[A Changed Man and Other Tales by Thomas Hardy]@TWC D-Link book
A Changed Man and Other Tales

CHAPTER X
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On the blade was inscribed the words 'ANDREA FERARA,' and among the many fine chasings were a rose and crown, the plume of the Prince of Wales, and two portraits; portraits of a man and a woman, the man's having the face of the first King Charles, and the woman's, apparently, that of his Queen.
Swetman, much awed and surprised, returned the articles to the closet, and went downstairs pondering.

Of his surmise he said nothing to his daughters, merely declaring to them that the gentleman was gone; and never revealing that he had been an eye-witness of the unpleasant scene in the orchard that was the immediate cause of the departure.
Nothing occurred in Hintock during the week that followed, beyond the fitful arrival of more decided tidings concerning the utter defeat of the Duke's army and his own disappearance at an early stage of the battle.
Then it was told that Monmouth was taken, not in his own clothes but in the disguise of a countryman.

He had been sent to London, and was confined in the Tower.
The possibility that his guest had been no other than the Duke made Swetman unspeakably sorry now; his heart smote him at the thought that, acting so harshly for such a small breach of good faith, he might have been the means of forwarding the unhappy fugitive's capture.

On the girls coming up to him he said, 'Get away with ye, wenches: I fear you have been the ruin of an unfortunate man!' On the Tuesday night following, when the yeoman was sleeping as usual in his chamber, he was, he said, conscious of the entry of some one.

Opening his eyes, he beheld by the light of the moon, which shone upon the front of his house, the figure of a man who seemed to be the stranger moving from the door towards the closet.


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