Then, without a word of leave-taking, he rode off, Black Dick doing his afflicted best, and Walter Skinner wondering how he could have been so mistaken in the animal. "The thief that stole him did well to be rid of him," he said. "And that he should put him off on me is but another indignity I have suffered on this chase. The king hath ever a lengthening score to pay, and nothing but a dukedom will content me. And why should I not be a duke? Let Richard Wood say what he likes, worse men than I have been dukes. Ay, and more basely born."
By noon he had come to Newark. "And here will I pause and search the town for them," he said. "If they know not of them, why, their ignorance is criminal. A loyal subject should know what concerneth his king. And it concerneth the king that these two be found."
Now it chanced that the king was then at Newark and about to set off for Clipstone Palace. Which, when Walter Skinner heard, he declared proudly, "I will have speech of him."
"Thou have speech of him!" exclaimed an attendant. "Thou art mad."
"Nay, verily, I am not mad. Am I not Walter Skinner, hired by the king's minister to bide in a high tree that overlooketh De Aldithely castle? I tell thee, I will see the king." And, the party now approaching, he broke through all restraint and rode close up beside the king. "May it please thy Majesty," he began, "there be those that do keep me back from speech with thee. Ay, even though I do tell them that I serve thee."
The king looked at him, laughed rudely, and motioned one of his attendants to remove him. But the little man waved the attendant off, and cried out so that all might hear, "Didst not thy minister hire me to bide in the tall tree that overlooketh De Aldithely Castle?"
At the mention of the name De Aldithely the king paused, and seemed to listen. Seeing which, Walter Skinner went on: "And, when all the rest were gone to York, did I not see the young lord and his Saxon serving-man ride forth? And did I not give chase? And do I not now seek them on this wind-broken and spring-halt horse as best I may?"
The king beckoned the little man nearer.
"Where hast thou sought?" he asked.
"In the wood, in the swamp, and in the town," was the proud answer. "I be not like Richard Wood, who did set out to help me. For I have come up with them three several times, and he not once."