“Oh, I only heard what Tony Gusset said to Martha when he came in to talk to her last night.”
“What!” cried Waller. “Was that old stupid here last night?”
“Yes; but he wasn’t here long. Martha won’t let him stay. She soon bundles him off again. She told me that he wouldn’t be so fond of his sister if she wasn’t the cook and couldn’t ask him to have something to eat when he came. She does hate to see him here.”
“But what did he tell her?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the girl pettishly.
“Yes, you do, Bella. Tell me.”
“Well, will you promise to be a good boy and come back to your meals at proper times, and not keep everything waiting about?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Now what was it?”
“Oh, he told her that the French had landed on the coast to turn the King off the throne and put a new foreign one on it, and that the soldiers had met them and beaten them, all but a few who were spies, and had hidden themselves in the forest; but they were catching them all till there were hardly any left, and they were looking for them. And Tony Gusset said there was a reward of a hundred pounds offered for every one that was caught, and he meant to catch one and make himself rich.”
“He had better mind his mending shoes and hammering his old lapstone,” cried Waller, with an unwonted show of anger. “What’s it got to do with him?”