lad drive in a
few nails; and just as the task was commenced, there came to the forge
a lady in a camlet riding dress and black silk hood, walking beside
a stout horse, which a groom was leading with great care, for it had
evidently lost a shoe. And it had a saddle with a pillion on which they
had been riding double, after the usual fashion of travelling for young
and healthy gentlewomen in those days of bad roads.

The lady, a quiet, self-possessed person, not in her first youth, came
forward, and in the first pause in the blacksmith's declamation, begged
that he would attend to her horse.

He gave a nod as if intending her to wait till Steadfast's work was
done, and went on. "And has it not been already brought about that the
man of blood hath--"

"So please you," interrupted the lady, "to shoe my horse at once. I
am on my way to Abbotsleigh, and my cousin, Mr. Norton, knows that my
business brooks no delay."

Mr. Norton, though a Royalist, was still the chief personage in that
neighbourhood, and his name produced sufficient effect on Original-Sin
to make him come forward, look at the hoof, and select a shoe from those
hung on the walls of his forge. Little Ben looked on, highly delighted
to watch the proceedings, and Steadfast, as he waited, glanced towards
the servant, a well-made young man, in a trim, sober suit of grey cloth,
with a hat a good deal slouched over a dark swarthy face, that struck
Stead as having been seen by him before.

After all, the lady's horse was the first finished. Hopkins looked at
all the other three shoes, tapped them with his hammer, and found
them secure, received the money from the lady, but gave very slight
salutations as the pair remounted, and rode away.

Then he twisted up his features and observed, "Here is a dispensation!
As I am a living soul, this horse shoe was made at Worcester. I know the
make. My cousin was apprenticed there."

"Well, outlandish work goes against one's stomach," said one of the
bystanders, "but what of that, man?"

"Seest thou not, Jabez Holt? Is not the young man there one of them who
trouble Israel, and the lady is striving for his escape. Mr. Norton is
well known as a malignant at heart, and his man Pope hath been to and
fro these last days as though evil were being concerted. I would that
good Master Hatcham were here."

"Poor lad. Let him alone. 'Tis hard he should not get off," said one of
the bystanders.

"I tell thee he is one of the bro