By the help of a groom he was mounted, and a moment later he was out of the inn yard. But now a strange thing happened. He was no sooner out of the town than the horse refused to be controlled. In vain the little spy tried to head him toward Doncaster. The stranger had removed the bit, putting in its place a wisp of straw, which the horse quickly chewed to pieces, and then, with a shake of the head, he galloped off to the south.
[Illustration: Walter Skinner's horse refused to be controlled]
"Thou beast!" cried the spy. "What meanest thou? Thou art held in by bit and bridle. Dost not know it?"
It seemed that the horse did not, for he went on at a faster pace.
"Thou art worse than the prior's horse!" cried Walter Skinner, dropping the reins and clinging round the animal's neck. "I would I had the stranger that did sell thee to me! I would crack his pate also, even as I will the pate of the groom at the Green Dragon."
Giving no heed to the remonstrances of his rider or the unevenness of the road, the horse kept on until he entered the gates of Lincoln, and stopped before the Swan with a loud and joyous neigh.
At the sound two grooms ran out. "Here he be!" cried one. "Here be Black Tom that was stole but two nights agone," cried the other; while in great amazement Walter Skinner sat up and gazed from one to the other.
"What meanest thou, sirrah?" he demanded of the second groom. "Sayest thou a horse is stolen when I did pay good money for him but this morning? And, moreover, who would steal such a beast that will mind not the bridle and only runs his course the faster for the spur?"
"Ay, thou knewest not that he was stolen, no doubt," retorted the second groom, sarcastically. "But here cometh master, who will soon pull thee down from thy high perch, thou little minute of a dirty man. Thou hast slept in the swamp over night, I do be bound, and now comest to brave it out, seeing thou canst not make way with the horse."
"I would have thee know, villain, that I serve the king, and did buy the horse in Gainsborough this morn to replace the one which the young lord did cut loose. And whether I did sleep in the swamp or in a duke's chamber is naught to thee or to thy master. I have been so shaken up this morn over thy rough roads and by thy vile beast of a horse that thou and thy master shall pay for it. What! is the servant of the king to be sent into the Isle of Axholme by an idiot groom at the Green Dragon? And, being there, is he to be planted in the mire like a rush by a Saxon serving-man? And is his horse to be cut loose by the young lord at the word of that same Saxon serving-man? And is he to be carried behind Richard Wood to Gainsborough? And is he there to buy a black horse from a vile stranger? And is he to be run away with to this place when he would fain go elsewhere about his master's business, which is to catch this young lord and the Saxon serving-man? And then is he to be looked at as if he were a thief? Thou shalt repent, and so I tell thee; yea, in sackcloth and ashes. And if thou canst find no sackcloth, then thou shalt have a double portion of ashes, ye knaves, and so I promise you."