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Updated: June 25, 2025
The others Squire Boatfield and Mistress de Chavasse, Lady Sue and Sir Marmaduke had stood aside in the small fore-court, to enable the small cortège to pass. Directly Richard Lambert and the old woman disappeared within the gloom of the cottage interior, these four people each individually the prey of harrowing thoughts once more turned their steps towards the open road.
A reverent feeling had killed all curiosity: bewilderment at the extraordinary and wholly unexpected turn of events had been merged in a sense of respectful awe, which rendered every mouth silent, and lowered every lid. Squire Boatfield, almost paralyzed with astonishment, had murmured half stupidly: "Adam Lambert ... dead? ... I do not understand."
"Meseems that 'tis somewhat strange," he said quite calmly, even lightly, to Squire Boatfield who seemed to be preparing to go, "that these people the Lamberts who alone knew the ... the murdered man intimately, should keep so persistently, so determinedly out of the way."
Presently he turned deliberately to his left and the next moment his figure was merged in the gloom. Round the angle of the wall Squire Boatfield was still standing, sipping buttered ale. Less than two minutes later, Sir Marmaduke reappeared in the doorway.
"And so the exiled prince lodged in your cottage, mistress?" said Squire Boatfield, after a while, turning to Mistress Lambert. The old woman's eyes wandered from Richard to the squire. The look of fear in them vanished, giving place to good-natured placidity. She shuffled forward, in the manner which had so oft irritated her lodger.
He tugged at his neckbands and his hand fell heavily against the trestle-table. "Nay! 'tis nothing," he said with a harsh laugh as Master Mounce with an ejaculation of deep concern ran round to him with a chair, whilst Squire Boatfield quickly put out an arm as if he were afraid that his friend would fall.
He had seen her laughing gaily, whilst Squire Boatfield used profane language, and smile with contemptuous merriment at the two young men at her feet; he had also seen the change in her manner, the sudden wistful look, the quick sigh, the irritability and the petulance. But his own grave face expressed neither disapproval at the one mood nor astonishment at the other.
Sir Timothy Harrison at this juncture had the misfortune of expending his muscular energy in hitting Squire Boatfield violently on the shin with an ill-aimed ball. "Damn!" ejaculated the latter, heedless of the strict fines imposed by my Lord Protector on unseemly language. "I ... verily beg the ladies' pardon ... but ... this young jackanapes nearly broke my shin-bone."
They were now standing beside their master's cob, some few yards down the road, which from this point leads in a straight course down to Sarre. Not far from the entrance to the forge, Boatfield saw petty-constable Pyot in close converse with Master Hymn-of-Praise Busy, butler to Sir Marmaduke.
Sue had thrown an appealing look at Squire Boatfield, when she saw that dismal cortège. Her husband, her prince! the descendant of the Bourbons, the regenerator of France lying there unrecognizable, horrible and loathsome in a rough wooden coffin hastily nailed together by a village carpenter.
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