always makes me think that he must have been familiar with the following incident which my father's mother, Elizabeth Cotterel, who was the grand-daughter of a cadet of the old loyal family of that name, in Staffordshire, and maternally descended from one of the honest Penderel brothers, was accustomed to relate as a fact, derived from family tradition, connected with the perils and hair-breadth escapes of Charles II., at Boscobel. "The roundhead troopers," she said, "having tracked the king, first to Whiteladies, and then to Boscobel Forest, were led, by the keen scent of their bloodhounds, just at the twilight hour, to the very tree in which he and Colonel Carlis were hidden. The traitors, a sergeant and five others of the same company, made a halt under the Royal Oak, and began to reconnoiter it, while their dogs came baying and barking round about the trunk. Suddenly the leaves began to rustle, and one of the villains cried out, "'Hallo! some one is surely hidden here!--look how the branches shake.' "'It will be worth a thousand pounds to us if it be the young king,' said another. "Then the sergeant asked 'who would volunteer to ascend the tree, and earn a larger share of the reward by taking the supposed prize alive;' but, as no one appeared willing to risk the chance of encountering a clapperclawing from the royal lion, dealt from a vantage height, he was just giving the word for them to fire a volley into the tree, 'when, by the grace of God,'" the old lady would add, with impressive solemnity, "a white owl flew out from the thickest covert of the branches and screeched 'fie upon them!' as well she might; whereupon the false traitors hooted out a curse as bitter as that of Meroz on the poor bird, and growled to each other 'that it was she that had misled their dogs, and had stirred the leaves withal, to mock themselves; howsomever, they would have a shot at her, to teach her better manners than to screech at the soldiers of the Lord.' But though five of the sorry knaves banged off their musketoons at the harmless bird, not one of them was marksman enough to hit a feather of her. Lastly, the sergeant took out a printed copy of the proclamation, promising 'the reward of a thousand pounds for the apprehension of the young man, Charles Stuart, eldest son of the late King Charles,' and fastened it on the trunk of the royal oak where his majesty was sitting in the branches above them, hearing all they said, and an eye-witness of their treason."