weed and dried flowers,
we came, and so the tales settled in Polchester streets and crept into
the heart of the Polchester cobbles and haunted the Polchester corners
by the fire, and even invaded with their romantic, peering, mischievous
faces the solemn aisles of the Cathedral itself.

The sea was at the heart of all of them, and whenever a sea-breeze
blew down the street carrying with it wisps of straw from the field, or
dandelion seeds, or smell of sea-pinks, we children lifted our noses
and sniffed and sniffed and saw the waves curl in across the shore,
or breakers burst upon the rock, and whispered to one another of the
Smugglers of Trezent or the Gold-laced Pirates of Rafiel.

But I think that none of us adored the sea as Jeremy did. From that
first moment when, as a small baby, he had been held up in Rafiel Cove
to see the tops of the waves catch the morning light as they rolled over
to shore, he had adored it. He had never felt any fear of it; he had
been able to swim since he could remember, and he simply lived for those
days at the end of July when they would all, in a frantic hurry and
confusion, take the train for Rafiel and arrive at Cow Farm in the
evening, with the roar of the sea coming across the quiet fields to
mingle with the lowing of the cows and the bleating of the sheep. He had
in his bedroom a wonderful collection of dusty and sticky sea-shells,
and these he would turn over and over, letting them run through his
fingers as a miner counts his gold.

Let him catch the faintest glimpse of a shadow of a sailor in the street
and he was after it, and he had once, when he was only four or five,
been caught by the terrified Jampot, only just in time, walking away
confidently down the market-place, his hand in the huge grasp of a
villainous looking mariner. He was exceedingly happy in his home, but he
did often wonder whether he would not run away to sea; of course, he
was going to be a sailor, but it seemed so long to wait until he was
thirteen or fourteen, and there was the sea all the time rolling in and
out and inviting him to come.

Mrs. Cole warned Miss Jones of this taste of Jeremy's: "Never let him
speak to a sailor, Miss Jones. There are some horrible men in the town,
and Jeremy simply is not to be trusted when sailors are concerned."

Miss Jones, however, could not be always on her guard, and Fate is
stronger than any governess...

Early in February there came one of those hints of spring