And they travelled all the remainder of that day, and at about half-past nine they arrived at Oakville. The village was off the public road, and consisted only of a sleepy old tavern, to which the neighboring farmers came to drink, smoke, and gossip; a post-office, to which the mail was brought once a week by a boy on horseback; and a blacksmith shop, patronized by the sparse population of the immediate neighborhood. Up before the stable of this old tavern Lyon Berners drove his wagon; and here he alighted, handed out Sybil, and led her over to the house and into the public parlor. A fat and lazy-looking hostess came to look at them. "I want accommodations for myself, my girl here, and my horses and wagon, which I left in the stable yard," said Mr. Berners, speaking coarsely, with two lumps of liquorice in his mouth, which he had taken to disguise his voice. "And what might your name be, farmer?" inquired the landlady. "My name's Howe," answered Lyon, truly, giving his own patronymic, now his middle name. "Well, farmer, I reckon we can accommodate you. Going to market?" "Yes, we're on our way to market." "You come from far?" "From the other side of the mountain." "Well, I reckon we can accommodate you. You must excuse me asking you so many questions; but the truth is you're a perfect stranger to me, and it is very late for you to come here, you know; which I wouldn't think so much of that nyther, only since that horrid murder at Black Hall I have mistrusted every stranger I see." Sybil's heart gave a bound, and then sank like lead in her bosom, at hearing this allusion. Lyon also felt an increased uneasiness. Luckily they were sitting with their backs to the light, so that the gossiping landlady could not read the expression of their faces, which indeed she was too much absorbed in her subject to attempt to do. So she went straight on without stopping to take breath: "Not that I mistrust you now, sir, which I see exactly what you are; and which likewise your having of your darter with you is a rickymindation; for men don't go about a taking of their darters with them when they are up to robbery and murder, do they now, sir?" "I should judge not, though I am not familiar enough with the habits of such gentry to give a decided opinion," said farmer Howe. "You'll excuse me, sir; but I'm a lone widow living here, and not used to seeing much of anybody but my old neighbors, which come occasionally to enjoy of themselves; and I do mistrust most strangers--though not you, sir, with your darter, as I said before--but most other strangers, because they _do_ say hereabouts that it was a stranger to the place, a red-headed man, as put up at the inn at Blackville that night, and never was seen afterwards, as did that murder at Black Hall." "Ah! do they say that? I thought they laid it on a lady," observed farmer Howe.