“Can we put up here for the night?” quoth I somewhat dubiously of this dimly seen figure, capped, blue jerseyed, and trousered in soiled ducks, that confronted us.
“Sure-ly,” said he, and disappeared to trim and light a lamp. This was evidently the landlord.
“And tea?” chorussed the Wreck.
“Yes, sir,” replied the landlord’s voice, apparently from the remote recesses of some distant cupboard.
So we sat down in the combination of bar-kitchen-parlour and living-room, and studied the beer-rings on the table in the gloaming of the window, until, under favour of Providence, our host should return. This he did eventually, bearing a lighted lamp, which he proceeded to hang from the ceiling. Then came another journey, and a return with sticks, paper, and matches, when he lighted the fire and put the water on to boil, blowing up the sticks and coals with bellows of a prodigious bigness. There was something diverting in the spectacle of this rough, grizzled, seafaring innkeeper making up the fire for tea like any housewife.
Meanwhile we sat and waited and chatted with our host until the water boiled, when, after much preparation, we were ushered into a room on the other side of the entrance passage, and left to tea and ourselves. “If you want anything more, please to ask for it,” said the landlord as he shut the door.
Ye gods! the chilling dampness of that room, and the fustiness of it, with ancient reeks of the sea! It was whitewashed, and hung with brightly coloured almanacs from the grocer’s, and here and there, startlingly black and white, appeared framed memorial-cards commemorating domestic losses. We required no skeleton at the feast after this, but sat down to tea, sufficiently damped by the dismal light of—yes—a long-wicked dip in a brass candlestick!
“Hang it,” remarked the Wreck, observing no teapot, “where’s the tea?” and just then his eye lighted on what should have been the hot-water jug. There was the tea, sure enough, in the jug! But not the most diligent search could discover any milk, so I put my head out o’ door and asked for some. The landlord was doubtful of procuring any in Polperro that night, but would send his boy out on the chance, unless, indeed, we would like condensed milk.
But our souls sickened at the thought of it, and fortunately some decent milk was had at last. Said the landlord again, as he closed the door, “If you want anything more, please to ask for it.” It occurred to us, however, that we had better make content with what we had, for by the time our very ordinary wants had been satisfied, the night would have been far spent indeed.
There was a nasty indescribable tang about that tea, and even the bread and butter was horrid. We were very hungry, and so made shift to eat a little bread and butter, but the tea we poured out of window.