"And you know how great is the trust you--nay, we have undertaken.
But, as he says, he has learnt the true fidelity of a leathern
jerkin."
Then Jane Lane told Steadfast of the King's flight from Worcester,
and adventures at Boscobel with the Penderells, and how she had
brought him to Abbotsleigh, in hopes of finding a ship at Bristol,
but that failing, it was too perilous for him to remain there, so
that she was helping him as far as Castle Carey on his way to Trent.
Before they were clear of the wood, Stead asked her to pause. He
knocked off the tell-tale shoe with the help of a stone, threw it
away into the middle of a bramble, and then after a little
consultation, she decided on herself encountering the smith, not
perhaps having much confidence in the readiness of speech or
invention of her companion.
When they arrived at the forge, where good-humoured, brawny Harry
Blane was no small contrast to his gaunt compeer Original-Sin
Hopkins, she averred that she was travelling from her relations, and
having been obliged to send her servant back for a packet that had
been forgotten, this good youth, who had come to her help when her
horse had cast a shoe, had undertaken to guide her to the smith's,
and to take her again to meet her man, if he did not come for her
himself.
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