“Step ye in—step ye in, good folks! A sorry day,—a day of sobs an’ tears an’ afflicted blowings of the nose—when the grasshopper is a burden an’ the mourners go about seeking whom they may devour the funeral meats. Y’ are welcome, gentlemen.”
’Twas the voice of my one-eyed friend, as he undid the bolts; and now he stood in the gateway with a prodigious black sash across his canary livery, so long that the ends of it swept the flagstones.
“Is Master Tingcomb within?” I helped Delia to dismount, and gave our two horses to a stable boy that stood shuffling some paces off.
“Alas!” the old man heav’d a deep sigh, and with that began to hobble across the yard. We troop’d after, wondering. At the house door he turn’d—
“Sirs, there is cold roasted capons, an’ a ham, an’ radishes in choice profusion for such as be not troubled wi’ the wind: an’ cordial wines—alack the day!”
He squeez’d a frosty tear from his one eye, and led us to a large bare hall, hung round with portraits; where was a table spread with a plenty of victuals, and horn-handled knives and forks laid beside plates of pewter; and at the table a man in black, eating. He had straight hair and a sallow face; and look’d up as we enter’d, but, groaning, in a moment fell to again.
“Eat, sirs,” the old servitor exhorted us: “alas! that man may take nothing out o’ the world!”
I know not who of us was most taken aback. But noting Delia’s sad wondering face, as her eyes wander’d round the neglected room and rested on the tatter’d portraits, I lost patience.
“Our business is with Master Hannibal Tingcomb,” said I sharply.
The straight-hair’d man look’d up again, his mouth full of ham.