BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW DUBLIN BOMBAY
PREFACE.
This story is for the most part a romantic rendering of a very obscure episode in the story of the reign of Charles the Second. It does not pretend to more historical accuracy than belongs to other romances which are spun from a thread of fact on a spool of fiction, but it may be mentioned that the scenes and the actors are mostly real, and it should be remembered that the story of the Rye-house Plot (1683) as told in authentic records is strangely vague. That there was a plot—that the King's house at Newmarket was burnt, or at least that part of it containing the royal apartments was on fire—and that Charles escaped, are the certain points of the story. The details are left very much to imagination, and as fancy is free, "one story is good till another is told."
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. ["Queen Ruth"]
II. [How a Mysterious Coal Barge came to the "King's Arms"]
III. [Maudlin Sweetapple]
IV. [The Old Rye House]
V. [How Master Rumbold told Lawrence Lee what the very Air might not hear]
VI. [Something in the Water]
VII. [Mistress Sheppard does not care for her Guests]
VIII. [Moonrakers]
IX. [In the Malt-yard]
X. [The Meeting on the Foot-bridge]
XI. ["He Died for his King"]
XII. [Mother Goose's Tales]
XIII. [The Sliding Panel]
XIV. [In the Warder's Room]
XV. [The Plot Thickens]
XVI. [A Little Difference of Opinion]
XVII. ["Dead Men tell no Tales"]
XVIII. ["God Save the King!"]
XIX. ["Stars and Garters"]
XX. ["A Friend in Need,"]
XXI. ["A Friend Indeed"]
XXII. [Our Sovereign Lord the King]
XXIII. ["Did you not Know?" she said]
XXIV. [Lawrence Sleeps on it]
XXV. [Supper at the "Silver Leopard"]
XXVI. ["Fire! Fire!"]
XXVII. ["In the Night all Cats are Gray"]
XXVIII. [Father and Daughter]
XXIX. [A Welcome Home]
XXX. [A Traveller from Newmarket]
XXXI. [Rumsey meets his Match]
XXXII. ["So, bring us to our palace; where we'll show
What's yet behind, that's meet you all should know"]
ILLUSTRATIONS.
[Rumsey's Guilt revealed to the King] ... Frontispiece