Now as he lay thinking of these and other things he fancied that he could hear the footfall of a man on the road leading up to his house—­a byway, which led scarce anywhere else; and therefore a tread was at any time more apt to startle the inmates of the homestead than if it had stood in a thoroughfare.  The footfall came opposite the gate, and stopped there.  One minute, two minutes passed, and the pedestrian did not proceed.  Christopher Swetman got out of bed, and opened the casement.  ’Hoi! who’s there?’ cries he.

‘A friend,’ came from the darkness.

‘And what mid ye want at this time o’ night?’ says Swetman.

‘Shelter.  I’ve lost my way.’

‘What’s thy name?’

There came no answer.

‘Be ye one of King Monmouth’s men?’

’He that asks no questions will hear no lies from me.  I am a stranger; and I am spent, and hungered.  Can you let me lie with you to-night?’

Swetman was generous to people in trouble, and his house was roomy.  ’Wait a bit,’ he said, ‘and I’ll come down and have a look at thee, anyhow.’

He struck a light, put on his clothes, and descended, taking his horn-lantern from a nail in the passage, and lighting it before opening the door.  The rays fell on the form of a tall, dark man in cavalry accoutrements and wearing a sword.  He was pale with fatigue and covered with mud, though the weather was dry.

‘Prithee take no heed of my appearance,’ said the stranger.  ’But let me in.’

That his visitor was in sore distress admitted of no doubt, and the yeoman’s natural humanity assisted the other’s sad importunity and gentle voice.  Swetman took him in, not without a suspicion that this man represented in some way Monmouth’s cause, to which he was not unfriendly in his secret heart.  At his earnest request the new-comer was given a suit of the yeoman’s old clothes in exchange for his own, which, with his sword, were hidden in a closet in Swetman’s chamber; food was then put before him and a lodging provided for him in a room at the back.

Here he slept till quite late in the morning, which was Sunday, the sixth of July, and when he came down in the garments that he had borrowed he met the household with a melancholy smile.  Besides Swetman himself, there were only his two daughters, Grace and Leonard (the latter was, oddly enough, a woman’s name here), and both had been enjoined to secrecy.  They asked no questions and received no information; though the stranger regarded their fair countenances with an interest almost too deep.  Having partaken of their usual breakfast of ham and cider he professed weariness and retired to the chamber whence he had come.

In a couple of hours or thereabout he came down again, the two young women having now gone off to morning service.  Seeing Christopher bustling about the house without assistance, he asked if he could do anything to aid his host.