CHAPTER XII

RUFUS. A RUDDY KING

This monarch was always very angry and red in the face and was therefore unpopular, so that his death was a Good Thing: it occurred in the following memorable way. Rufus was hunting one day in the New Forest, when William Tell (the memorable crack-shot, inventor of Cross-bow puzzles) took unerring aim at a reddish apple, which had fallen on to the King’s head, and shot him through the heart. Sir Isaac Walton, who happened to be present at the time, thereupon invented the Law of Gravity. Thus was the reign of Rufus brought to a Good End.