The captain's womenkind--as he was in the habit of calling the inmates of his house--consisted of his wife and a maid servant. The former was meek, yielding, gentle as those gentle lambs in the field; the latter, Sarah Ford, worth her weight in gold for honest capability, liked to manage the captain and the world on occasions. There were encounters between them. He was apt to call her a she-pirate and other affectionate names. She openly avowed her disbelief in his marvellous reminiscences, especially one that was a standing story with him concerning a sea-serpent that he saw with his own eyes in the Pacific Ocean. He had also seen a mermaid. Like many another sailor, the captain was a simple-minded man in land affairs, only great at sea and its surroundings; with implicit faith in all its marvels. On occasions the captain's mother honoured him with a visit; a resolute, well-to-do lady, who used to voyage with her husband, and had now settled in Liverpool. When she came she ruled the house and the captain, for she thought him (forty, now) and his wife little better than children yet. In solid sense, if you believed herself, nobody could approach her. Captain Copp came forth from his call at the Red Court Farm, letting the gate swing behind him, and stumped along quickly, his stout stick and his wooden leg keeping time on the ground. The captain's face was beaming with satisfaction, for he had contrived to lay hold of young Cyril Thornycroft, and recount to him (for the fiftieth time) the whole story of the sea-serpent from beginning to end. He was a short, wiry man, with the broad round shoulders of a sailor. The road branched off before him two ways, like an old-fashioned fork; the way on the right led direct to the village and the common beach; the way on the left to his home. The captain halted. Sociably inclined, he was rather fond of taking himself to the Mermaid; that noted-public house where the sailors and the coastguard men congregated to watch the omnibus come in from Jutpoint. It must be getting near to the time of its arrival, half-past eleven, and the captain's leg moved a step forward in the direction; on the other hand, he wanted to say a word to that she-serpent Sarah (with whom he had enjoyed an encounter before coming out) about the dinner. The striking of the clock decided him, and he bore on for home, past the churchyard. Crossing part of the heath, he came to the houses, red brick, detached, cheerful, his own being the third. At the window of the first sat an old lady. Captain Copp went through the little gate and put his face without ceremony against the pane, close to Mrs. Connaught's. "How's the master this morning?" he called out through the glass. She answered by drawing aside and pointing to the fire. An asthmatical old gentleman, just recovering from a fit of the gout, sat there in a white cotton nightcap and dressing-gown made of yellow flannel.