"I've closed the mine, if that's what you mean," said Solomon. "But" (he looked cautiously up at the windows of the inn, which were all open—the guests were out in search of the picturesque, and Harry was on the tower, straining her eyes after Richard) "I want to have a word with you in private, Trevethick."
"Come into the bar parlor, then," grunted the landlord, for he did not much relish the idea of a confidential talk with Solomon just then, since it might have relation to a matter about which he had not fully made up his mind to give him an answer.
"Is that young painter fellow out of the way, then?" asked Solomon. "We have never had a place to ourselves, it seems to me, since he came to Gethin."
"Yes, yes, he's far enough off," answered Trevethick, more peevishly than before, for Sol's remark seemed to foreshadow the very subject he would fain have avoided talking about. "He's gone to Plymouth, he is, and won't be back these five days."
"Umph!" said Sol. If he had said, "I wish he would never come back at all," he could not have expressed his feelings more clearly.
"Well," growled Trevethick, when they were in his sanctum, and had shut the door, "what is it now? Bad news, of course, of some sort."
It was a habit with Trevethick, as it is with many men of his stamp, to have a perpetual grievance against Providence—to profess themselves as never astonished at any bad turn that It may do them—and, besides, he was on the present occasion desirous of taking up a position of discontent beforehand, so that the expected topic might not appear to have produced it.
"No; it's good news, Trevethick," said Solomon, quietly—"the best of news, as it seems to me; and I hope to bring you over to the same opinion."
"He's got some scheme for marrying Harry out of hand," thought the harassed landlord. "How the deuce shall I put him off?"
There was not the slightest excuse for doing so; if Solomon had been of a less phlegmatic disposition, he might have married her a year ago, young as she was. "Read this," said he, producing a letter from his pocket, "and tell me what you think of it. It's old Stratum's report upon the mine."