A few years later, in the bright summertide, when the politic rule of Henry the Seventh was causing the exhausted country to recover from the ravages of the long civil war, Sir Paul Stukely and his two sons, fine, handsome lads of ten and twelve years old, were making a little journey (as we should now call it, though it seemed a long one to the excited and delighted boys) from his pleasant manor near St. Albans through a part of the county of Essex.

Paul had prospered during these past years.  The king had rewarded his early fealty by a grant of lands and a fine manor near to St. Albans, whither he had removed his wife and family, so as to be within easy reach of them at such times as he was summoned by the king to Westminster.  The atmosphere of home was dearer to him than that of courts, and he was no longer away from his own house than his duty to his king obliged him to be.  But he had been much engaged by public duties of late, and the holiday he had promised himself had been long in coming.  It had been a promise of some standing to his two elder sons, Edward and Paul, that he would take them some day to visit the spots which he talked of when they climbed upon his knee after his day’s work was done to beg for the story of “the little prince,” as they still called him.  Paul himself was eager again to visit those familiar haunts, and see if any of those who had befriended the homeless wanderer were living still, and would recognize the bronzed and prosperous knight of today.

And now they were entering a familiar tract; and the father told his boys to keep their eyes well open, for the village of Much Waltham could not be far off and every pathway in this part of the forest had been traversed by him and the prince in the days that had gone by.

“I hear the sound of hammering,” cried the younger Paul in great excitement soon.  “O father, we must be getting very near!  It is like a smith’s forge.  I am sure it must be Will Ives or his father.  Oh, do let us ride on quickly and see!”

The riders pressed onward through the widening forest path, and, sure enough, found themselves quickly in the little clearing which surrounded the village of Much Waltham.  How well the elder Paul remembered it all! the village church, the smithy, and the low thatched cottages, the small gardens, now brighter than he had seen them in the dreary winter months; the whole place wearing an air of increased comfort and prosperity.

The flame within the forge burned cheerily, and revealed an active figure within, hard at work over some glowing metal, which emitted showers of brilliant sparks.  Sir Paul rode forward and paused at the door with a smile of recognition on his face.  The smith came forward to see if the traveller required any service of him, but was somewhat taken aback by the greeting he received.

“Well, worthy Will Ives, time has dealt more kindly with you than with me, I trow.  You are scarce a whit changed from the day, seventeen years back come November, when I first stopped in sorry plight at this forge, with your pretty wife as my companion, to get your assistance as far as Figeon’s Farm.  Why, and here is Mistress Joan herself; and I warrant that that fine lad is the son of both of you.