Firebrace, the page, remained in the village, but I accompanied the officers as far as the ford across the creek at Wootton. They wished me to retain the horse I was using, but, much against my will, I was obliged to refuse, for the presence of the animal at my cottage would give rise to well-founded suspicions. Then, having set them on the right road to Brading Harbour, I bade them farewell, and sick in mind and tired in body, I walked back to my humble dwelling. Yet I could not sleep, and after tossing restlessly on my bed till daylight streamed into the room, I dressed and went out. A strong easterly wind had sprung up with the rising of the sun, and looking in the direction of Spithead, I saw the drawing sails of a small vessel bowling along on her westward course. It was the _Happy Adventure_. CHAPTER XVII EXILED AGAIN, as far as I was concerned, time pursued its even course, and in my retreat I had little cause to complain of the manner of life I was leading, were it not for the galling fate of circumstances that had befallen my King and country. There were hundreds of brave Cavaliers, ruined by their devotion, who lurked in obscurity and sequestration, awaiting the time when their swords were once more to fly from their scabbards in the defence, and for the honour, of His Majesty, so that I comforted myself that in my present position I was by no means an exception. One dark evening in the month of November I was returning from a long ramble through the woods of Quarr, and on gaining the little hard on the Fishbourne side of the creek, where I had left my boat, I saw the dark sails of a large craft of strange rig glide past up the channel. I say strange, but 'twas strange only as far as the locality was concerned, for I could have staked my all that those sails were cut in the West Country. The vessel passed on, and disappeared in the darkness, but by the sound of the creaking tackle and shouts of the crew I knew she had dropped anchor just above the pool where the fishing craft are wont to lie. Now it happened that just at the spot where this craft had brought up there is what the fishermen call a "hard bottom," rocks and large stones abounding, upon which a vessel would do herself an injury when she grounded at low tide; so, as I had to pass the craft on my passage over o the other side, I thought it but right that I shoul warn the crew, who were obviously strangers, of their danger. The flood tide was making strongly, and it required but a few strokes to bring me alongside the new arrival as she fretted at her hempen cable in the swirl of the swift-running flood. With the least perceptible jar my little boat rubbed sides with the larger craft, and standing up, I held on to the bulwarks of the latter and peered through the gloom to try and find some of her crew.