“Do you know anything of this Mr. Vanstone who is down here on the visitors’ list?” asked the sailor. “Is he an old man?”
“He’s a miserable little creature to look at,” replied the landlady; “but he’s not old, captain.”
“Then he’s not the man I mean. Perhaps he is the man’s son? Has he got any ladies with him?”
The landlady tossed her head, and pursed up her lips disparagingly.
“He has a housekeeper with him,” she said. “A middle-aged person—not one of my sort. I dare say I’m wrong—but I don’t like a dressy woman in her station of life.”
Mr. Kirke began to look puzzled. “I must have made some mistake about the house,” he said. “Surely there’s a lawn cut octagon-shape at Sea-view Cottage, and a white flag-staff in the middle of the gravel-walk?”
“That’s not Sea-view, sir! It’s North Shingles you’re talking of. Mr. Bygrave’s. His wife and his niece came here by the coach to-day. His wife’s tall enough to be put in a show, and the worst-dressed woman I ever set eyes on. But Miss Bygrave is worth looking at, if I may venture to say so. She’s the finest girl, to my mind, we’ve had at Aldborough for many a long day. I wonder who they are! Do you know the name, captain?”
“No,” said Mr. Kirke, with a shade of disappointment on his dark, weather-beaten face; “I never heard the name before.”
After replying in those words, he rose to take his leave. The landlord vainly invited him to drink a parting glass; the landlady vainly pressed him to stay another ten minutes and try a cup of tea. He only replied that his sister expected him, and that he must return to the parsonage immediately.
On leaving the hotel Mr. Kirke set his face westward, and walked inland along the highroad as fast as the darkness would let him.