But though he handled his tools with more dexterity than he had yet exhibited, the Lad petulantly pushed aside the first shoe he made, which to the King appeared to be, if anything, superior to the one he had made on Saturday. The Lad, however, quickly explained himself, saying: “A master-smith who intends to make his apprentice his equal will not let him rest at the halfway house. I made a shoe like this when I was fourteen, and all my father said was, ‘I have hopes for you.’” So for yet another week the King’s nose was kept to the grindstone, and it would have irritated most men to find their good work repeatedly condemned; but William was, as you may have observed, singularly sweet-tempered, besides which he desired nothing so much as to remain where he was. And for another five days he slept and ate and worked, until the muscles of his arms began to swell, and he swung the hammer with as much ease as his master, who now left a great part of the work entirely in his hands. Although in the matter of the third shoe he refused to be satisfied. Nevertheless on Saturday morning the King, making a last effort before the forge was shut, submitted a shoe so far beyond anything he had yet achieved, that the Lad could not but say, “This is a good shoe.” And Pepper, seeing them coming, lifted her off hind-foot to be shod. “Now as I live!” cried the King. “Another stone! And how she contrived to hobble so far is a miracle.” “It isn’t a stone,” said the Lad, “it is a diamond.” And he presented to the King a diamond of such triumphant brilliance that it might have been conceived of the ambitions of the mightiest monarch of the earth. “You now own surpassing wealth,” said the Lad dejectedly, “and you have no more need to work.” But William would not even touch the stone. “Keep it,” he said, “for you have befriended me for a week, and I have given you only the strength of my arms.” “Let it be so,” said the Lad gently, and put the diamond in his belt. “I must not keep my Great-Aunt waiting. There’s a cake in the larder.” So saying he went his way, and the King went his; which, as you may surmise, was to the bath and his clean clothes. He did not go into the larder, and an hour before sunset made the ascent of the hill, and for the third time stood like a conqueror upon the crest. And as he gazed over the lands below his heart throbbed with a passion for the earth that was half agony and half love, unless indeed it was the whole agony of love.