18- CHARLES II. IN DORSET. 



turned off to the left from the Dorchester-road when a mile or 

 two out from Bridport, and reached the little village of Broad- 

 winsor, about six or seven miles distant. In the meantime (to 

 use the words of Mr. Hughes) a dangerous mischief had been 

 brooding in their rear. The ostler at the inn at Charmouth, an 

 old Republican soldier, had drawn suspicious conclusions from 

 observing the horses kept saddled in the stables all the previous 

 night, as well as from the frequent visits of Colonel Wyndham 

 and Peters to the seashore. After communicating his thoughts 

 to his mistress, who checked him sharply for his officiousuess, he 

 took Lord Wilinot's horse, which had cast a shoe, to the neigh- 

 bouring forge. Hammet, the blacksmith, a shrewd artisan, 

 instantly remarked " This horse has but thi-ee shoes, and they 

 were all set in different counties, and one in Worcestershire." On 

 the departure of the King the ostler lost no time in seeking to 

 communicate this hint and his own comments to Bartholomew 

 Wesley, the Puritan minister of the place (the grandfather, it is said, 

 of the famous John Wesley), whom he found engaged in family 

 worship. This caused some delay, but " learning, however, after- 

 wards, the state of facts either from Hammet or the ostler, the 

 preacher made all speed to the inn, preparing in his mind the 

 most successful mode of entrapping the hostess into a confession. 

 ' Why, how now, Margaret,' quoth he, ' you are a maid of honour.' 

 ' What mean you by that, Mr. Parson V rejoined Margaret, tartly. 

 ' Why, Charles Stuart lay last night at your house and kissed you 

 at his departure, so that you now cannot but be a maid of 

 honour.' " The woman then (says Ellesdon) began to be very 

 angry, and told him he was a scurvy-conditioned man to go about 

 to bring her and her house into trouble. " But," said she, " if I 

 thought it was the King, as you say it was, I should think the 

 better of my lips all the days of my life ; so, Mr. Parson, get you 

 out of my house, or I'll get those who shall kick you out." 

 Digesting this rebuff as he might, the minister accompanied the 

 ostler before a magistrate (said to be Mr. Butler, of Commer), 

 who, not seeing, or choosing not to see, any call for his own 



