His pace very soon brought him back to the town he had so recently left. Instead of going as far as to their former inn, he sought out one of humbler appearance, near the beginning of the street. Here he left his cloak-bag, for already in his brief walk he had experienced the stares of wonder naturally drawn by a gentleman who carried at the same time a sword at his side and a cloak-bag at his shoulder. He went into a barber’s shop, where, as he had used his razor that morning, and very little sign of beard had become visible in the meantime, his order for shaving created in the barber’s mind an impression that he must be an extremely luxurious gentleman in spite of his threadbare clothes,—probably a lord in misfortune. Everell easily set the barber talking about all the estates in the neighbourhood, and thus, without seeming to have more design in regard to Foxwell Court than to a dozen other places, elicited the information that that house was eight miles away on the road to Burndale. Returning to the inn where he had left his bag, he told the landlord he was bound for Burndale, and had made up his mind to accomplish part of the journey that afternoon, in order to arrive there betimes the next day. He bargained for a horse and guide to take him seven or eight miles on the way, and leave him at some place where he could pass the night and obtain conveyance on to Burndale in the morning. In this way, without mentioning Foxwell Court, he contrived that he should be set down in its vicinity and yet have it supposed that his destination was far beyond. He had so far trusted to luck and his quickness of sight to avoid confrontation with the enemy who, as he could not doubt, was close enough at hand. But he breathed a sigh of relief when he at last rode out of the town in the direction of Burndale: he believed that, whatever inquiries might be made upon the discovery that he had passed through the town, his traces were sufficiently confused, one set leading southward after his friend, and the other leading to Burndale, a good distance beyond Foxwell Court. So he rode forward with his new guide, in as great security of mind as he had enjoyed in months. The road lay at first between fields, and here and there great trees stretched their boughs shelteringly over it. Sometimes green banks rose on one hand or both, and at a certain place a stream joined the road and went singing along in its company for half a mile. Then the way emerged upon an open common, which undulated on one side in rounded waves of heather till the purple mass met the gray sky, and on the other side to the border of a wood. But presently Everell was again in cultivated country, with stone farm-buildings set now and then upon lawny slopes among the fields.