"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.
There is another amusing story told of this journey. Stopping at a house
near Stratford-upon-Avon, "Will Jackson" was sent to the kitchen, as
the groom's place. Here he found a buxom cook-maid, engaged in preparing
supper.
"Wind up the jack for me," said the maid to her supposed fellow-servant.
Charles, nothing loath, proceeded to do so. But he knew much less about
handling a jack than a sword, and awkwardly wound it up the wrong way.
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