SCENE ON THE RIVER AVON.
To ride before her it was, for, in the fashion of the day, groom and mistress occupied one horse, the groom in front, the mistress behind. Not two hours had they ridden, before the horse cast a shoe. A road-side village was at hand, and they stopped to have the bare hoof shod. The seeming groom held the horse's foot, while the smith hammered at the nails. As they did so an amusing conversation took place.
"What news have you?" asked Charles.
"None worth the telling," answered the smith; "nothing has happened since the beating of those rogues, the Scots."
"Have any of the English, that joined hands with the Scots, been taken?" asked Charles.
"Some of them, they tell me," answered the smith, hammering sturdily at the shoe; "but I do not hear that that rogue, Charles Stuart, has been taken yet."
"Faith," answered the prince, "if he should be taken, he deserves hanging more than all the rest, for bringing the Scots upon English soil."
"You speak well, gossip, and like an honest man," rejoined the smith, heartily. "And there's your shoe, fit for a week's travel on hard roads."
And so they parted, the king merrily telling his mistress the joke, when safely out of reach of the smith's ears.