In he went impulsively, striding up the short gravel-path, which was divided from the flower-beds by two rows of sea-shells, and knocked at the door. It was opened by a tall grenadier of a female, rising six feet, with a spare figure and sour face. She had a large cooking-apron on, dusted with flour.
“You have lodgings to let,” said Tod; “can I see them?”
“Lodgings to let?” she repeated, scanning us up and down attentively; and her voice sounded harsh and rasping. “I don’t know that we have. You had better see Captain Copperas.”
She threw open the door of the parlour: a small, square, bright-looking room, rather full of furniture; a gay carpet, a cottage piano, and some green chairs being among the articles.
Captain Copperas came forward: a retired seaman, as we heard later; tall as the grenadier, and with a brown, weather-beaten face. But in voice and manners he, at any rate, did not resemble her, for they were just as pleasant as they could be.
“I have no lodgings,” said he; “my servant was mistaken. My house is to let; and the furniture to be taken too.”
Which announcement was of course a check to Tod. He sat looking very blank, and then explained that we only required lodgings. We had been quite charmed with Cray Bay, and would like to stay in it for a month or so: and that it was his misapprehension, not the servant’s.
“It’s a pity but you wanted a little house,” said Captain Copperas. “This is the most compact, desirable, perfect little dwelling mortal man ever was in. Rent twenty-six pounds a-year only, furniture to be bought out-and-out for a hundred and twenty-five. It would be a little Eden—a paradise—to those who had the means to take it.”
As he spoke, he regarded us individually and rather pointedly. It looked as much as to doubt whether we had the means. Tod (conscious of his five hundred pounds in the bank) threw his head up.
“Oh, I have the means,” said he, as haughtily as poor Slingsby Temple had ever spoken. “Johnny, did you put any cards in your pocket? Give Captain Copperas one.”