The rider got down
As light as shadow falls.
But he was a tall, sinewy figure. He wore a cape or short mantle, a cocked hat, and a pair of jack-boots, such as held their ground in some primitive corners of England almost to the close of the last century.
"Take him, lad," said he to old Scales. "You need not walk or wisp him—he never sweats or tires. Give him his oats, and let him take his own time to eat them. House!" cried the stranger—in the old-fashioned form of summons which still lingered, at that time, in out-of-the-way places—in a deep and piercing voice.
As Tom Scales led the horse away to the stables it turned its head towards its master with a short, shill neigh.
"About your business, old gentleman—we must not go too fast," the stranger cried back again to his horse, with a laugh as harsh and piercing; and he strode into the house.
The hostler led this horse into the inn yard. In passing, it sidled up to the coach-house gate, within which lay the dead sexton—snorted, pawed and lowered its head suddenly, with ear close to the plank, as if listening for a sound from within; then uttered again the same short, piercing neigh.
The hostler was chilled at this mysterious coquetry with the dead. He liked the brute less and less every minute.
In the meantime, its master had proceeded.
"I'll go to the inn kitchen," he said, in his startling bass, to the drawer who met him in the passage.