It was a powerful black horse, something like the great Irish hunter that figured a hundred years ago, and would carry sixteen stone with ease across country. It would have made a grand charger. Not a hair turned. It snorted, it pawed, it arched its neck; then threw back its ears and down its head, and looked ready to lash, and then to rear; and seemed impatient to be off again, and incapable of standing quiet for a moment. 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. And on he went, as if he had known the place all his days: not seeming to hurry himself--stepping leisurely, the servant thought--but gliding on at such a rate, nevertheless, that he had passed his guide and was in the kitchen of the George before the drawer had got much more than half-way to it. A roaring fire of dry wood, peat and coal lighted up this snug but spacious apartment--flashing on pots and pans, and dressers high-piled with pewter plates and dishes; and making the uncertain shadows of the long "hanks" of onions and many a flitch and ham, depending from the ceiling, dance on its glowing surface. The doctor and the attorney, even Sir Geoffrey Mardykes, did not disdain on this occasion to take chairs and smoke their pipes by the kitchen fire, where they were in the thick of the gossip and discussion excited by the terrible event. The tall stranger entered uninvited.