After what was really a very short interval, but which seemed to Rose a very long one, Dr. Bathurst, a thin, spare, middle-aged man, with a small black velvet cap over his grey hair, came down the creaking rough wooden stairs. “My dear child,” he asked, “in what can I help you? Your mother is well, I trust.”
“Oh yes, sir!” said Rose; and with reliance and hope, as if she had been speaking to a father, she explained their distress and perplexity, then stood in silence while the good doctor, a slow thinker, considered.
“First, to hide him,” he said; “he may not be here, for this—the old parson’s house—will be the very first spot they will search. But we will try. You rode, you say, Mistress Rose; where is your horse?”
“Ah! there is one difficulty,” said Rose, “Edmund is holding him now; but where shall we leave him?”
“Let us come first to see the young gentleman,” said Dr. Bathurst; and they walked together to the lane where Edmund was waiting, the doctor explaining by the way that he placed his chief dependence on Harry Fletcher, a fisherman, thoroughly brave, trustworthy, and loyal, who had at one time been a sailor, and had seen, and been spoken to by King Charles himself. He lived in a little lonely hut about half a mile distant; he was unmarried, and would have been quite alone, but that he had taken a young nephew, whose father had been killed on the Royalist side, to live with him, and to be brought up to his fishing business.
Edmund and Rose both agreed that there could be no better hope of escape than in trusting to this good man; and as no time was to be lost, they parted for the present, Rose returning to the cottage to spend the day with Anne Bathurst, and the clergyman walking with the young cavalier to the place where the fisherman lived. They led the horse with them for some distance, then tied him to a gate, a little out of sight, and went on to the hut, which stood, built of the shingle of the beach, just beyond the highest reach of the tide, with the boat beside it, and the nets spread out to dry.
Before there was time to knock, the door was opened by Harry Fletcher himself, his open sunburnt face showing honesty and good faith in every feature. He put his hand respectfully to his woollen cap, and said, with a sort of smile, as he looked at Edmund, “I see what work you have for me, your reverence.”
“You are right, Harry,” said Dr. Bathurst; “this is one of the gentlemen that fought for his Majesty at Worcester, and if we cannot get him safe out of the country, with heaven’s blessing, he is as good as a dead man.”
“Come in, sir,” said Fletcher, “you had best not be seen. There’s no one here but little Dick, and I’ll answer for him.”
They came in, and Dr. Bathurst explained Edmund’s circumstances. The honest fellow looked a little perplexed, but after a moment said, “Well, I’ll do what in me lies, sir; but ’tis a long way across.”