"These people want a Daylight Saving Bill," thought Captain Cai, and somewhat disconsolately wheeled about, setting his face for the Rope Walk. Here his spirits sensibly revived. There had been rain in the night, but the wind had flown to the northward, and the sun was already scattering the clouds with promise of a fine day. Cleansing airs played between the houses, the line of ash-buckets grew sparser, and the buckets—for he had encountered the scavenger's cart on the slope of the hill—were empty now, albeit their owners showed no hurry to fetch them indoors.
A row of houses—all erected since his young days—still blocked the view of the harbour. But just beyond them, where a roadway led down to the ferry, the exquisite scene broke upon him—the harbour entrance, with the antique castles pretending to guard it; the vessels (his own amongst them) in the land-locked anchorage; the open sea beyond, violet blue to the morning under a steady off-shore breeze; white gulls flashing aloft, and, in the offing, a pair of gannets hunting above the waters.
Captain Cai took no truck (as he would have said) in the beauties of nature; but here was a scene he understood, and he began to feel at home again. He halted, rested his elbows on a low wall and watched the gannets at their evolutions—the poise, the terrific dive, the splash clearly visible at more than a mile's distance. The wall on which he leaned overhung a trim garden, gay with scentless flowers such as tulips and late daffodils, and yet odorous—for early April has a few days during which the uncurling leaf has all the fragrance of blossom: and this was such a day, lustrous from a bath of rain. To our uninstructed seaman the scent seemed to exhale from the tulips; it recalled his attention from the gannets, and he drew in deep breaths of it, pondering the parterres of Kaiserskroon and Duchesse de Parme—bold scarlet splashed with yellow—of golden Chrysoloras, of rosy white Cottage Maids. Unknowing it, he had a sense of beauty, and he decided that horticulture, for a leisured man, was well worth a trial.
"That's the best of living ashore," he told himself. "A man can choose what hobby he will and, if he don't like it, pick up another."
He climbed the hill briskly, to view his own garden and take stock of its possibilities. . . . The roses planted by Mrs Bosenna had scarcely flagged at all, thanks to the night's rain. Around them and to right and left along the border under the walls of the two first terraces, green shoots were pushing up from the soil—sword-like spikes of iris, red noses of peonies, green fingers of lupins. Into what flowers these various shootlets would expand Captain Cai knew no more than Adam, first of gardeners. He would consult some knowledgeable person—no, not Mrs Bosenna—and label them 'as per instructions': or, stay! 'Bias Hunken had a weakness for small wagers. Here was material for a long summer game, more deliberate even than draughts; to buy a botanical book and with its help back one's fancy, flower or colour. A capital game: no doubt (thought Captain Cai) quite commonly played among landsmen possessing gardens.
At this point he made a discovery he had missed in the dusk overnight. His eyes fell on a flat-topped felt-covered roof, almost level with his feet and half-hidden between two bushes (the one a myrtle, the other a mock-orange; but he knew no such distinctions). There was yet a third terrace, then; and on this third terrace—yes, by the Lord, a summer-house fit for a king! Glass-fronted, with sliding sashes; match-boarded within, fitted with racks and shelves for garden tools; with ample room for chairs and a table at which two could sup and square their elbows. Such a view, moreover! It swept the whole harbour. . . .
Captain Cai's first impulse was to search around for a rack whereon to stow a telescope: his next, to run to the party-wall and hoist himself high enough to scan his friend's garden.
Yes! 'Bias, too, had a summer-house; not precisely similar in shape, however. Its roof was a lean-to, and its frontage narrower; but of this Captain Cai could not be sure. He was short of stature, and with toes digging into the crevices of the wall and hands clutching at its coping he could take no very accurate survey. He dropped back upon terra firma and hurried up the flights of steps to the roadway, in haste to descend from it into 'Bias's garden and resolve his doubts.
For you must understand that the two cottages comprised by the name of Harbour Terrace were (according to Mr Rogers) "as like as two peas, even down to their water-taps," and even by name distinguished only as Number 1 and Number 2: and that, taking this similarity on trust, Captain Cai had chosen Number 2, Because—well, simply because it was Number 2. If inadvertently he, being first in the field, had collared the better summer-house!—The very thought of it set him perspiring.
At the head of the garden, to his annoyance, he found Mr Philp leaning over the gate.