to
port of Spain, landing him at Lisbon, Oporto, and Bordeaux, introducing
him to the pleasant harbours of Cornwall and Devon, and so up the
Channel to that final quayside, where, landing after winds long
contrary, storm-driven and weather-beaten, he had caught the first
magical hints and heraldings of another Spring, and, fired by these, had
sped on a long tramp inland, hungry for the experiment of life on some
quiet farmstead, very far from the weary beating of any sea.

Spell-bound and quivering with excitement, the Water Rat followed
the Adventurer league by league, over stormy bays, through crowded
roadsteads, across harbour bars on a racing tide, up winding rivers that
hid their busy little towns round a sudden turn; and left him with a
regretful sigh planted at his dull inland farm, about which he desired
to hear nothing.

By this time their meal was over, and the Seafarer, refreshed and
strengthened, his voice more vibrant, his eye lit with a brightness that
seemed caught from some far-away sea-beacon, filled his glass with the
red and glowing vintage of the South, and, leaning towards the Water
Rat, compelled his gaze and held him, body and soul, while he talked.
Those eyes were of the changing foam-streaked grey-green of leaping
Northern seas; in the glass shone a hot ruby that seemed the very
heart of the South, beating for him who had courage to respond to its
pulsation. The twin lights, the shifting grey and the steadfast red,
mastered the Water Rat and held him bound, fascinated, powerless. The
quiet world outside their rays receded far away and ceased to be. And
the talk, the wonderful talk flowed on--or was it speech entirely,
or did it pass at times into song--chanty of the sailors weighing the
dripping anchor, sonorous hum of the shrouds in a tearing North-Easter,
ballad of the fisherman hauling his nets at sundown against an apricot
sky, chords of guitar and mandoline from gondola or caique? Did it
change into the cry of the wind, plaintive at first, angrily shrill as
it freshened, rising to a tearing whistle, sinking to a musical trickle
of air from the leech of the bellying sail? All these sounds the
spell-bound listener seemed to hear, and with them the hungry complaint
of the gulls and the sea-mews, the soft thunder of the breaking wave,
the cry of the protesting shingle. Back into speech again it passed, and
with beating heart he was following the adventures of a dozen seaports,
the fights, th