It was named 'Boscobel,' he said; and
that word has henceforth conjured up to the mind's eye the remembrance
of a band of tired heroes, riding through woody glades to an ancient
house, where shelter was given to the worn-out horses and scarcely less
harassed riders.
But not so rapidly did they in reality proceed. A Catholic family,
named Giffard, were living at White-Ladies, about twenty six miles from
Worcester. This was only about half a mile from Boscobel: it had been a
convent of Cistercian nuns, whose long white cloaks of old had once been
seen, ghost-like, amid forest glades or on hillock green. The
White-Ladies had other memories to grace it besides those of holy
vestals, or of unholy Cavaliers. From the time of the Tudors, a
respectable family named Somers had owned the White-Ladies, and
inhabited it since its white-garbed tenants had been turned out, and the
place secularized. 'Somers's House,' as it was called, (though more
happily, the old name has been restored,) had received Queen Elizabeth
on her progress. The richly cultivated old conventual gardens had
supplied the Queen with some famous pears, and, in the fulness of her
approval of the fruit, she had added them to the City arms.
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