‘Excels a common one
In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone.’”
“Eh, sir,” cried our stranger, as his eyes sparkled at the verses: “I would own that your horse were worth all the horses in the kingdom, if you brought Will Shakspeare to prove it. And I am also willing to confess that your steed does fairly merit the splendid praise which follows the lines you have quoted,—
‘Round hoofed, short jointed, fetlocks shag and long,
Broad breast, full eyes, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tale, broad buttock, tender hide.’”
“Come,” said Clarence, “your memory has atoned for your horse’s victory, and I quite forgive your conquest in return for your compliment; but suffer me to ask how long you have commenced cavalier. The Arab’s tent is, if I err not, more a badge of your profession than the Arab’s steed.”
King Cole (for the stranger was no less a person) looked at his companion in surprise. “So you know me, then, sir! Well, it is a hard thing for a man to turn honest, when people have so much readier a recollection of his sins than his reform.”
“Reform!” quoth Clarence, “am I then to understand that your Majesty has abdicated your dominions under the greenwood tree?”
“You are,” said Cole, eying his acquaintance inquisitively; “you are.
‘I fear no more the heat of the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
I my worldly task have done,
Home am gone, and ta’en my wages.’”
“I congratulate you,” said Clarence: “but only in part; for I have often envied your past state, and do not know enough of your present to say whether I should equally envy that.”
“Why,” answered Cole, “after all, we commit a great error in imagining that it is the living wood or the dead wall which makes happiness. ‘My mind to me a kingdom is;’ and it is that which you must envy, if you honour anything belonging to me with that feeling.”