On Saturday morning the Lad said to the King: “This is a half-day. You must make your shoe this morning or not at all. It is my custom at one o’clock to close the forge and go to visit my Great-Aunt. I will be at work again on Monday, till when you must shift for yourself.” The King could hardly believe his luck in having matters so well settled, and he spent the morning so diligently that by noon he had produced a shoe which, if not that of a master craftsman, was at least adaptable to the purpose for which it had been fashioned. The Lad examined it and said reluctantly, “It will do,” and proceeded to show the King how to fasten it to Pepper’s hoof. “Why,” said the King, having the nag’s off forefoot in his hand, “here’s a stone in it. Small wonder she limped.” “It isn’t a stone,” said the Lad, extracting it, “it is a ruby.” And he exhibited to the King a ruby of such a glowing red that it was as though the souls of all the grapes of Burgundy had been pressed to create it. “You are a rich man now,” said the Lad quietly, “and can live as you will.” But William closed the Lad’s fingers over the stone. “Keep it,” he said, “for you have filled me for a week, and I have paid you with nothing but my breath.” “As you please,” said the Lad carelessly, and, tossing the stone upon a shelf, locked up the forge. “Now I am going to my Great-Aunt. There’s a cake in the larder.” So saying, he strolled away, and the King was left to his own devices. These consisted in bathing himself from head to foot till his body was as pure without as he desired his heart to be within; and in donning his fresh suit of linen. He would not break his fast, but waited, trembling and eager, till an hour before sundown, and then at last he set forth to mount the great hill with the sacred crown of trees upon its crest. When at last he stood upon the boundary of the Ring, his heart sprang for joy in his breast, and his breath nearly failed him with amazement at the beauty of the world which lay outspread for leagues below him. “Oh, lovely earth!” he cried aloud, “never till now have I known what beauty I lived in. How is it that we cannot see the wonder of our surroundings until we gaze upon them from afar? But if you look so fair from the hilltops, what must you appear from the very sky?” And lost in delight he turned his eyes upward, and was recalled to his senses by the sight of the sinking sun. “Lovely one, how nearly you have betrayed me!” he said, and smiling waved his hand to the dear earth, sealed up his lips, and entered the Ring. And here between the two midmost beeches he knelt down and buried his face in his hands, and prayed the spirits of that place to make him worthy.