The arrival at the Rectory, with its old walled garden, the flowers all glimmering in the dusk, the vast oak in the middle of the lawn, was, in spite of himself, an interesting experience, but he allowed no expression of amusement to escape from him and went to bed the moment after supper. He awoke, of course, at a desperately early hour, and was compelled then to jump out of bed and look out of the window. He discovered to his excited amazement that the sea was right under his nose. This was marvellous to him. At Cow Farm you could watch only a little cup of it between a dip in the trees, and that miles away. Here the garden seemed actually to border it, and you could watch it stretch with the black cliffs to the left of it, miles, miles, miles into the sky. The world was lovely at that hour; blackbirds and thrushes were on the dew-drenched lawn. Somewhere in the house a cuckoo-clock announced that it was just six o’clock. Before he knew what he was about he had slipped on his clothes, was down the dark stairs and out in the garden. . . . As he sat dangling his feet above space and looked out to sea he argued with himself about Cow Farm. Of course Cow Farm would always be first, but that did not mean that other places could not be nice as well. He would never find anyone in Caerlyon as delightful as Tim, and if only Tim were here, everything would be perfect; but Tim could not, of course, be in two places at once, and he had to do his duty by the Monks. As he sat there swinging his legs and looking down into that perfect green water, so clear that you could see gold and purple lights shifting beneath it and black lines of rock-like liquorice sticks twisting as the shadows moved, he was forced to admit to himself that he was terribly happy. He had never lived close, cheek-by-jowl, with the sea, as he was doing now. The thought of five whole weeks spent thus on the very edge of the water made him wriggle his legs so that there was very real danger of his falling over. The juxtaposition of Hamlet who had, of course, followed him, saved him from further danger. He knew that he himself was safe and would never fall, but Hamlet was another matter and must be protected. The dog was perilously near the edge, balancing on his fore-feet and sniffing down; so the boy got up and dragged the dog back, and then lay down among the sea-pinks and the heather and looked up into the cloudless sky. Hamlet rested his head on the fatty part of his master’s thigh and breathed deep content. He had come into some place where there wandered a new company of smells, appetizing, tempting. Soon he would investigate them. For the present it was enough to lie warm with his master and dream.