Ethel began to do a few without the apron, in a desultory kind of way, and eat two or three more. John Bent came to some paragraph in the newspaper that excited his ire.
"Hear this!" he cried in anger. "Hear it, Miss Ethel! What a shame!"
"We have been given to understand that the rumour so freely circulated during this past week, of a matrimonial engagement having been made between Mr. Blake-Gordon and the heiress of Mountsorrel, has had no foundation in fact."
"The villain!" cried Mrs. Bent, momentarily forgetting her work. "He can hardly be bad enough to think of another yet."
Ethel's work was arrested too. She gazed at John Bent, a raisin in one hand, a stone in the other. That any man could be so fickle-hearted as this, she had not believed.
"I knew the tale was going about," said the landlord; "I heard it talked of in Stilborough last market day, Miss Ethel. Any way, true or untrue, they say he is a good deal over at the Mountsorrels, and----"
John Bent brought his words to a standstill; rose, and laid down his newspaper. There had entered a rather peculiar looking elderly gentleman, tall and upright yet, with a stout walking stick in his hand. He wore a long blue coat with wide skirts and brass buttons, drab breeches and top boots. His hair was long and snow white, his dark eyes were fiery.
Taking off his broad-brimmed hat with old fashioned courtesy, he looked round the room, particularly at Mrs. Bent and Ethel stoning the raisins. It is just possible he mistook the latter for a daughter of the house, dressed in her Sunday best.
"This is the Dolphin, I think!" he cried dubiously.
"Ay, I thought so. But the door seems altered. Its a good many years since I was here. Oh--ay,--I see. Front door on the other side. And you are its landlord--John Bent."
"Just so. We shall do. I have walked over from Stilborough to see you. I want to know the truth of this dreadful report--that has but now reached my ears."
"The report, sir?" returned John--and it was perhaps natural that he should have his head filled at the moment with Mr. Blake-Gordon and the report touching him. "I believe I don't know anything about it."
"Not know anything about it! But I am told that you know all about it. Come!"