Ross raised his own hat and nodded to the men, one of whom was now pissing over the harbour wall, in blithe unconcern, singing all the while. Smelling the sudden medicinal mix of stout and urine, the thought now came to Ross that perhaps he should emulate these tipplers of Watchet and turn to drinking to soothe his mind. He wanted to ask how long it had taken them to set aside their troubles and reach a mood of such kindly merriment. But he was afraid to talk to them, fearing he might be mocked for his expensive clothes and for his melancholy. He stood up and walked away, glancing one last time at the stranded ships.

Now, he was in the Saloon Bar of an inn named The Plough and the Stars, drinking ale in great thirsty gulps until he felt some balm fall upon his anguish.

It was getting towards evening and men began to come in to the bar to find respite from the day’s labours, and Ross envied them just as he’d envied the gulls and the drunken men at Watchet harbour, because they appeared content in the here-and-now. And he had a great longing to talk to one of these strangers about his life and how he had come from Bath to escape the proximity of the one person he cherished in the world.

Standing next to him at the counter was an elderly man, wearing a dog collar and a long priest’s gown under a frayed coat. He was drinking cider and chewing on an old blackened pipe and Ross took him for a man who was much alone in his life.

Finishing his own flagon of beer he gestured to the landlord to refill it and then turned to the gentleman and said, ‘May I buy you another one, Reverend? To celebrate the May weather.’

‘Ah,’ said the churchman, ‘May weather, now. Trouble be, I’m not in the May-time of my life.’

‘Nor I,’ said Ross.

The man snatched the pipe from his mouth and looked at Ross. ‘Nearer it than I,’ he said. ‘I got married round about your age and thought I would be happy.’

‘But you were not happy?’

‘Not a day was I happy. I married the wrong woman, but I was glued to her like a barnacle to a ship’s bottom. There’s no parting from a wife if you’re a man of the Church.’

‘And you’re with her still?’

‘No. Thank the Lord. She went silly in the head and died eating ragwort in Davy’s Field out yonder.’

‘She knew it was poison?’

‘Or she didn’t. Happen she thought it were a feast of snow peas. But it killed her. And I was free.’

‘So you’re a happy man now?’

‘No, Sir, I am not. For my life was blighted. And now that I’m near the end of it and I see the great wasteland that it was. These days, there’s only cider and prayer.’

Ross ordered more cider for the Reverend, then he said, ‘life is savage. This much I’ve understood.’