"And then the farmer takes an' eats it. Aw, believe me, mistress,
Stay-at-home fares best in this world!"
"I don't know, Dinah," sighed Mrs Bosenna. "Haven't you ever in your life wished for a pair o' wings?"
"To wear in my hat? Why, o' course I have."
"No, no; I mean, for the wings of a dove, to fly away and be—well, not at rest exactly—"
"No, I haven't, mistress. But 'tis the way with you discontented rich folks. Like Hocken's ducks, all of 'ee—never happy unless you be where you baint. . . . I wonder if that Hocken was any relation—S-sh! now! Talk of the devil!"
Captain Cai and Fancy had spent a good hour-and-a-half in overhauling the two cottages. Their accommodation was narrow enough, but Captain Cai, after half a lifetime on shipboard, found them little short of palatial. The child could scarcely drag him away from the tiny bath-rooms with their hot and cold water taps.
"Lord," said he, gazing down into the newly painted bath in No.1.
"To think of 'Bias in the likes o' this!"
"You may, if you care to," said Fancy.
"'Tis a knack of mine," he apologised. "We'll suppose him safely out of it, an' what happens next? Why, he'll step across to the linen-cupboard here, wi' the hot pipes behind it, an' there's a clean shirt dried an' warmed to his skin. He gets into that—the day bein' Sunday, as we'll suppose—an' finishes his dressin', danderin' forth an' back from one room to t'other; breakfast gettin' ready downstairs an' no hurry for it—all his time his own, clean away to sundown. Up above the lower window-sash here with the Prodigal Son in stained glass, and very thoughtful of the architect, too—"
"It isn't stained glass," the child corrected; "it's what they call a transparency."