"That's all very well," replied his friend. "You never had no property, an' don't know its burdens. We'll have to hire a house for this, an' live there till it's finished."
II.
THE MULTIPLYING CELLAR.
St. Dilp by Tamar has altered little in a hundred years. As it stands to-day, embowered in cherry-trees, so (or nearly so) it stood on that warm afternoon in the early summer of 1807, when two weather-tanned seamen of His Majesty's Fleet came along its fore street with a hand-barrow and a huge cask very cunningly lashed thereto. On their way they eyed the cottages and gardens to right and left with a lively curiosity; but "Lord, Bill," said the shorter seaman, misquoting Wordsworth unawares, "the werry houses look asleep!"
At the "Punch-Bowl" Inn, kept by J. Coyne, they halted by silent consent. Mr. William Adams, who had been trundling the barrow, set it down, and Mr. Benjamin Jope—whose good-natured face would have recommended him anywhere—walked into the drinking-parlour and rapped on the table. This brought to him the innkeeper's daughter, Miss Elizabeth, twenty years old and comely. "What can I do for you, sir?" she asked.
"Two pots o' beer, first-along," said Mr. Jope.
"Two?"
"I got a shipmate outside."
Miss Elizabeth fetched the two pots.
"Here, Bill!" he called, carrying one to the door. Returning, he blew at the froth on his own pot meditatively. "And the next thing is, I want a house."