The world seemed to be suddenly filled with pressing, thronging figures, all with businesses of their own. It was very odd. He pushed back the schoolroom door and blinked at the sudden light. CHAPTER V. THE SEA-CAPTAIN I Very few matter-of-fact citizens of the present-day world will understand the part that the sea used to play in our young lives thirty years ago in Polchester. It is very easy to look at the map and say that the sea is a considerable distance from Polchester, and that even if you stood on the highest ridge of the highest cornfield above the town you would not be able to catch the faintest glimpse of it. That may be true, although I myself can never be completely assured, possessing so vividly as I do a memory of a day when I stood with my nurse at the edge of Merazion Woods and, gazing out to the horizon, saw a fleet of ships full-sail upon the bluest of seas, and would not be persuaded that it was merely wrack of clouds. That may be or no; the fact remains that Polchester sniffed the sea from afar, was caught with sea breezes and bathed in reflected sea-lights; again and again of an evening the Cathedral sailed on dust and shadow towards the horizon, a great white ghost of a galleon, and the young citizens of the town with wondering eyes, watched it go. But there were more positive influences than mere cloud and light. We had, in the lower part of our town, sailors, quite a number of them. There were the old white-bearded ones who would sit upon tubs and tell smuggling tales; these haunted the River Pol, fished in it, ferried people across it, and let out boats for hire. There were younger sailors who, tired of the still life of their little villages and dreading the real hard work of a life at sea, lurched and slouched by the Pol's river bed, fishing a little, sleeping, eating and drinking a great deal. And there were the true sailors, passing through perhaps on their way to Drymouth to join their ships, staying in the town for a day or two to visit their relations, or simply stopping for an hour or so to gaze open-mouthed at the Cathedral and the market-place and the Canons and the old women. These men had sometimes gold rings in their ears, and their faces were often coloured a dark rich brown, and they carried bundles across their backs all in the traditional style.