g,
Broad breast, full eyes, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tale, broad buttock, tender hide.'"

"Come," said Clarence, "your memory has atoned for your horse's victory,
and I quite forgive your conquest in return for your compliment; but
suffer me to ask how long you have commenced cavalier. The Arab's
tent is, if I err not, more a badge of your profession than the Arab's
steed."

King Cole (for the stranger was no less a person) looked at his
companion in surprise. "So you know me, then, sir! Well, it is a hard
thing for a man to turn honest, when people have so much readier a
recollection of his sins than his reform."

"Reform!" quoth Clarence, "am I then to understand that your Majesty has
abdicated your dominions under the greenwood tree?"

"You are," said Cole, eying his acquaintance inquisitively; "you are.

'I fear no more the heat of the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
I my worldly task have done,
Home am gone, and ta'en my wages.'"

"I congratulate you," said Clarence: "but only in part; for I have often
envied your past state, and do not know enough of your present to say
whether I should equally envy that."

"Why," answered Cole, "after all, we commit a great error in imagining
that it is the living wood or the dead wall which makes happiness. 'My
mind to me a kingdom is;' and it is that which you must envy, if you
honour anything belonging to me with that feeling."

"The precept is both good and old," answered Clarence; "yet I think it
was not a very favourite maxim of yours some years ago. I remember a
time when you thought no happiness could exist out of 'dingle and bosky
dell.' If not very intrusive on your secrets, may I know how long you
have changed your sentiments and manner of life? The reason of the
change I dare not presume to ask."

"Certainly," said the quondam gypsy, musingly, "certainly I have seen
your face before, and even the tone of your voice strikes me as not
wholly unfamiliar: yet I cannot for the life of me guess whom I have the
honour of addressing. However, sir, I have no hesitation in answering
your questions. It was just five years ago, last summer, when I left
the Tents of Kedar. I now reside about a mile hence. It is but a hundred
yards off the high road, and if you would not object to step aside and
suffer a rasher, or aught else, to be 'the shoeing-horn to draw on