He came to the little village, with its low sloping-roofed cottages,
whose upper stories abutted upon the road and overshadowed the casements
below; and where here and there a few pennyworths of gingerbread, that
seemed mouldy with the mould of ages, a glass pickle-bottle of
bull's-eyes or sugar-sticks, and half a dozen penny bottles of ink,
indicated the commercial tendencies of Crosber. A little farther on, he
came to a rickety-looking corner-house, with a steep thatched roof
overgrown by stonecrop and other parasites, which was evidently the shop
of the village, inasmuch as one side of the window exhibited a show of
homely drapery, while the other side was devoted to groceries, and a
shelf above laden with great sprawling loaves of bread. This
establishment was also the post-office, and here Gilbert resolved to make
his customary inquiries, when he had put up his horse.

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 mor