On leaving Winchester, he started on a kind of vagabond tour through the county, on a horse which he hired in the cathedral city, and which carried him from twenty to thirty miles a day.

This mode of travelling enabled him to explore obscure villages and out-of-the-way places that lay off the line of railway.

Everywhere he made the same inquiries, everywhere with the same result.

Another week came to an end.
He had made his voyage of discovery through more than half of the county, as his pocket-map told him, and was still no nearer success than when he left London.
He spent his Sunday at a comfortable inn in a quiet little town, where there was a curious old church, and a fine peal of bells that seemed to him to be ringing all day long.

It was a dull rainy day.