‘The Shepherd and the King.’[76] King Alfred, disguised in ragged clothes, meets a shepherd, and all but demands a taste of his scrip and bottle. The shepherd will make him win his dinner, sword and buckler against sheep-hook. They fight four hours, and the king cries truce; ‘there is no sturdier fellow in the land than thou,’ says the king; ‘nor a lustier roister than thou,’ says the shepherd. The shepherd thinks his antagonist at best a ruined prodigal, but offers to take him as his man; Alfred accepts the place, is equipped with sheep-hook, tar-box, and dog, and accompanies his master home. Dame Gillian doubts him to be a cut-throat, and rates him roundly for letting her cake burn as he sits by the fire.[77] Early the next morning Alfred blows his horn, to the consternation of Gill and her husband, who are still abed. A hundred men alight at the door; they have long been looking for their lord. The shepherd expects to be hanged; both he and his wife humbly beg pardon. Alfred gives his master a thousand wethers and pasture ground to feed them, and will change the cottage into a stately hall. ‘King James and the Tinker.’[78] King James, while chasing his deer, drops his nobles, and rides to an ale-house in search of new pleasures, finds a tinker there, and sets to drinking with him. The tinker has never seen the king, and wishes he might; James says that if he will get up behind him he shall see the king. The tinker fears that he shall not know the king from his lords; the nobles will all be bare, the king covered. When they come to the greenwood the nobles gather about the king and stand bare; the tinker whispers, ‘they are all gallant and gay, which, then, is the king?’ ‘It must be you or I,’ answers James, for the rest are all uncovered. The tinker falls on his knees, beseeching mercy; the king makes him a knight with five hundred a year. (Compare the story of James Fifth of Scotland and John Howieson, Scott’s Tales of a Grandfather, ch. 27.) ‘The King and the Forester.’[79] King William the Third, forbidden to hunt by a forester who does not recognize him, tries in vain to bribe the man, makes himself known, presents the forester with fifty guineas, and appoints him ranger. ‘The Royal Frolick, or, King William and his Nobles’ Entertainment at the Farmer’s House on his return from the Irish wars.’[80] King William, ‘returning to London from Limerick fight,’ stops at a farm-house ‘for merriment sake,’ and asks country cheer for himself and his nobles. The farmer and his wife have gone to the next market-town to see the king pass, and their daughter alone is at home. She serves bacon and eggs, all that she has; the king throws her ten guineas, and one of his lords adds two for loyal sentiments which the girl had expressed. In a Second Part the farmer and his wife, when they return, learn that the king is at their house, are ordered into his presence, and are rewarded for the meal which had been furnished.[81]