a cup
of ale,' as our plain forefathers were wont wittily to say, why, I shall
be very happy to show you my habitation. You will have a double welcome,
from the circumstance of my having been absent from home for the last
three days."

Clarence, mindful of his journey, was about to decline the invitation,
when a few heavy drops falling began to fulfil the cloudy promise of the
morning. "Trust," said Cole, "one who has been for years a watcher of
the signs and menaces of the weather: we shall have a violent shower
immediately. You have now no choice but to accompany me home."

"Well," said Clarence, yielding with a good grace, "I am glad of so good
an excuse for intruding on your hospitality.

'O sky!
Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak?'"

"Bravo!" cried the ex-chief, too delighted to find a comrade so well
acquainted with Shakspeare's sonnets to heed the little injustice
Clarence had done the sky, in accusing it of a treachery its black
clouds had by no means deserved. "Bravo, sir; and now, my palfrey
against your steed,--trot, eh? or gallop?"

"Trot, if it must be so," said Clarence, superciliously; "but I am a few
paces before you."

"So much the better," cried the jovial chief. "Little John's mettle will
be the more up: on with you, sir; he who breaks into a canter loses;
on!"

And Clarence slightly touching his beautiful steed, the race was begun.
At first his horse, which was a remarkable stepper, as the modern
Messrs. Anderson and Dyson would say, greatly gained the advantage. "To
the right," cried the ci-devant gypsy, as Linden had nearly passed
a narrow lane which led to the domain of the ex-king. The turn gave
"Little John" an opportunity which he seized to advantage; and, to
Clarence's indignant surprise, he beheld Cole now close behind, now
beside, and now--now--before! In the heat of the moment he put spurs
rather too sharply to his horse, and the spirited animal immediately
passed his competitor, but--in a canter!

"Victoria!" cried Cole, keeping back his own steed. "Victoria! confess
it!"

"Pshaw," said Clarence, petulantly.

"Nay, sir, never mind it," quoth the retired sovereign; "perhaps it was
but a venial transgression of your horse, and on other ground I should
not have beat you."

It is very easy to be generous when one is quite sure one is the victor.
Clarence felt this, and, muttering out something about the sharp an