"Nowhere, sir."
"Why, what do you mean?"
"They never sails for nowhere, sir, great folks like them; and they never go nowhere, just as a man might walk out into the middle of a grass field and come back whistling no tune, nor bringing no daisy nor buttercup, nor as much as cutting a switch for himself in the hedge. I have never been to sea, sir, never. Where's the good of going to sea? But I've seen my share of salt water in my time, and all I ever saw of it was as like as two pea's, ay, liker; for some of the green peas is yellow, and some of the yellow peas is green. But all the sea-water I ever saw was the same in colour and smell and beastliness of taste and disposition, only fit for sharks and alligators and sorts like them. And not a single useful fish would be in the sea but would be poisoned by the beastly sea-water, only for the sweet waters of the rivers running into the sea and cheering up the fishes, poor souls, like a pint of cold bitter after a long walk of a hot day."
"And when do you think the yacht will come back?"
"There's no telling that, not unless you was a prophet. Even the sporting prophets knows nothing about it; for his grace has no dealings with dogs or horses, no more than the miller's wife that's been dead this five year."
"Are they often long away--months?"
"No, sir, not often months. But they are often away a tidy bit. It's like hanging a leg of mutton Christmas-time; it mostly depends on the weather whether the leg will ripen by Christmas-day, or will ripen too soon, or won't be ripe enough."
"And is it the bad or the good weather that brings them home?"
"Well, sir, seeing that this house is built on the Duke's property and called after the Duke, and that the landlord, sir, holds it by lease under the Duke, it wouldn't be becoming in me or anyone else of us to call it bad weather that brings the Duke back to us; but I'm free to say it isn't the kind of weather that everybody would order if he was going on a desolate island and wanted to enjoy himself on the sly away from the old woman. We call it the Duke's wind here; for if he's afloat it brings him home, and that's the only good it ever brings, but the doctors and the coffin-makers and grave-diggers. Most people call it the nor'-east wind. You see his grace is over sixty now, and has got all his joints pretty well blocked up with rheumatism; and the minute the nor'-east sets in it screws him up, and they have to run for home. His lordship stops aboard the Seabird in the shelter of the bay, and his grace goes up to the Castle, and never goes out of his warm rooms at the back of the Castle, farthest away from the nor'-east, until the wind changes."
"And how far is the castle from here?"