"My dear child," he asked, "in what can I help
you? Your mother is well, I trust."
"Oh yes, sir!" said Rose; and with reliance and hope, as if she had
been speaking to a father, she explained their distress and
perplexity, then stood in silence while the good doctor, a slow
thinker, considered.
"First, to hide him," he said; "he may not be here, for this--the old
parson's house--will be the very first spot they will search. But we
will try. You rode, you say, Mistress Rose; where is your horse?"
"Ah! there is one difficulty," said Rose, "Edmund is holding him now;
but where shall we leave him?"
"Let us come first to see the young gentleman," said Dr. Bathurst;
and they walked together to the lane where Edmund was waiting, the
doctor explaining by the way that he placed his chief dependence on
Harry Fletcher, a fisherman, thoroughly brave, trustworthy, and
loyal, who had at one time been a sailor, and had seen, and been
spoken to by King Charles himself. He lived in a little lonely hut
about half a mile distant; he was unmarried, and would have been
quite alone, but that he had taken a young nephew, whose father had
been killed on the Royalist side, to live with him, and to be brought
up to his fishing business.
Edmund and Rose both agreed that there could be no better hope of
escape than in trusting to this good man; and as no time was to be
lost, they parted for the present, Rose returning to the cottage to
spend the day with Anne Bathurst, and the clergyman walking with the
young cavalier to the place where the fisherman lived.
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