the idea of
marrying the Archbishop's daughter.

The quiet, dusky paths had led him to a point where high walls carefully
shrouded in creepers shut off the royal stables from view. Through
circular barred grilles he could hear the noise of horses champing in
their stalls; and the comfortable sound drew him round to the entrance.
Opening a wicket, he stood in a dimly lighted court, but the buildings
surrounding it contained plenty of light, and in the harness rooms a
brisk sound of furbishing went on.

Turning to the left he passed into the largest stable of all, a spacious
and well-aired chamber of corridor-like proportions divided up into
stalls. To right and left of him stood the famous piebald ponies,
lazily munching fodder and settling down to their last sleep before the
unusual exertions which would be required of them on the morrow.

But these pampered minions did not know as he did what the morrow had in
store: how, for the sake of effect, they would be harnessed to a huge
obsolete coach weighing a couple of tons, each clad in an elaborate
costume of crimson and gold weighing by itself considerably more than a
full-grown rider. To the King this presumed ignorance of theirs was a
matter for envy; he knew his own part in the affair well enough; the
thought of it oppressed him.

He walked down the double line--twelve in all--pausing now and then to
take a closer look and judge of their condition, but keeping always at a
respectful distance, for he was aware that almost without exception they
were an ill-tempered crew. Contemplating the astonishing rotundity of
their well-filled bodies, the spacious ease of their accommodation, the
outward dignity of circumstances, and the absolute lack of freedom which
conditioned their whole existence, he was struck with the resemblance
between himself and them; and recalling how, with a similar sense of
kinship, St. Francis had preached to the lower forms of life he too
became imbued with the spirit of homily and prophecy, though it did not
actually find its way into words.

"You and I, little brothers"--so might we loosely interpret the
meditations of his heart--"you and I are much of a muchness, and can
sing our 'Te Deum' or our 'Nunc Dimittis' in almost the same words. We
are both of a carefully selected breed and of a diminished usefulness.
But because of our high position we are fed and housed not merely in
comfort but in luxury; and wherever we go crowds stand to gape