I laid one of Tod’s cards on the table. The captain took it up.
“It’s a great grief to me to leave the house,” he remarked. “Especially after having been only a few months in it!—and laying in a stock of the best furniture in a plain way, purchased in the best market! Downright grief.”
“Then why do you leave it?” naturally asked Tod.
“Because I have to go afloat again,” said the sailor, his face taking a rueful expression. “I thought I had given up the sea for good; but my old employers won’t let me give it up. They know my value as a master, and have offered me large terms for another year or two of service. A splendid new East Indiaman, two thousand tons register, and—and, in short, I don’t like to be ungrateful, so I have said I’ll go.”
“Could you not keep on the house until you come back?”
“My sister won’t let me keep it on. Truth to say, she never cared for the sea, and wants to get away from it. That exquisite scene”—extending his hand towards the bay, and to a steamer working her way onwards near the horizon—“has no charms for Miss Copperas; and she intends to betake herself off to our relatives in Leeds. No: I can only give the place up, and dispose of the furniture to whomsoever feels inclined to take it. It will be a fine sacrifice. I shall not get the one half of the money I gave for it: don’t look to. And all of it as good as new!”
I could read Tod’s face as a book, and the eager look in his eyes. He was thinking how much he should like to seize upon the tempting bargain; to make the pretty room we sat in, and the prettier prospect yonder, his own. Captain Copperas appeared to read him also.
“You are doubting whether to close with the offer or not,” he said, with a frank smile. “You might make it yours for a hundred and twenty-five pounds. Perhaps—pardon me; you are both but young—you may not have the sum readily at command?”
“Oh yes, I have,” said Tod, candidly. “I have it lying at my banker’s, in Worcester. No, it’s not for that reason I hesitate. It is—it is—fancy me with a house on my hands!” he broke off, turning to me with a laugh.
“It is an offer that you will never be likely to meet with again, sir.”