‘What’ve you got?’ the captain asked idly. He was not a gardener and only indulged John’s enthusiasm for the undeniable benefit of having a steady and experienced man on board who might command a troop of men if needed.

‘Look at this,’ John said, unpacking his muddy satchel on the holystoned deck. ‘A starry-headed trefoil, a sweet yellow rest harrow, and what d’you think this is?’

‘No idea.’

‘A double-blossomed pomegranate tree,’ John said proudly, producing a foot-long sapling from his satchel. ‘I’ll need a barrel of earth for this at once.’

‘Can it grow in England at all?’ Captain Pett asked curiously.

Tradescant smiled at him. ‘Who knows?’ he said, and the captain suddenly realised the joy that fired his temporary maverick officer. ‘Who can tell? We grow a cultivated sort in the orangeries. This is far more fragile and lovely. But I shall have to try it. And if I win, and we can grow wild pomegranates in England, then what a glory to God! For every man who walks in my garden can see things that until now he would have had to travel miles to find. And he can see that God has made things in such variety, in such glorious wealth, that there is no end to His joy in abundance. And no end to mine.’

‘Are you doing this for the glory of God?’ Captain Pett asked, slightly bemused.

John thought for a moment. ‘To be honest with you,’ he said slowly, ‘I cling to the thought that it is for the glory of God. Because the other thought is heresy.’

Captain Pett did not glance around, as he would have done on land. He was master of his own pinnace and speech was free. ‘Heresy? What d’you mean?’

‘I mean that either God has made dozens, even hundreds, of things which are nearly the same, and that the richness of his variety is something which redounds to His holy name …’

‘Or?’

‘Or that this is madness. It is madness to think that God should make a dozen things almost the same but a little different. All a man of sense could think is that God did not make them. That the earth they feed on and the water they drink makes plants in different areas a little different, and that is the only reason that they are different. And if that is true, then I am denying that everything in the world was made first by my God in Eden, working like a gardener for six days and resting on the Sabbath. And if I am denying that, then I am a heretic damned.’