ways of life were as opposite as the Poles. The Doves were simple
men, and religious; but the Hawking Sopers were indeed a wild and
rowdy crew, and it is said that the King's father had hunted and
drunk with them until his estates were gambled away and his affairs
decayed of neglect, and nothing was left at last but the solitary
Barn which marked the northern boundary of his possessions. And
here, when his father was dead, our young King sat on a tussock of
hay with his golden crown on his head and his golden scepter in his
hand, and ate bread and cheese thrice a day, throwing the rind to
the rats and the crumbs to the swallows. His name was William, and
beyond the rats and the swallows he had no other company than a nag
called Pepper, whom he fed daily from the tussock he sat on.

But at the end of a week he said:

"It is a dull life. What should a King do in a Barn?"

So saying, he pulled the last handful of hay from under him, rising
up quickly before he had time to fall down, and gave it to his nag;
and next he tied up his scepter and crown with his change of linen
in a blue handkerchief; and last he fetched a rope and a sack and
put them on Pepper for bridle and saddle, and rode out of the Barn
leaving the door to swing.

"Let us go south, Pepper," said he, "for it is warmer to ride into
the sun than away from it, and so we shall visit my Father's lands
that might have been mine."

South they went, with the great Downs ahead of them, and who knew
what beyond? And first they came to the Hawking Sopers, who when