flagged garden-path between the flower-borders, or else in the streak of sunshine beside his open window. The bees would be humming, the thrushes melodiously busy, and with the fragrance of his morning-pipe (he was a tremendous smoker) would be mingled the freshness of the sea-air and the sweet garden-breath. Suppose the day were chill or wet, he would then seat himself beside the hearth, which Mrs. Callender was careful to keep well-supplied with logs; still with a book, and still with that book unopened. It was as though the mere presence of the printed page sufficed him, just as the day’s work often goes the better for the mere knowledge that So-and-So is about; or perhaps the contents lived in his memory, and needed no reviving; or, again, perhaps he had another unprinted library in his brain, that it took him all his time to decipher, and the holding of a book in his hand was but a habit, or acted as a suggestion. At all events, he seldom seemed to read.
If the afternoon were fine he would spend some time in pacing up and down among the pines that surrounded it on three sides; by and by he had worn quite a track among them, as Wordsworth’s sailor-brother did, home from the quarter-deck. And, after that, he would return to his room, and there sit with his white head sunk on his breast, and his beloved pipe out at last, apparently asleep. Finally, when it was quite dusk, and Mrs. Callender had brought in and lit his lamp, “Doctor Morepork,” as Roger called him to tease his wife, would sit down to the table in the company of pens, papers, and ink, and begin, at length, his day’s work. What that work was, constituted yet another puzzle. It was
