92

THE TRIAL.

“ One day, as I was travelling through the
country with a horse and wagon of your
father’s, Rollo, — it was this very wagon, but
another horse, —I found the horse went
lame a little, about the middle of the fore-
noon. I drove on carefully, until I came to
a blacksmith’s shop, by the side of the road.
The blacksmith examined the horse’s foot,
and said it was nothing but some gravel that
had got under his shoe. So he took off the
shoe, and put it on again, and I drove on.
The horse went very well for an hour or
two, but then began to go lame again, and
his lameness increased very fast, until I
arrived at a pretty large village, where I
expected to stop to dinner.

“I drove directly to a blacksmith’s shop in
the village. It was quite a large shop, and
the master blacksmith seemed to be a very
good workman. He looked at my horse’s
foot, and said the shoe was not put on