m, but he proved an awkward one, and had to be taught the duties of
his office.

"Will," said the colonel, as they were about to start, "you must give my
sister your hand to help her to mount."

The new groom gave her the wrong hand. Old Mrs. Lane, mother to the
colonel, who saw the starting, but knew not the secret, turned to her
son, saying satirically,--

"What a goodly horseman my daughter has got to ride before her!"

To ride before her it was, for, in the fashion of the day, groom and
mistress occupied one horse, the groom in front, the mistress behind.
Not two hours had they ridden, before the horse cast a shoe. A road-side
village was at hand, and they stopped to have the bare hoof shod. The
seeming groom held the horse's foot, while the smith hammered at the
nails. As they did so an amusing conversation took place.

"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.
The cook looked at him scornfully, and broke out in angry tones,--

"What countrymen are you, that you know not how to wind up a jack?"

Charles answered her contritely, repressing the merry twinkle in his
eye.

"I am a poor tenant's son of Colonel Lane, in Staffordshire," he said;
"we seldom have roast meat, and when we have, we don't make use of a
jack."