As I am not much of a business man, my future
mother-in-law insisted on writing me down a
list of questions —a catechism for landlords.
They were not complimentary to my judgment,
but they were still essential, as Mrs. Masterman
pithily observed. They ran somewhat in this
way:
"Rent?
Number of rooms?
If a store-room?
Mind the coal-cellar.
Ask what taxes.
Look at the gas.
Try the bells.
Feel all the walls.
Stamp on the floors to see if they are strong
for dancing.
Make a note of the wall-papers.
Who are your neighbours?
Turn on the water.
Look at the kitchen grate.
Is the house dangerous for robbers? (Bad
grammar, Mrs. Masterman.)
How long since occupied last?
When built?
If lumber-room?
Go on the roof.
Look down the chimneys.
See if the wine-cellar is damp.
Observe fastenings.
Measure all the rooms.
Ask rent of neighbouring houses.
Price of meat, poultry, and fish.
Price of wages?
Size of hall?
Number of stairs?
If main drainage?"

"Why, Mrs. Masterman," I remarked, "it
would take a surveyor a week, to answer all these
questions."

"Edward," said that august and terrible
personage, laying down her cards (we were
playing whist at the time), " if you love Lizzie,
and if you love me, you will not neglect a single
question."

The first house I went to was one at Perdleton
—extraordinarily cheap—about twenty miles
from Swindon and eighty from London. I
started very early from London, dozed in the
train, awoke in the fresh chilly air of early
May, and found myself gliding on among the
cold green fields of Berkshire, and not far
from Perdleton.

We sprang through a tunnel, and were there.
I asked the station-master if there were any
house to be let in Perdleton?

"Well, sir," said he, oracularly, "' there was
a week or two ago. Here, Jim" (he called a
porter who was cleaning lamps), "Captain
Jones is going to stay, after all, isn't he, at
Place Farm?"

"I think he is," said the porter; "but Mr.
Harvey will tell the gentleman. He's the draper,
sir, opposite the Berkshire Yeoman—every one
knows him, he'll know—straight up the hill,
sir. Leave your bag, sir?"

Up the hill I went; a long dull hill, with a
villa here and there, and looking back, I had a
broad distant sort of view of a fine valley and
wooded hills. The scenery was featureless, but
not restricted, and it might have been worse. I
felt prepared to like it. I looked at "the houses,
and the village church, and the cottage by the
brook," in that sort of friendly way that one does
when making an acquaintance of a place that
is to be one's future home.

I found the main street narrow and dull, one,
two, or three mean shops, several cottages, and
two inns. I went first to the Berkshire Yeoman,
and asked for Mr. Harvey. They pointed
me out a dreary-looking shop opposite, with
two pairs of boots and a red comforter in the
window. Mr. Harvey was a hearty red-faced
man, like a farmer. I asked for the house
I had heard of at Perdleton. He proved to be
its agent. "There it is!" said he, with a
rueful look. He stood at the door of the
shop, and pointed in a melancholy way to a
cottage opposite; a long low-browed cottage,
with a little green door, three stone steps,
a small strip of turf, a low box-hedge, and a wall
between it and the road. A more forlorn and
sorrowful house I never saw, and my heart sank
within me, until it leaped up again on learning
that the annual rent was only twenty-five pounds.

A sudden courage seized me. I would see the
house. Its cheapness attracted me. It had the
best garden in Perdleton. A doctor had once
lived in it. There might be good points; its
inconveniences might surely be borne with for
the sake of its cheapness. But why was it so
cheap? Are good things ever cheap?
Perhaps it was cheap, merely because it was
old-fashioned, in a dull and forsaken part of a
retired Berkshire village, and opposite labourers'
cottages. The door jarred open. What a
place! A dark-stoned paved hall, the paper
in a white efflorescence with damp, and here
and there stripped off in large dark shreds.The
rooms, with low oppressive ceilings that weighed
down upon me like a nightmare, small and
badly-lighted rooms looking out on the dreary road
and the unchangeable box-hedge. The drawing-room
—a gaunt chamber, rather lighter, and,
in a solemn old-fashioned way, more cheerful—
had a broad lattice-window looking out on a great
square garden and a paved walk, some steps,
and a dismantled little terrace, where the dry
stalk of a last year's sunflower shook its withered
head disconsolately, as if grown idiotic with a
long-continued pressure of misfortune. The
garden only wanted rows of white tallies as
tombstones to complete its identity with a
cemetery. A huge dead pear-tree faced the
bedroom window. Even in the cold spring
sunshine and full daylight, I could fancy ghosts
in trailing and rustling sacques, pacing along
that doom-stricken terrace; faces in powder and
patch looking through the latticed panes, little
ghostly fellows in cocked-hats running out from
the doors, or being chidden from the windows.
The gable ends bore the date 1710, and every
odd nook and angle spoke of Anne and
Marlborough.