It was this period of outlawry, during which a price was set on the royal head of Charles Stuart and he was being hunted like a dangerous criminal, that Mr. Snaith has employed as the basic theme on which to graft a romance. In the main the narrative offers a striking instance of the predominant trait of the Stuart character—the sovereignty of the flesh to the exclusion of all else, even personal safety.
W. B. M. Ferguson.
CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| I. | The Man Out of the Night | [ 1] |
| II. | The Quest of the King | [ 12] |
| III. | The Strange Visitors that Came to the “Sea Rover” | [ 27] |
| IV. | Will Jackson | [ 41] |
| V. | Shows the Inconveniences that May Sometimes Attend an Active Mind | [ 65] |
| VI. | The Night: The Sea: The Rocks | [ 80] |
| VII. | The Woman | [ 94] |
| VIII. | The King’s Face | [ 110] |
| IX. | The Man in Bed | [ 128] |
| X. | Le Roi s’Amuse | [ 149] |
| XI. | The Psychology of Cowardice | [ 164] |
| XII. | The Mariner | [ 175] |
| XIII. | The Soldiers | [ 197] |
| XIV. | The Divinity that Doth Hedge a King | [ 212] |
| XV. | “Way There for the King’s Servitor!” | [ 227] |
| XVI. | The Departing Guests | [ 232] |
| XVII. | The Landlord | [ 245] |
PATRICIA at the INN
CHAPTER I
The Man out of the Night
IT had been remarked that the weather was extreme for the time of year. The little inn, huddling on the desolate bridle-path that ran in front of the open sea, was wrapped in a cloud of fog; the night was as hollow as a crypt; of a temper to warp the spirit; and so silent, that when a wild fowl cried as it shivered by the tide, a hundred echoes woke in the high rocks rising behind the tavern.
The house was on a wild and lonely coast. It stood on the road to nowhere, high hills and seas about it; and as not one traveller a month came to it from the landward, it was frankly for the service of that strange, furtive company of adventurers who came in the night from France and Holland when the winds were friendly.
All the bitter evening had the landlord kept the chimney-side. Flanked on the one hand by a fire of red faggots, hissing with blue flame; on the other by a stiff glass of hot rum-and-water, the old man sat, the image of bodily contentment.