Joan: Oh, no! Oh, no! It is only--it is a very nice story--but--

Martin: What cannot be said aloud can frequently be whispered.

He leaned his ear close to her mouth, and very shyly she whispered into it.

Joan (whispering very shyly): Why must the young King join a Brotherhood? I thought...this was to be a...love story.

Martin smiled and chose an apple from her lap.

"Keep this for me," said he, "until I ask for it; and if you are not then satisfied, neither will I be")

So impatient (resumed Martin) was the King to enter the Brotherhood, that he abandoned his idea of visiting the Huddle Stone and the Wapping Thorp (which would have taken him out of his course), and, without even waiting to break his fast, leaped on to Pepper's back and turned her head southwest towards the hills. And in his eagerness he failed to remark how Pepper stumbled at every second step. Before he had gone a mile he came to the Guess Gate.

Of the Guess Gate, as you may know, all men ask a question in pa.s.sing through, and in the back-swing of the Gate it creaks an answer. So nothing more natural than that the King, having flung the Gate open, should cry aloud once more:

"Gate, Gate! What should a King do in a Barn?"

"Now at last," thought he, "I shall be told whether to dance or to pray in it." And he stood listening eagerly as the Gate hung an instant on its outward journey and then began to creak home.

"He--should--rule--in--it--he--should--rule--in--it--he--should--"

squeaked the Guess Gate, and then latch clicked and it was silent.

This disconcerted William.

"Now I am worse off than ever," he sighed. "Pray, Pepper, can this advice be bettered?"

As usual when he questioned her, the nag p.r.i.c.ked up her ears and whinnied so violently that he nearly fell off her back. Nevertheless, he kept Pepper's head in a beeline for Chanctonbury, never noticing how very ill she was going, and presently crossed the great High Road beyond which lay the Bush Hovel. The Wise Woman was at home; from afar the King saw her sitting outside the Hovel mending her broom with a withe from the Bush.

"Here if anywhere," rejoiced William, "I shall learn the truth."

He dismounted and approached the old woman, cap in hand.

"Wise Woman," he said respectfully, "you know most things, but do you know this--whether a King should dance or pray or rule in his Barn?"

"He should do all three, young man," said the Wise Woman.

"But--!" exclaimed William.

"I'm busy," snapped the Wise Woman. "You men will always be chattering, as though pots need never be stewed nor cobwebs swept." So saying, she went into the Hovel and slammed the door.

"Pepper," said the poor King, "I am at my wits' ends. Go where yours lead you."

At this Pepper whinnied in a perfect frenzy of delight, and the King had to clasp both arms round her neck to avoid tumbling off.

Now the little nag preferred roads to beelines over copses and ditches, and she turned back and ambled along the highway so very lamely that it became impossible even for her preoccupied rider not to perceive that she had cast all her four shoes.

"Poor beast!" he cried dismayed, "how has this happened, and where? Oh, Pepper, how could you be so careless? I have not a penny in my purse to buy you new shoes, my poor Pepper. Do you not remember where you lost them?"

The little nag licked her master's hand (for he had dismounted to examine her trouble), and looked at him with great eyes full of affection, and then she flung up her head and whinnied louder than ever. The sound of it was like nothing so much as laughter. Then she went on, hobbling as best she could, and the King walked by her side with his hand on her neck. In this way they came to a small village, and here the nag turned up a by-road and halted outside the blacksmith's forge. The smith's Lad stood within, clinking at the anvil, the s.m.u.ttiest Lad smith ever had.

"Lad!" cried the King.

The Lad looked up from his work and came at once to the door, wiping his hands upon his leather ap.r.o.n.

"Where am I?" asked the King.

"In the village of Washington," said the Lad.

"What! Under the Ring?" cried the King.

"Yes, sir," said the Lad.

"A blessing on you!" said the King joyfully, and clapped his hand on the Lad's shoulder. "Pepper, you have solved the problem and led me to my destiny."

"Is Pepper your nag's name?" asked the blacksmith's Lad.

"It is," said the King; "her only one."

"Then she has one more name than she has shoes," said the Lad. "How came she to lose them?"

"I didn't notice," confessed the King.

"You must have been thinking very deeply," remarked the Lad. "Are you in love?"

"I am not quite twenty-one," said the King.

"I see. Do you want your nag shod?"

"I do. But I have spent my last penny."

"Earn another then," said the Lad.

"I did not even earn the last one," said the King shamefacedly. "I have never worked in my life."

"Why, where have you lived?" exclaimed the Lad.

"In a Barn."

"But one works in a Barn--"

"Stop!" cried the king, putting his fingers in his ears. "One prays in a Barn."

"Very likely," said the Lad, looking at him curiously. "Are you going to pray in one?"

"Yes," said the King. "When is the New Moon?"

"Next Sat.u.r.day."