He had not gone far when he came up with a man riding slowly along, and decided to take him into his confidence so far as to ask if he had seen those he sought. Accordingly he crowded Black Dick close alongside of the stranger's horse, and, giving him a meaning glance, said, "Hast thou seen a young lord this morn?" The stranger looked astonished, as well he might. "Ay," said Walter Skinner, much gratified. "I said a young lord. Mayhap thou art not used to consort with such, but a young lord is not much more to me than his Saxon serving-man. And that remindeth me--hast seen the serving-man also?" "Nay," answered the stranger, mildly. "I have seen neither." "And that is strange, too," said Walter Skinner. "Why, bethink thee, man! Thou must have seen them. They did leave Lincoln but yester morn. And if they came not this way, which way did they go? Answer me truly, for I warn thee, I serve the king." The stranger reaffirming that he had seen neither the young lord nor his serving-man, Walter Skinner was obliged to be content. "They be as slippery as eels," he cried. "And that remindeth me, I did eat eels for breakfast at the Swan this morn." 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?"