Dr. Tremayne disappeared into his surgery, and Mavis and Merle, after a few directions as to their route from Mrs. Penruddock, turned down the street that led towards the sea. Chagmouth was nothing more than a village, though its natives liked to call it a town. To enter it was like exploring a new world. The road to Chagmouth was happily too steep and narrow for charabancs, so that, even in summer, trippers, with their terrible train of sandwich-papers and cigarette-ends, had not yet discovered it and defiled its beauty. It was the most picturesque jumble of fishermen's cottages that could possibly be imagined; its narrow alleys, its archways, its flights of steps, its green half-doorways, its tiny windows and chimneys set at every quaint angle, its cobble stones and deep gutters, seemed a survival from old days of wrecking and smuggling, and transported one's charmed imagination back to the eighteenth century. Every corner was an artist's subject, the roofs were yellow with lichen, and many of them were covered with masses of ferns; fishing-nets hung out to dry over palings, and clumps of valerian and stocks and snapdragon grew in the crevices of the walls. Sea-gulls were everywhere, as tame as chickens. They sat in rows on the roof ridges, they perched on the chimneys, and flapped down into the streets to catch the bread the children threw for them, they swam with the ducks in the wide pool where the stream emptied itself into the harbour, and circled with loud cries round the jetty and the arcade where the fish was packed. Nobody in Chagmouth ever molested the gulls; they were the mascots of the village, and, according to all traditions handed down from time immemorial, to injure one of them would be to court instant bad luck and risk at sea. Even the naughtiest boys did not throw stones at them, and they were indeed considered almost as sacred as are the storks in some countries. Mavis and Merle, much thrilled with their surroundings, plunged down the narrow little street and along flights of steps and under a deep archway, till they found themselves by the harbour, where red-sailed fishing-boats were at anchor, and blue-jerseyed, bronze-faced men were sitting on casks or on coils of rope, smoking, and talking about prospects of future catches. It was such a picturesque sight that Mavis wanted to linger, but Merle, who could catch a glimpse of the spray beyond the breakwater, pulled her on towards the sea. So they climbed one flight of steps, and went down another on the far side of the jetty, finding themselves on a strip of sand and shingle with high rocks and a headland behind, and the stretch of green open channel in front.