A ROYAL FUGITIVE 



293 



lesser eminences, frown down upon the steep highway 

 on every side, and render the scenery nothing less 

 than mountainous, so that strangers in these parts, 

 overcome with ' terrour ' and apprehensions of worse to 

 come, wished themselves safe housed in the roadside 

 inn of Morecomblake, whose hospitable sign gave, and 

 still gives, promise of good entertainment. 



The run down into Charmouth from this point is 



a breakneck one. At this remote seaside place, in 

 that same year, 1651, Charles the Second had another 

 narrow escape. Travelling in bye- ways from the 

 disastrous field of Worcester on horseback, with his 

 staunch friends, Lord Wilmot and Colonel Wyndham, 

 arrano-ements had been made with the master of a 

 trading vessel hailing from Lyme, to put in at 

 Charmouth with a boat in the stillness of the night. 

 But they had reckoned without taking into account 

 either the simplicity of the sailor, or the inquisitive- 



