on I informed the duchess and the company generally, for, as was
usual, a number of my country neighbors had come to compliment me on my
return, that there was some sport of a rare kind on foot; and we
adjourned, Maignan, followed by four pages bearing lights, leading the way
to that end of the terrace which abuts on the linden avenue. Here, a score
of grooms holding torches aloft had been arranged in a circle so that the
impromptu theater thus formed, which Maignan had ordered with much taste,
was as light as in the day. On a sloping bank at one end seats had been
placed for those who had supped at my table, while the rest of the company
found such places of vantage as they could; their number, indeed,
amounting, with my household, to two hundred persons. In the center of the
open space a small forge fire had been kindled, the red glow of which
added much to the strangeness of the scene; and on the anvil beside it
were ranged a number of horses' and donkeys' shoes, with a full complement
of the tools used by smiths. All being ready I gave the word to bring in
the prisoners, and escorted by La Trape and six of my guards, they were
marched into the arena. In their pale and terrified faces, and the shaking
limbs which could scarce support them to their appointed stations, I read
both the consciousness of guilt and the apprehension of immediate death;
it was plain that they expected nothing less. I was very willing to play
with their fears, and for some time looked at them in silence, while all
wondered with lively curiosity what would ensue. I then addressed them
gravely, telling the innkeeper that I knew well he had loosened each year
a shoe of my horse, in order that his brother might profit by the job of
replacing it; and went on to reprove the smith for the ingratitude which
had led him to return my bounty by the conception of so knavish a trick.

Upon this they confessed their guilt, and flinging themselves upon their
knees with many tears and prayers begged for mercy. This, after a decent
interval, I permitted myself to grant. "Your lives, which are forfeited,
shall be spared," I pronounced. "But punished you must be. I therefore
ordain that Simon, the smith, at once fit, nail, and properly secure a
pair of iron shoes to Andrew's heels, and that then Andrew, who by that
time will have picked up something of the smith's art, do the same to
Simon. So will you both learn to avoid such shoeing tricks for the
future."

I