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minister at court, and in high favour, till somebody told the crown-prince that he had spoken disrepectfully concerning the turning out of his royal highness’s toes, and the king that he did not lay on taxes enough, whereon the north country lord was turned out of office, and banished to his own estate. There he lived for some weeks in very bad temper. The servants said nothing would please him, and the villagers put on their worst clothes lest he should raise their rents; but one day in the harvest time his lordship chanced to meet Spare gathering watercresses at a meadow stream, and fell into talk with the cobbler.

“How it was nobody could tell, but from the hour of that discourse the great lord cast away his melancholy: he forgot his lost office and his court enemies, the king’s taxes and the crown-prince’s toes, and went about with a noble train hunting, fishing, and making merry in his hall, where all travellers were entertained, and all the poor were welcome. This strange story spread through the north country, and great company came to the cobbler’s hut—rich men who had lost their money, poor men who had lost their friends, beauties who had grown old, wits who had gone out of fashion, all came to talk with Spare, and whatever their troubles had been, all went home