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“Down by the river. . . . But ’tis nonsense you’re tellin’. The Rectory indeed! Why, it’s a seat!”

Mr. Jope’s face clouded.

“Oh,” he said, “is that all?”

“It’s a fine one, too.”

“It’d have to be, to accomydate Bill an’ me an’ the cask. I wanted a house, as I thought I told ye.”

“Oh, but I meant a country-seat,” explained Miss Elizabeth. “The Rectory is a house.”

Again Mr. Jope’s face brightened.

“An’ so big,” she went on, “that the Rector can’t afford to live in it. That’s why ’tis to let. The rent’s forty pound.”

“Can I see him?”

“No, you can’t; for he lives up to Lunnon an’ hires Parson Spettigew of Botusfleming to do the work. But it’s my father has the lettin’ o’ the Rectory if a tenant comes along. He keeps the keys.”

“Then I ‘d like to talk with your father.”

“No you wouldn’t,” said the girl frankly; “because he’s asleep. Father drinks a quart o’ cider at three o’clock every day of his life, an’ no one don’t dare disturb him before six.”

“Well, I like reggilar habits,” said Mr. Jope, diving a hand into his breeches’ pocket and drawing forth a fistful of golden guineas. “But couldn’t you risk it?”

Miss Elizabeth’s eyes wavered.

“No, I couldn’,” she sighed, shaking her head. “Father’s very violent in his temper. But I tell you what,” she added: “I might fetch the keys, and you might go an’ see the place for yourself.”

“Capital,” said Mr. Jope. While she was fetching these he finished his beer. Then, having insisted on paying down a guinea for earnest-money, he took the keys and her directions for finding the house. She repeated them in the porch for the benefit of the taller seaman; who, as soon as she had concluded, gripped the handles of his barrow afresh and set off without a word. She gazed after the pair as they passed down the street.

At the foot of it a by-lane branched off towards the creek-side. It led them past a churchyard and a tiny church almost smothered in cherry-trees–for the churchyard was half an orchard: past a tumbling stream, a mill and some wood-stacks; and so, still winding downwards, brought them to a pair of iron gates, rusty and weather-greened. The gates stood unlocked; and our two seamen found themselves next in a carriage-drive along which it was plain no carriage had passed for a very long while. It was overgrown with weeds, and straggling laurels encroached upon it on either hand; and as it rounded one of these laurels Mr. Jope caught his breath sharply.

“Lor’ lumme!” he exclaimed. “It is a seat, as the gel said!”

Mr. Adams, following close with the wheelbarrow, set it down, stared, and said:

“Then she’s a liar. It’s a house.”

“It’s twice the size of a three-decker, anyway,” said his friend, and together they stood and contemplated the building.

It was a handsome pile of old brickwork, set in a foundation of rock almost overhanging the river–on which, however, it turned its back; in design, an oblong of two storeys, with a square tower at each of the four corners, and the towers connected by a parapet of freestone. The windows along the front were regular, and those on the ground-floor less handsome than those of the upper floor, where (it appeared) were the staterooms. For–strangest feature of all– the main entrance was in this upper storey, with a dozen broad steps leading down to the unkempt carriage-way and a lawn, across which a magnificent turkey oak threw dark masses of shadow.

But the house was a picture of decay. Unpainted shutters blocked the windows; tall grasses sprouted in the crevices of the entrance steps and parapet; dislodged slates littered the drive; smears of old rains ran down the main roof and from a lantern of which the louvers were all in ruin, some hanging by a nail, others blown on edge by long-past gales. The very nails had rusted out of the walls, and the creepers they should have supported hung down in ropy curtains.