There was no other industry
save a couple of small farmhouses on the outskirts of the place,
no railway within twelve miles. Tourists came seldom,
excursionists never. In the half contented, half animal-like
expression which seemed common to all the inhabitants, Tavernake
read easily enough the history of their uneventful days. It was
such a shelter as this, indeed, for which he had been searching.
On the second night after his arrival, he walked with the
boatbuilder upon the wooden quay. The boatbuilder's name was
Nicholls, and he was a man of some means, deacon of the chapel,
with a fair connection as a jobbing carpenter, and possessor of
the only horse and cart in the place.
"Nicholls," Tavernake said, "you don't remember me, do you?"
The boat-builder shook his head slowly and ponderously.
"There was Richard Tavernake who farmed the low fields," he
remarked, reminiscently. "Maybe you're a son of his. Now I come
to think of it, he had a boy apprenticed to the carpentering."
"I was the boy," Tavernake answered. "I soon had enough of it
and went to London."
"You'm grown out of all knowledge," Nicholls declared, "but I
mind you now. So you've been in London all these years?"
"I've been in London," Tavernake admitted, "and I think, of the
two, that Sprey-by-the-Sea is the better place."
"Sprey is well enough," the boat-builder confessed, "well enough
for a man who isn't set on change."
"Change," Tavernake asserted, grimly, "is an overrated joy.
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