This was not to be borne.

Indeed, if John Pittaway were right, and there was to be no trial, where was his dramatic and impressive appearance at it?
He had better be dramatic and impressive now.
"Who said as they were goin' to try Jim 'Utchings?
I never did," he growled.

"There was other people went to the Castle that night besides Jim 'Utchings, and that mysterierse woman the papers talked about." "An' 'ow do you know ?" said John Pittaway in a tone of most disagreeable incredulity.
"I know because I seed 'em," said William Roper.
"Saw 'oo ?" said John Pittaway.
Then the whole story he had told Mr.Flexen burst forth from William Roper's overcharged bosom, the story with the embellishments natural to the lapse of time since its first telling.

No less naturally in the course of the discussion which followed, he told also the story of the luckless kiss in the East wood, and the landlord pounced on that as the cause of the quarrel between Lord Loudwater and Colonel Grey at Bellingham.

William Roper supported his contention with an embellished account of the interview with Lord Loudwater in which he had informed him of that kiss.
It was, indeed, his great hour, not as great as the hour he had promised himself at the trial, not so public, but a great hour.
He left the "Bull and Gate" at closing time that night a man, in the estimation of all there, whose evidence could hang four of his fellow-creatures, the great man of the village.
Next morning the village was indeed simmering, and the scandal rose and spread from it like a stench.