in no less danger than that of his master, in a thick spreading oak. Having made choice of one which appeared to afford the greatest facility for concealment, they assisted the king and Colonel Carlis to ascend it, brought them such provisions as they could get, and a cushion for the king to sit on. In this unsuspected retreat they passed the day. The king having gone through much fatigue, and taken little or no rest for several nights, was so completely worn out, that having placed himself in a reclining position, with his head resting on Colonel Carlis's knee, he fell asleep, and slumbered away some hours--the colonel being careful to preserve him from falling. Pope's popular, but long suppressed line, "Angels who watched the royal oak so well,"