Almost immediately opposite this general emporium, the sign of the Blue Boar swung proudly across the street in front of a low rather dilapidated-looking hostelry, with a wide frontage, and an archway leading into a spacious desolate yard, where one gloomy cock of Spanish descent was crowing hoarsely on the broken roof of a shed, surrounded by four or five shabby-looking hens, all in the most wobegone stage of moulting, and appearing as if eggs were utterly remote from their intentions.  This Blue Boar was popularly supposed to have been a most distinguished and prosperous place in the coaching days, when twenty coaches passed daily through the village of Crosber; and was even now much affected as a place of resort by the villagers, to the sore vexation of the rector and such good people as believed in the perfectibility of the human race and the ultimate suppression of public-houses.

Here Mr. Fenton dismounted, and surrendered his horse to the keeping of an unkempt bareheaded youth who emerged from one of the dreary-looking buildings in the yard, announced himself as the hostler, and led off the steed in triumph to a wilderness of a stable, where the landlord’s pony and a fine colony of rats were luxuriating in the space designed for some twelve or fifteen horses.

Having done this, Gilbert crossed the road to the post-office, where he found the proprietor, a deaf old man, weighing half-pounds of sugar in the background, while a brisk sharp-looking girl stood behind the counter sorting a little packet of letters.

It was to the damsel, as the more intelligent of these two, that Gilbert addressed himself, beginning of course with the usual question.  Did she know any one, a stranger, sojourning in that neighbourhood called Holbrook?

The girl shook her head without a moment’s hesitation.  No, she knew no one of that name.

“And I suppose all the letters for people in this neighbourhood pass through your hands?”

“Yes, sir, all of them; I couldn’t have failed to notice if there had been any one of that name.”

Gilbert gave a little weary sigh.  The information given him by the landlord of the White Swan had seemed to bring him so very near the object of his search, and here he was thrown back all at once upon the wide field of conjecture, not a whit nearer any certain knowledge.  It was true that Crosber was only one among several places within ten miles of the market-town, and the strangers who had been driven from the White Swan in March last might have gone to any one of those other localities.  His inquiries were not finished yet, however.

“There is an old house about a mile from here,” he said to the girl; “a house belonging to a farm, in the lane yonder that turns off by the Blue Boar.  Have you any notion to whom it belongs, or who lives there?”

“An old house in that lane across the way?” the girl said, reflecting.  “That’s Golder’s lane, and leads to Golder’s-green.  There’s not many houses there; it’s rather a lonesome kind of place.  Do you mean a big old-fashioned house standing far back in a garden?”