And so they parted, the king merrily telling his mistress the joke, when safely out of reach of the smith's ears. There is another amusing story told of this journey. Stopping at a house near Stratford-upon-Avon, "Will Jackson" was sent to the kitchen, as the groom's place. Here he found a buxom cook-maid, engaged in preparing supper. "Wind up the jack for me," said the maid to her supposed fellow-servant. Charles, nothing loath, proceeded to do so. But he knew much less about handling a jack than a sword, and awkwardly wound it up the wrong way. The cook looked at him scornfully, and broke out in angry tones,-- "What countrymen are you, that you know not how to wind up a jack?" Charles answered her contritely, repressing the merry twinkle in his eye. "I am a poor tenant's son of Colonel Lane, in Staffordshire," he said; "we seldom have roast meat, and when we have, we don't make use of a jack." "That's not saying much for your Staffordshire cooks, and less for your larders," replied the maid, with a head-toss of superiority. The house where this took place still stands, with the old jack hanging beside the fireplace; and those who have seen it of late years do not wonder that Charles was puzzled how to wind it up. It might puzzle a wiser man. There is another story in which the prince played his part as a kitchen servant. It is said that the soldiers got so close upon his track that they sought the house in which he was, not leaving a room in it unvisited. Finally they made their way to the kitchen, where was the man they sought, with a servant-maid who knew him. Charles looked around in nervous fear. His pursuers had never been so near him. Doubtless, for the moment, he gave up the game as lost. But the loyal cook was mistress of the situation. She struck her seeming fellow-servant a smart rap with the basting-ladle, and called out, shrewishly,-- [Illustration: SCENE ON THE RIVER AVON.] "Now, then, go on with thy work; what art thou looking about for?" The soldiers laughed as Charles sprang up with a sheepish aspect, and they turned away without a thought that in this servant lad lay hidden the prince they sought. On September 13, ten days after the battle, Miss Lane and her groom reached Abbotsleigh, where they took refuge at the house of Mr. Norton, Colonel Lane's cousin. To the great regret of the fugitive, he learned here that there was no vessel in the port of Bristol that would serve his purpose of flight. He remained in the house for four days, under his guise of a servant, but was given a chamber of his own, on pretence of indisposition. He was just well of an ague, said his mistress. He was, indeed, somewhat worn out with fatigue and anxiety, though of a disposition that would not long let him endure hunger or loneliness.