"Who told you that?"
"Stevens told me you'd passed a remark about him."
The stud groom received the insinuating suggestion with a dignity that was proof against pumping for the space of a minute. He chewed on a straw discreetly. Then his own knowledge became too much for him.
"If I told you his history, Arthur Jones," he said slowly, "you'd never lay your legs across him no more."
"Then for God's sake tell it," said Arthur Jones.
The stud groom laughed grimly. He was a man of saturnine humour, and liked impressing his underlings.
"His Lordship knows," he said. "If any man could cow a horse, he can. Weight tells. Weight and devilry. But any other gentleman buying Prince John I'd call it suicide. If I didn't,—according to circumstances, mind you"—he lowered his voice, not much, but enough—"call it murder."
Would the men never stop gossiping and disperse? She would have to face their curious looks at last.
"I was up Yorkshire way when his Lordship bought him," said the stud groom deliberately. "Four of us was leaning over the bars at that auction. Two of us had a mourning band on the sleeve of our coats, and the third chap had unpicked the crape off his a month ago. When they put Prince John in the ring there came a frost on the bidding. They said he'd ought to 'a been shot out of the road, and never put up for sale. His name wasn't Prince John then. He'd been run in two 'chases, owners up;—and he'd killed them both."
The men stood with their mouths open, digesting the horrid tale. And a stable lad ran into the yard from his vantage point on a hillock.