But William Roper, under-gamekeeper, was a young man without a spark of chivalry in him, and he had been soured in the matter of kisses by the steadfast resolve of the young women of the village to suffer none from him.

He was an unattractive young man, not unlike the ferrets he kept at his cottage.

He was the last young man in the world, or at any rate in the neighbourhood, to keep silent about what he had seen.
Even so, no great harm might have been done.

He might have blabbed about the matter in the village, and the whole village and the servants of the Castle might have talked about it for weeks and months, or even years, without it reaching the ears of Lord Loudwater.

But William Roper saw in that kiss his royal road to Fortune.