He had never been at Loring before, but he had learned the way. He went to Chippenham and Swindon, and then by the train to Loring. He had no very definite plan formed for himself. He rather thought that he would call at Miss Marrable's house,--call if possible when Mary Lowther was not there,--and learn from the elder lady something of the facts of the case. He had been well aware for many weeks past, from early days in the summer, that old Miss Marrable had been in favour of his claim. He had heard too that there had been family quarrels among the Marrables, and a word had been dropped in his hearing by Mrs. Fenwick, which had implied that Miss Marrable was by no means pleased with the match which her niece Mary Lowther was proposing to herself. Everything seemed to show that Captain Marrable was a most undesirable person.
When he reached the station at Loring it was incumbent on him to go somewhither at once. He must provide for himself for the night. He found two omnibuses at the station, and two inn servants competing with great ardour for his carpet bag. There were the Dragon and the Bull fighting for him. The Bull in the Lowtown was commercial and prosperous. The Dragon at Uphill was aristocratic, devoted to county purposes, and rather hard set to keep its jaws open and its tail flying. Prosperity is always becoming more prosperous, and the allurements of the Bull prevailed. "Are you a going to rob the gent of his walise?" said the indignant Boots of the Bull as he rescued Mr. Gilmore's property from the hands of his natural enemy, as soon as he had secured the entrance of Mr. Gilmore into his own vehicle. Had Mr. Gilmore known that the Dragon was next door but one to Miss Marrable's house, and that the Bull was nearly equally contiguous to that in which Captain Marrable was residing, his choice probably would not have been altered. In such cases, the knight who is to be the deliverer desires above all things that he may be near to his enemy.