ailors, passing down the Channel on their homeward beat, that they are
off the coast of Devonshire. Mrs. Graham talked to Henry about the
fishermen as they drove down Bovey Lane towards the village.

"I love Boveyhayne," she said, "because the people are so fine. They
rely on themselves far more than any other people I know. That's because
they're fishermen, I suppose, and have no employers. They work for
themselves ... and it's frightfully hard work too. People come to
Boveyhayne in the summer, but they can't spoil it because the villagers
don't depend on visitors for a living: they depend on themselves ... and
the sea. There isn't a man in Boveyhayne who is pretending to be a
fisherman and is really a cadger on summer visitors. Some of them won't
be bothered to take people out in rowing-boats--they feel that that is
work for the old. I used to wonder," she went on, "why it was that I
didn't really like the villagers in other places, but I never found out
why until I came to Boveyhayne, and it was simply because I felt
instinctively that they were spongers ... those other people ... that
they hadn't any real work to do, and that they were living on us like
... like ticks on a sheep. The Boveyhayne men are splendid men. It
wouldn't make any difference ... much difference, anyhow ... to them if
another visitor never came to the place. And that is how it ought to be
in every village in England!"

Henry was not quite certain that he understood all that she was saying,
but he liked to listen to her, and so he did not interrupt her, except
to say "Yes" and "I suppose so" when it seemed that she was waiting for
him to say something.

"Do you like being in England?" she asked him suddenly.

"Oh, yes," he answered.

"Would you rather be in England than in Ireland?"

He did not know. He liked being at home with his father, but he also
liked being at Rumpell's with Gilbert and Roger and Ninian, and now he
felt that he would like to be at Boveyhayne with Mrs. Graham and Mary.

"Perhaps you like people better than you like places," Mrs. Graham said.

"I don't know," he replied. "I hadn't thought about that."

"You must come again to Boveyhayne. Perhaps, in the summer, Gilbert and
Roger will come, too!"

Henry thought that that would be awf'lly jolly....

They turned down the village street and left Peggy at the foot of it
while they went down the slope leading on to the beach where the
trawlers were now being hauled up